Reflections 13th June

On my mind this week.

Leadership has been a constant thread running through my thoughts this week. Not the popularised, performance-based idea beloved of business schools and consultants, but the challenging, foundational sort of Leadership that keeps us rooted in something important enough to follow. Leadership 101.

Maybe it was to do with a thought that I was at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell on officer training fifty years ago. Apart from running around wet hills carrying telegraph posts with four others in competition with other groups, what we learned about Leadership was valuable and has stayed with me. 

Firstly, you can't lead if you can't do the jobs you assign, to some degree, yourself. There will always be those better than you, but you have to understand what you're asking them to do. Secondly, make sure those you ask to do the job can do it well and are suitably equipped. Lastly, put their welfare first. Don't eat till they've eaten, don't sleep until they can sleep—pre…