The Making of a Leader

For couple of years a borrowed biography has sat on my bedside bookshelf.  I was lent it soon after my (much) better half started working for a new organisation, as the history of it was tied up in the founder.  But having briefly opened it, I decided to search out and read volume one prior to attacking the enticing second volume.  I'll confess that the searching was a bit passive, but when I saw it on sale at the bookshop in our January sale I purchased the copy and started reading.

So last week I finished reading the first volume of Timothy Dudley-Smith's biography of John Stott CBE.  Entitled John Stott - The Making of a Leader it tracks the childhood, studies and first 25 years of his London based leadership, with a taster of the global influence that was to come over the next 3 decades.

I find many biographies fascinating for their historical element as much as the lives that are portrayed.  This one no less so.  It covered elements of 20th century history with which I was less familiar.  It introduced me to the background of someone I first heard speak in the 1970s, but with whose speaking and books I have become more familiar in the past 20 years.  I have a recording of his last public speaking engagement (July 2007) and have read extracts from his last and recently published book, The Radical Disciple (also available from our Bookshop (see above).

But surely from biographies of great people there must also be lessons to learn.  My current reflections are:

• the the strategic investment that 'Bash' chose to make in the lives of young leaders reaped rewards beyond measure
• John Stott has great natural gifts but excercised great disipline to make the most of them
• the decisions he made in young adulthood involved great personal cost
• As the 'job' grew, regular reviews and a supportive team enabled him to focus on the strategic

I think that there's a great deal more than that.  But these lessons have tended to stick as they are currently 'scratch' in areas I'm thinking about.

Waders for the men

During January 1994 heavy and prolonged rain on the south downs caused the River Lavant, which for much of the year trickles through Chichester, to become a torrent that could no longer pass in the culvert under the city centre.  Diversion of the river led to the the main coast road, the A27 being flooded.  The army was called in and in short order constructed a Bailey bridge over a flooded roundabout and restored east-west traffic.  The Army Benevolent Fund was the beneficiary as grateful motorists passing slowly over the temporary structure willingly filled collection buckets held by the bridge builders.

An article appeared in the Independent

John Adair in one of his books mentions one young officer at Sandhurst on whose annual report was written “Smith is not a born leader yet.”  What are the qualities the army was looking to inculcate within their officer ranks?  Seven years later I was delivering some training at an engineering company in the Midlands.  One of the delegates was a Project Manager who I discovered had been the Major in charge of the company of Royal Engineers building the A27 bridge.  As we reminisced I discovered that a number - but insufficent number - of pairs of waders had been obtained for the troops who were standing in thigh deep running water as they worked on the bridge.  "So the officers got the waders" I quipped.  Only to be corrected in a way that left me in no doubt that the officers put their men first.  Good leadership?

I was reading a blog which raised the variance between leader and manager.  It provoked me to thought as to how I balance the mix of roles that I have.  My job title includes the word 'manager' and certainly that's part of what I do.  But if it's all I do, then opportunities might be missed, strategic vision parked in a safe place, and business growth will only happen if its thrown in our direction.  On the other hand, I'm not a Richard Branson...

As a trainer by instinct and profession I love imparting information. Sometimes the skill or knowledge transfer requires me to behave as I'm not. I might make a consious decision to be more dramatic than I naturally am. On occasion I convince myself we're going to have a succesful outcome to a course when my instinct tells me otherwise. (Believe me, it can make a real difference to the outcome for the students.)


A few years ago in a discussion over Belbin's Team Roles Theory an experienced management consultant suggested to me that it was possible to train yourself to overcome one's natural roles to fill almost every role within a team, slotting in whereever there were vacancies.  He had reached a point of filling all but one team role as required.  So on the 'not a born leader yet' principle, is it possible that not only we can be become better leaders, but we can discipline ourselves to behave as a leader, projecting ourself into a necessary role and (perhaps by using other characteristics as well) provide the vision that others catch and and join in realising.

So what changes do I need to make to produce that result...?