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.