On Leadership: Practical Wisdom from the People Who Know

by Allan Leighton, Teena Lyons

Acting on his belief that you get the most done in the first 20 minutes of a meeting, established businessman Allan Leighton invited top corporate leaders to spend just 20 minutes talking about their views on leadership. Included here are his interviews with an astonishing range of business established giants such as Philip Green and Rupert Murdoch; the new generation of leaders, including Andy Hornby at HBOS and Justin King at Sainsbury; and entrepreneurial figures such as James Dyson and Gulam Noon of Noon Foods. He also spoke with the nation's top financial journalists, whose views can help make a company soar or sink; the money men, whose support is critical for investment and acquisition; and politicians, who help create the climate in which businesses can thrive or falter. Thought-provoking, often surprising, and always insightful, this compendium is a fascinating, 360-degree view of what it takes to be a business leader in today's cut-throat global economy.

Genres: Business, Leadership

336 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2007

Reviews

[David Cheshire]

I like books about leadership and believe that valuable and creative lessons can be learned and applied across different spheres of work and life. Not here though. In theory getting a top boss to talk to loads of other top bosses about leadership should be a winning, albeit dated and rather tired, formular. So what went wrong here? Basically, it's clunky. Little attempt is made to draw general leadership lessons. It promotes the heroic school of leadership, tough, decisive, workoholic and above all indespensable. Lip service is paid to consultation, empowerment etc but nothing about dispersed leadership: leaders is leaders and managers is managers. There are few references to leadership literature. In one he is personally named and praised. Nothing wrong with that. Elsewhere he quotes Forest Gump on rule-breaking: it wasn't the animals who put up the "don't feed the animals" signs. He then unwisely extends the metaphor so company workers become the zoo animals. Right. Some of the advice and quotes are sensible; some are amazingly trite: "Emotion is essential." Setting up business overseas can be difficult as the language and culture will be different. He highly rates Mars (the company he used to work for, not the planet) yet I really don't believe they invented the mantra "think global, act local." Then we get the leaders' "leadership lessons". Now 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it is nonetheless unfortunate that the wisdom of Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekkah Wade are all cited. Rebekkah says you should treat others how you'd expect to be treated yourself. Bang on! Rupert says you should attend to close detail; but, he explains, as he gets handed far too much paperwork to actually read, he flicks straight to page 56, finds an obscure detail nobody has bothered with, and asks a question at the meeting, enjoying the embarrassed squirming that ensures. Clever! (though to be fair you can see how, say, an important e mail could accidentally slip through this kind of scrutiny). Son James is describes as a "tough, engaging, visionary" leader who tells us that "showing people you're not rattled is crucial too" (not half, especially before those awkward House of Commons Select Committees). As for Rebekkah, her brilliance as an editor, apart from giving her Sun readers exactly what they want, is revealed when somebody strolls past the office where they're all wracking their brains for a clever headline about North Korea; someone bright spark strolling past says, "Korea, eh, how do you solve a problem like Korea?" Genius, eh! (no, not the bright spark, but Rebekkah, whose inspired leadership created the sort of business environment where such people could "have a go"!) Right. For this sort of thing, and for other brilliant coups like dropping the barmy name "Consignia" upon taking over Royal Mail, Allan believes that Heroic Leaders like him well deserve their fatcat bonuses. As a piece of prolonged flattery of Allan and his Tory mates (and maybe ex-mates?) this is fab. As an insightful or even marginally original study of leadership it's crap. I hope he doesn't read this, because he approvingly quotes a Telegraph editor: "I do bear a grudge. I don't like being lied to and I don't like being treated like an idiot." I'm not lying, Al, honest I'm not.

[Riitta Toivonen]

Great insights from the top leaders of the largest companies in the world. Swift moves, courageous decisions, attention to detail, and total commitment. Definitely a worthwhile read for anyone who might find themselves in a leader position.

The stories and characters behind these quotes are worth lending an ear to:
"Make sure everyone in the team understands and buys into the vision."
"Understand how to interact and deal with people at all levels."
"Be authentic. To be effective, leaders have to be themselves."
"Hire what you don't know"

[Nigel Street]

One of the heavyweights in retail having been a key part of the turnround at Asda I was intrigued to read what he had to say on Leadership. Down to earth in style it was an easy if not particularly insightful review of what some of the "names" of business had to offer on the subject.