John Adair

Martina and I went to a session organised by ILM in Manchester with the Leadership Guru John Adair. The topic was The Truth about Leadership.

Some of the interesting facts we got from the session were:
• 78,000 books written on leadership
• 409 million entries on Leadership in Google
• Size of leadership industry in 2012- 50 Billion Dollar in USA and 1 Billion Pounds in UK
• China has 3 Centres for Leadership. Biggest is in Shanghai – 1000 bedrooms, 400 staff

The 3 things that contribute to Leadership – Be, Know and Do
• What you are (BE) –Lots of qualities and traits but the one that comes up always is “Courage”
• What you know (KNOW) – professional and technical knowledge
• What you do (DO) – Teams of people are unique and different and have a group personality. The leader needs to fit that group personality (culture).

Key Tips
• Leadership Role should be your focus, yourself should be in the background
• Know your strengths and weaknesses around the 2 circles
• Have a reflective idea of self
• Cover up the mirror
• Learning is a lifelong thing especially for Leaders
• Take simplicity to complexity, never complexity to simplicity

“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people but to elicit it, draw it out because greatness is there already”