There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader        

Every generation defines its own kind of leadership, says Lloyd Bradley. But do Lincoln, Gandhi and legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson have traits in common?

Bad leadership is easy to define and mock. We despise the vacillators, martinets and spineless wonders and relish a naval officer’s famous verdict on a colleague: “His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.” Good leadership is much tougher to define.

“There are two main types of leader,” says Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University, “the transformational and the managerial. The former is inspirational, enthusing people with their passion to get involved; the latter is transactional, restructuring and pragmatically getting things done.”

The recent presidential election gave America the choice between passionate transformation and pragmatic management. Barack Obama’s victory was predicted to herald a new age of enlightenment. Presidents do influence models of leadership. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s affable, easy style (a great cover for his immense ruthlessness) was imitated by executives across corporate America. So Obama’s inclusive, community-activist approach, which stresses universal responsibility, may reshape the way the world does business.

CEOs seeking transformational change may heed the power of his rhetoric and his ability to persuade thousands to commit to his cause. Obama initially rejected the phrase “Change is coming to America” as too simplistic.

But he changed his mind and this simple, memorable yet usefully amorphous slogan helped him win 53% of the votes. He was offering leadership but following too, sensing the national mood for change and directing it.

Destiny, or just very good timing?

Whether you call this good timing or opportunist empathy, the excitement over Obama’s style is nothing new. Defining an era or generation has been a primary quality of good leadership for centuries.

Indeed, the opening quotation has been attributed, with a few tweaks, to four historical figures: Benjamin Disraeli, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin (a 19th-century French revolutionary), Andrew Bonar Law (prime minister for six months in the 1920s) and Mahatma Gandhi.

If all you want is… double-digit earnings growth and nothing else, then I’m the wrong person Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo

“People need to feel some sort of ownership of their own destiny for a leader to influence their attitudes and behaviour,” says Cooper. “This is what leadership is about, and it is more important in hard times. When people feel they have no control over anything, they want to feel engaged with the process of their lives, so they can perceive themselves as being active.”

This isn’t only true in politics. In industry it is crucial to understand what’s happening outside the boardroom. Take Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo. She joined the company as senior vice president of corporate strategy and development in 1994, quickly identifying public concern about unhealthy diets.

Within three years PepsiCo had sold KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, bought Tropicana (and later Quaker Oats) and cut trans and saturated fats in its snack foods. Since 1994, net profit has more than doubled.

Nooyi was responsible for the slogan ‘Performance With Purpose’, which encapsulates a less US-centric PepsiCo: balancing profits with making healthier snacks, aiming for zero environmental impact and looking after the workforce.

“If all you want is… double-digit earnings growth, then I’m the wrong person,” she says. Her friend and adviser Henry Kissinger thinks it’s a matter of time before she’s headhunted for a job in Washington.

Was Alexander a great delegator?

Alexander the Great is probably the most revered military leader in history. “He was a great believer in teamwork and delegated beautifully,” said Oliver Stone, while researching his 2004 biopic Alexander. “In terms of manpower, the Persians had a superior army but could not move without central approval from [King] Darius. Alexander was fluid and quick to react as the battle developed.”

Once, after the Persians had trapped his army in a canyon, Alexander came across a nine-year-old shepherd. He entrusted the boy to lead his army over the mountains along a trail the Persians didn’t know.

“Listening is the neglected part of the communication process,” says Cooper.

“Too often a good communicator is defined by an ability to talk, but communication works both ways. The ability to listen can define a good leader although it isn’t nearly as noticeable as being a good talker.”

Alexander triumphed because he delegated. Mark Fritz, founder of HR consultancy Procedor, says this is a crucial skill for a leader. “It allows the people around and below to grow, so the whole leadership grows with them. Too many would-be great leaders fail because they are afraid to delegate.”

Is philosophy the key to stability?

In his campaign, Obama delegated and refused to micromanage. Under the slogan ‘Respect. Empower. Include’, he used social networking to mobilise thousands of volunteers and motivated them by letting them get on with it.

Political commentary website The Huffington Post praised the campaign for “undogmatically mixing timeless traditions and discipline of good organising with new technologies of decentralisation and self-organisation.”

If all it took was awareness of the surrounding temperature and an aptitude for sitting back and watching others work, we’d all be leaders. Many other qualities separate the great from the good and the terminally mediocre.

Take US basketball coach Phil Jackson’s handling of such large personalities as Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Having studied philosophy, psychology and religion, Jackson has no time for what he calls “controlaholic” coaches.

In training, he quotes The Teaching of Don Juan or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, underlining his tactics with Buddhist philosophy, but some of his motivational ploys – likening an opponent to Hitler – have been controversial.

With nine championships, he is the most successful coach in NBA history. Dubbed ‘Zen Master’, he responded: “There are no Zen Masters, only Zen. You don’t master Zen.”

The ability to compromise doesn’t do any harm either. Abraham Lincoln was the consummate dealmaker: he included three presidential rivals – William H Seward, Salmon P Chase and slave-owner Edward Bates – in his cabinet.

Even the Proclamation of Emancipation was a by-product of Lincoln’s desire to heal a Union divided by Civil War. As he famously wrote: “My paramount object is to save the Union, not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

Abraham Lincoln (Library Of Congress/Getty Images)

Less likely to meet halfway, but still a successful leader, was shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. His motto may have been “the only way to succeed in business is to make others see things as you see them” but he was flexible. He had no office, no desk and wrote down very little.

He operated around the clock, meeting contacts anywhere, any time (but preferably in the small hours in a nightclub) and adapting quickly. But then he had no one else to answer to.

Few leaders have faced such a man-management challenge as writer André Breton who led the Surrealist movement in the 1920s. A trained psychiatrist, he sought to “transform the world by remaking the human mind”, believing a sound philosophy was essential to stimulate true cultural change.

He was a hands-on leader – famously slapping an opponent in the face – but as the 1930s grew more politicised, Surrealism fragmented and Breton was marginalised. His vision of remaking the mind later appealed to intelligence agencies, LSD advocates like Timothy Leary and corporate brand-builders.

“A good leader must have a philosophy that can be communicated,” says Fritz. “It makes [the leader’s] direction compelling, it gives people something to figure out, feel part of and gives people a sense of stability as they interact with the leader. People will not stick with leaders who seem to constantly change their minds.”

Paradoxically, Winston Churchill started as a Conservative, became a Liberal and then rejoined the Tory party. Rivals dismissed him as an opportunist (David Lloyd George said of him: “He would make a drum out of the skin of his own mother on which to sound his own praises”) but he found his cause as a wartime leader.

Is charisma more important than character?

Does a new president – and a new economic era – signal the demise of CEOs with a rock star profile and the perks to match? Probably not. The perks are out of fashion but this kind of leader will survive. Who can imagine Virgin without Richard Branson? Look how Apple’s share price dipped when Steve Jobs went on sick leave.

With caring and sharing being part of the zeitgeist, up-and-coming Bransons can’t rely on personality. Fritz says: “Charisma is important in the beginning. It is what attracts people and allows potential leaders to get their ideas across.” To maintain their leadership, they have to win us over, showing they care at least as much about us as about themselves.

People need to feel some sort of ownership of their own destiny for a leader to influence their attitudes and behaviour Professor Cary Cooper

So the most fashionable leader of the moment isn’t Obama, it is Haruka Nishimatsu, the CEO of Japan Airlines who recently insisted on being paid less than his pilots. Such dramatic gestures can backfire but this fits Nishimatsu’s style. He knocked down the walls of his office and now works in the middle of an open-plan floor so any member of staff can approach him.

Nishimatsu takes public transport to work and buys his suits from a discount store. He says: “If management is distant, up in the clouds, people just wait for orders. I want my people to think for themselves.” Nishimatsu might, in hard times, seem the perfect leader but, as any student of leadership knows, there is no such thing.

Creating design leaders

How does the design industry ensure it develops the right leaders, an area traditionally regarded as a luxury rather than a necessity?

The first step

The Design Council, as part of the UK Design Skills Alliance, has been addressing the issue of professional development in the design industry with various initiatives.

Last year it launched NextNet, a mentoring programme to help develop a network of future creative leaders. A free guide to mentoring can now be downloaded from the Design Council website.

A programme for change

This spring, the next stage in the Design Council’s leadership initiative kicks off at Ashridge Business School in Hertfordshire.

Senior design executives invited by the Design Council will join peers from the advertising and commercial music sectors (selected by Institute of Advertising Practitioners and Creative & Cultural Skills respectively) on a pilot course teaching advanced leadership in the creative industries.

The course, run by Ashridge and funded by the Arts Council under its Cultural Leadership Programme, will be the first of its kind in the UK and will run from March to July.

Creating new leaders

Lesley Morris head of skills at the Design Council, says: “Although the scale of companies is very different across the creative sector, they can learn a lot from each other as they can face common problems.”

The creative sector has, she explains, “a particular need for leadership and a high level of management skills,” as senior executives seek to lead and manage creative people. And there are some issues that transcend the different creative disciplines: “For example, advertising agencies like Saatchi are very good at making sure their clients understand the intangible value they deliver, something designers can learn from.”

Design in a cold climate

The six designers on the pilot course are: Peter Blake, client partner, The Team; Dee Cooper, director of product and services, Virgin Atlantic Airways; Caroline Hagen, managing director, Reach; Holger Fricke, senior programme manager, Frog Design; Kevin McCullagh, director, Plan Strategic; and Kate Stewart, director, Team-a-Go-Go.

This modular programme is designed to be of particular use to senior executives as the creative industries face an uncertain economic climate. Students will be able to study the latest thinking on how to lead innovation and change.

They will hear high-profile speakers, who are drawn from both within and outside the creative industries, exploring the challenges they face, and will be involved in a series of stimulating and engaging practical tasks.

A model for the future

Once the course concludes in July, all the parties involved will review its effectiveness. But the Design Council hopes that, if it is successful, it will become a model that could be expanded at Ashridge and provide the basis for similar programmes at other business schools across the UK.

Find out more about training for designers at www.ukdesignskills.com.

What defines a leader?

We often hear about ‘natural-born leaders’. But the idea of an intuitive ability to manage others has been undermined by research into the genetic and social factors that define leadership.

According to sociologist Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to reach the top of a profession, whether running Microsoft or on stage as a Rolling Stone.

So, hard work aside, what do you need to be a leader?

Height

TA Judge and M Daniel of Cornell University were the first to find a strong relationship between physical height and career success.

Their study suggested that over a 30-year career, an individual measuring 6ft would earn almost $166,000 more than someone seven inches shorter.

In his earlier book Blink, Gladwell surveyed 250 Fortune 500 CEOs and found their average height was just under six feet. The average Western male is 5ft 9in and 90% of the CEOs beat this mark. 

Finger length

Scientists at Cambridge University found that financial traders whose ring fingers were longer than their index fingers made 11 times more on the stock market over a 20-month period than those with the opposite finger trait.

The link between finger length and success was put down to testosterone exposure in the womb.

Ring-finger length has previously been linked to increased aggression, confidence, fertility, concentration and reflexes: all (fertility aside) desirable attributes for leadership. 

Month of birth

Gladwell’s studies of Canadian ice-hockey players suggest that they are disproportionately likely to be born in the first three months of the year.

As teams make their annual selections in January, the players who are older at that point will be stronger and more experienced.

Economists Kelly Bedard and Elizabeth Dhuey claim that students born near the start of the academic year (who are older when they do start school) have a better chance of rising to the top.

But a study of 50 CEOs undermines Gladwell’s theory. Eight were the youngest in their academic years, while the September-December period saw the fewest birthdays. 

Birth order

Being the eldest child is a big advantage when it comes to entrepreneurship. Up to 60% of British business owners are first-born with at least one sibling.

Experts believe they developed leadership and teamwork skills from an early age. Only 23% of CEOs are the youngest in the family.

Parental loss

One in three prime ministers and presidents lost a parent in their youth to death, divorce or abandonment.

Psychologist Oliver James says the ‘bereaved’ can become highly driven as success can mask their loss.

John Lennon and Marilyn Monroe never knew their fathers, while Winston Churchill rarely saw his parents. President Andrew Jackson was orphaned when he was 14.

Attractiveness

The good-looking get plenty of breaks. Research has shown they’re more likely to get a job, less likely to be convicted of a crime and more likely to be thought of positively than their less attractive counterparts.

A 1980 study of people seeking political office found attractiveness was closely linked to voters’ perceptions of candidates, although men gained more extra votes than women for being considered attractive. 

Prison

Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther-King all did time, which gave them the common touch and an added determination to succeed.

Of course, Jeffrey Archer and Conrad Black have also been behind bars, so this theory may not stretch too far.

Being white and male

Barack Obama’s presidency marks a watershed in US race relations. But the fact remains that there have only been five black senators in US history.

Only 17 of 100 senators are female. In the UK, 128 women and 518 men were elected as MPs in 2005. Only 19 Fortune 500 firms are run by black people and 12 are led by women.

Left-handedness

Only 10% of the global population is left-handed, but eight US presidents have been.

Left-handers are often seen as more creative, intelligent, independent and adaptable. And change really is coming to America: five of the last seven occupants of the Oval Office have been southpaws.

Prime numbers

Proportion of business leaders who claim that good physical fitness is vital in building a career as a company director

The average age of European CEOs. In America, the average CEO is 56

Women nominated for the US vice-presidency by a major party: Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008

Proportion of Fortune 1000 CEOs who said they were unpopular at school. Only 4% were popular. But 84% said they were “voracious readers” as children

Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 6, Summer 2009