Strands
Leadership Wisdom Series
Speaker Bio
Session
Q&A
SPEAKER BIO
Professor John Adair is one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership.
He has authored over 50 books on business, military and general leadership. Professor Adair was a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst from 1961 to 1967. He is currently the Chair for Strategic Leadership for the United Nations, fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an alumnus of the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and King’s College London.
His Leadership Wisdom Series session focused on channelling the various approaches to leadership and the necessary qualities needed to be considered a good leader.
Approach to Leadership
In this session, Prof. Adair outlined three approaches, which determine effective leadership.
1. The qualities of a leader are vital – these qualities are indicative, rather than final: enthusiasm, integrity, toughness, fairness, warmth, kindness and humility. ‘I cannot hear what you are saying because who you are is shouting at me’ (Zulu proverb).
2. There’s no such thing as a born leader. It all depends on knowledge; authority flows from those who know what they’re doing. There are plenty of people who possess technical knowledge but they lack people skills. A combination of both is absolutely necessary to be considered a good leader.
3. This approach focuses on the group rather than the leader – what are the commonalities and mutual needs of the group? The leader needs to identify the common task of the group and thereby define the task and set and maintain the standards of the solution – these are the responsibility of the leader, but they’re not the property of the leader, they are simply accountable for them.
Q&A
What are the qualities needed right now for a good leader in times of crisis?
Judgement. We need leaders who can be calm and act with reason and good judgement. Leaders need to get people to voluntarily follow them, especially in times like this, it’s difficult to get an entire nation to accept going into a lockdown without it feeling as though they’re living in a police state – this is down to the capabilities of the leader.
‘To lead is not to be liked, to lead is to serve’. Can you elaborate on this?
Leaders should never go out of their way to be disliked, but to be liked should not be their greatest priority. They may have to say things that require a critical response from the people which will likely result in waves of unpopularity. But leaders must love the truth, they must speak the truth.
Have you noticed a difference in the way men and women lead?
There’s a tendency for leadership to be regarded as a sphere solely for men, but leadership is not male and it is not Western. Even if we look to history, the Prophet Muhammed’s wife, Khadija, was a very successful business woman and leader of her time.
Should you desire leadership? And if you manage to attain it, where is the balance in attaining humility?
I make a distinction between ambition and aspiration. Ambition can be focused on attaining great positions of importance, but aspiration is different because when you aspire for something, it is generally for something better and noble without any selfish egoism. Aspiration with a sensible level of ambition would be best.