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Guest Blog: Sir Bob Reid – ‘Leadership’. (2015)

(The Daedalus Trust) seeks to identify, preserve and nurture the elements which will take our leaders towards achievement and success without the dangers of their going too far and taking their colleagues with them.

 Sir Bob Reid. Chairman ICE Futures and ICE Clear Europe. Former Chairman and Chief Executive, Shell UK Limited; former Chairman British Rail, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Scotland

Another in an occasional series of contributions from members of our Advisory Board and other friends of the Daedalus Trust. Published online 1 July 2015

Leadership

Leadership propels individuals into prominence within the sphere of their chosen activity and often beyond that into the public arena.

This exposure demands a disclosure of personality revealing the ambitions, the confidence or lack of it which can motivate or demotivate the troops. When the efforts of the leader and the led bring success, confidence grows and with it self-belief. It is here that the ability to stand back and take stock is critical. At this crossroads self belief becomes a dangerous ingredient and humility a most valuable antidote.

There are many examples of where the wrong way was taken at this crossroads and it is here that the positive force of hubris which drove success turns negative.

The location, where the crossroads were, is a study in itself of individual situations, the achievements, exercise of leadership and above all the point of time. The latter because it is from there that it is possible to track the changing personality and the deterioration of successful leadership into self-opinionated direction without consultation or control.

It is at this point the search for cause leads inevitably to personality and the interpretation of Hubris.

The basic question of why this happens cannot be determined by simply cataloguing and examining events for their consequences and implications. It must engage the issues of personality development, life balances, familial involvement and intellectual progress. Of all of these strands, intellectual progress is perhaps the most complex because it involves the ability to step outside yourself and honestly assess how you have progressed and how you are progressing. Have you substituted your hunger for intellectual progress with a love of protocol and occasion? Do you think more about presentation than real progress? Are you more concerned about how it looks than how it is?

When Icarus set off, his feet were on the ground but unlike his father Daedalus, his eyes were on the sun. It is again, the answer to why it was so, that eludes us.

The complex of technical skills exercised by his father, which had allowed him to take off was all about thought, imagination, competence and ambition, all of which were to be squandered by his not listening, over-reaching and going too far.

The fascination with this phenomenon is valuable for the lessons it will give us.

In the simplest of terms we are seeking to identify, to preserve and nurture the elements which will take our leaders towards achievement and success without the dangers of their going too far and taking their colleagues with them.

To preserve the achievements of our modern day Daedalus and to avoid the self destruction of Icarus is the mission of our inquiry. The promotion of progress and the preparation of the leaders who will take us there is the purpose of the initiative. In its pursuit the analysis of individuals and past situations will be hard and uncompromising but the conclusions will be individual and valuable for future generations.

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