1. Leadership for experts
Catherine Staite October 2014

2. Preaching to the choir Reflections on three themes Creativity Courage
Charm
This is a tough gig. No only am I following Bob – I’m preaching to the choir. Some of you know a thing about leadership – you even help us teach it to our students, so I’m not going to take up your time with a detailed exposition of how heroic leadership have given way to distributive leadership and organisational leadership has been overtaken by systems leadership – you know all that. Its your daily reality. You would not be in the jobs you are in and survive if you didn’t know a great deal about leadership.

3. A new style of leadership
Creativity
Charm
Courage

4. Creativity Creativity is just connecting things. Steve Jobs
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them
Albert Einstein
Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Albert von Szent-Gyorgy
There’s a better way to do it – find it.
Thomas Edison
So what is creativity and why do leaders need it so much?
We hear a great deal about the need for change and innovation – which implies a need for creativity. So much which is labelled innovation is nothing of the sort. Adam Smith did BPR in 1707 (?). The Hanseatic League did shares services in the 16th century.
We are subject to constant but superficial change – ink hasn’t dried on one paradigm before it’s shifted. But we’re in a time of evolution not revolution – no matter how apocalyptic the environment feels at times. Not withstanding the 24/7 digital revolution we all still meet in rooms – not cyberspace. Joseph Chamberlain could come back from the dead and find his way round BCC – they are focusing on the same things, better lives for the people.
We really need creativity not to create a new universe but to unstick the current one. In 1990s in mental health we were trying to create an integrated care system, including diverting mentally disordered offenders from custody. 25 years later not much has changed. Leaders can make the space for creativity as well as bringing people together, allowing space, encouraging risk and forgiving failure. To do that, leaders need real charm
Socrativity is often about seeing opportunities to being together different systems and different ways of thinking

5. Give space
Make
connections
Let go

6. Charm
The deepest craving of human nature is the need to feel valued and valuable. The secret of charm is therefore simple: make others feel important.
Brian Tracy and Ron Arden
Charm is a way of getting the answer ‘yes’ without ever having asked a clear question.
Albert Camus

7. Really listening Interested in others Not being right
Bringing people together
Charm is shorthand for a sophisticated set of skills – which enable you to make new connections and solve old problems. Charm is about much more than being nice in a superficial way. If you don’t have real charm – that very niceness will breed distrust.
Being interested in others – paying the real attention and giving them their positive regard – not barely controlled irritation. Active listening - not just to what they are saying but what they perhaps feel they cant say to you. Seek to bring people together – that has never been more important. There is so much good work around collaboration for a common purpose but there are so many bad examples of people in senior positions who perpetuate old feuds and personalise organisational battles to the point where there is no way out for anyone. I sometimes have to listen to a range of grievances going back to Petty disputes range from being real energy vampires to utter moral failures. Also they are about the past and somehow you have to get beyond them – and encourage your members to do the same.
That behaviour will shape your organisational culture and ripple through external relationships to the point where no-one can articulate or even remember why this county doesn’t co-operate with this district or vice versa. All they know is they can’t get anything done. That will have an impact across your area and beyond – so your charm is a force for real good.
I visit a lot of councils and its amazing how pervasive an influence the chief executive and top team have on the culture. When the people you pass in the corridor are smiling – in spite of all the challenges – you know their leaders have charm
Not being right
Leading by example

8. Courage The only thing that is constant is change. Heraclitus
Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.
Maya Angelou
Constant change is wearing and its not always exciting. Heroic leadership is neither appropriate or sustainable

9. Seek support
Let go of the past
Be the future
Keep
searching

10. A new style of leadership
Creativity
Charm
Courage