Thursday 6 June 2013

I am back this week after a week off – only four days but it felt like much longer which is always good. And the sun was out every day but one which was a bonus. I bought myself a guitar as one of my regrets in life is not being able to play an instrument. So that’s about to change. A week into the adventure I can now play six chords. Some way to go but I have some lessons planned...


I was reflecting on leadership while I was away, as I tend to do (I know I should get out more) and thought I would share my summary of the key aspects with you. Leadership is going to play a vital role over the next four years in the public sector in general but particularly in Wiltshire. It’s worth remembering that leadership comes at every level in the organisation. The most successful organisations have leaders everywhere. So for me it’s about the following:

Key issues of performance and leadership in the individual:

1. the skills you bring to the role
2. your behaviour as you do the job

The Leadership continuum and key roles:

1. Leaders - "what should we be doing?"
2. Managers - "how should we do it?"
3. Administrators - "why we can't do it?" I’m only joking. Good admin is vital for success

Key influences of behaviour of people in the organisation:

1. What leaders do when things go wrong
2. What leaders pay attention to
3. What behaviour they role model

The role of the great leader:

1. Challenge the status quo
2. Create freedom for people to innovate and experiment
3. Recognise good performance and reward it
4. create a fraternity
5. Give meaningful purpose to work

Finally, to be a leader you need to have some followers. It’s always worth checking out who is following you and why. If you have no followers you’re not a leader. And leadership is not a popularity contest; if you want to lead you will be unpopular to some, but not to most. You have to be comfortable in yourself to live with this.

For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Thanks for reading and talk again in a few days.

Carlton