00:00:01
[Music]
00:00:06
I think there are three things three
00:00:08
three very clear indicators one is your
00:00:10
ability to maintain relationships to
00:00:13
form and maintain healthy happy
00:00:14
relationships the second fact is
00:00:16
self-awareness you know are they aware
00:00:18
of their strengths and limitations and
00:00:20
the third thing is the ability to
00:00:23
embrace change and go with change in
00:00:26
terms of the profile of a leader we've
00:00:28
traded very heavily on IQ intelligence I
00:00:31
think the profile of the successful
00:00:33
leader now is much broader than that so
00:00:35
big emphasis on emotional intelligence
00:00:37
certainly spiritual intelligence and
00:00:39
then the physiology of the of the person
00:00:41
I think all of those come into play
00:00:43
hello my name is guy clapperton and with
00:00:46
me are Professor Adrian fernham from the
00:00:48
University College London psychologist
00:00:50
and David Woodward who is a former chief
00:00:53
executive of Heinz North America
00:00:54
gentlemen welcome
00:00:56
I'd like to talk about the six traits
00:00:58
that have been identified that make a
00:01:01
good leader tell me a little bit for
00:01:03
example about your view on
00:01:06
conscientiousness very often people
00:01:08
don't see that they have a lack of
00:01:10
conscientiousness that could be the
00:01:12
their derailleur they don't see this
00:01:14
lack of organization and if I think to
00:01:17
you know some of the more challenging
00:01:18
times I've experienced when I've been
00:01:20
looking after Africa in the Middle East
00:01:22
and have been buying a business in South
00:01:23
America and I've been managing a house
00:01:26
purchase over in the UK and managing
00:01:28
family arrangements and planning for the
00:01:30
next year's aop annual operating plan
00:01:32
and presenting to the board you have to
00:01:34
be organized and sure you have a great
00:01:36
team around you to help you do that but
00:01:38
ultimately you're the person that's
00:01:39
providing the direction so I think it's
00:01:42
absolutely right up there in terms of
00:01:43
one of the traits that we should all be
00:01:45
looking for not always that obvious
00:01:47
actually until you really do test for it
00:01:50
and deep dive thank you let's talk about
00:01:52
adjustment that's another one of the
00:01:54
criteria first of all Adrian having
00:01:57
written the criteria
00:01:59
how do you mean adjustment
00:02:01
well it's about resilience as another
00:02:03
word fraud the high adjustment person
00:02:05
High adjusted person tends to be less
00:02:09
prone to anxiety and depression and when
00:02:11
they do get which is quite normal stress
00:02:14
they cope with it well it's tough at the
00:02:16
top every leader will tell you that and
00:02:18
you need to have ways of dealing with
00:02:20
that stress I think with adjustment I
00:02:23
think the most successful leaders the
00:02:24
people that I've Had The Good Fortune to
00:02:27
work with and learn from are those that
00:02:29
almost thrive on it they thrive on the
00:02:31
uncertainty they thrive on the
00:02:33
challenges that get thrown at them and
00:02:34
frankly When Things become a little bit
00:02:36
too comfortable and too normal they are
00:02:38
not at their best so Adrian's quite
00:02:41
right you do see people kind of going I
00:02:43
think one of two ways they either Thrive
00:02:45
because they know how to manage it and
00:02:47
they know actually it's one of their
00:02:48
stimuli
00:02:49
or they really struggle with it I'm
00:02:52
going to ask Adrian again first because
00:02:53
I like the academic review are people
00:02:54
born curious or do they get curious
00:02:56
woken up in them can education stifle
00:02:59
curiosity how do you measure curiosity
00:03:01
where does it come from I think
00:03:03
curiosity cannot be learned I think it's
00:03:06
something you have inside you can see it
00:03:07
it for some people they're just not very
00:03:09
curious they're not they're not
00:03:11
interested in how things work what the
00:03:13
future is going to be like I don't think
00:03:15
you can put it in people you can
00:03:17
stimulate it in certain areas people do
00:03:19
get curious about some things more than
00:03:21
others but it's something to look for it
00:03:23
is it is the clue to their intelligence
00:03:25
it's a clue to their liveness it's a
00:03:27
cute their longevity in fact
00:03:30
when people are in very intense jobs
00:03:32
they kind of lose that natural
00:03:33
creativity and I often say to people you
00:03:36
know each and every day try and do
00:03:38
something you wouldn't normally do pick
00:03:39
a different magazine up you know basket
00:03:41
weaving monthly take a different trip to
00:03:44
work put a different radio channel on we
00:03:46
don't do enough to stimulate that
00:03:48
Curiosity in ourselves so I think it is
00:03:51
something that we're born with to an
00:03:53
extent and some have a much greater
00:03:54
propensity but we can stimulate it as
00:03:56
Leaders we should be encouraging that
00:03:58
I'd like to talk now about risk approach
00:04:00
again this is something that I think can
00:04:03
change over a period of time over you
00:04:05
know at different times of your life
00:04:07
um
00:04:08
same question as before really are
00:04:10
people born with a given risk approach
00:04:11
the question is how uncomfortable you
00:04:14
are with risk personal risk if you look
00:04:16
at entrepreneurs there's a very good
00:04:18
example every single one of them has
00:04:20
failed they've failed they've fallen
00:04:22
down they've dusted themselves off
00:04:23
they've learned their lesson they
00:04:25
haven't stopped being risky they remain
00:04:27
risky but they know they know how to how
00:04:29
to manage that risk and they know about
00:04:31
probabilities so again it's a
00:04:34
risk-averse bad highly risky bad in
00:04:37
between well thought through calculated
00:04:40
risks that's the secret but the great
00:04:42
leaders for me are the ones that take a
00:04:44
little bit more of the difficult stuff
00:04:45
on their own shoulders than perhaps they
00:04:46
should and a little bit less of the
00:04:48
Kudos than perhaps they should and
00:04:50
that's quite a risky approach because as
00:04:52
Leaders we're kind of conditioned to
00:04:54
self-publicize and talk about how
00:04:56
effective we are in the results we've
00:04:57
got but I think the most effective
00:04:59
leaders are those that take that risk
00:05:01
and feed a lot of that down because
00:05:02
people recognize at the end of the day
00:05:04
it's the leader that's provided the
00:05:06
environment and provided the oxygen the
00:05:08
sky for people to do a great job let's
00:05:11
talk about ambiguity acceptance so what
00:05:13
does that actually mean for a starter
00:05:14
it's called tolerance of ambiguity
00:05:16
uncertainty avoidance it means
00:05:19
discomfort with lack of clarity and I
00:05:21
think it's that ability the ability to
00:05:23
be comfortable around ambiguity because
00:05:26
the world is an ambiguous Place
00:05:28
acceptance of ambiguity is very
00:05:30
important but as a leader it's also
00:05:31
sometimes critical that you're able to
00:05:34
kind of filter that and distill it to
00:05:35
give some greater Clarity to help people
00:05:38
through some of those more difficult
00:05:39
situations
00:05:40
now the final trait is of course
00:05:42
competitiveness for me competitiveness
00:05:44
and results orientation is is what it's
00:05:48
all about
00:05:49
you know your um your reputation does
00:05:52
rely very much on your ability to
00:05:54
deliver results and that comes from your
00:05:56
intrinsic competitiveness
00:05:58
one of the things that I do note is that
00:06:00
sometimes people don't quite know where
00:06:01
the competition is so within companies
00:06:04
you find the competition is is some
00:06:06
people actually compete with each other
00:06:08
I think it's a very dangerous trait so
00:06:11
as you're developing and encouraging
00:06:13
that you need to make sure that people
00:06:14
are focusing on the competition which
00:06:16
tends to be outside
00:06:17
and tends to be the people who may move
00:06:21
faster than you with new Innovations to
00:06:23
the marketplace they may move faster
00:06:25
with you with Talent acquisition and
00:06:27
talent development or any of those
00:06:28
things so competitiveness is absolutely
00:06:30
at the Forefront of success in business
00:06:32
in my experience is there any
00:06:34
external research that demonstrates that
00:06:36
people need competitive
00:06:38
competitiveness tampered with other
00:06:40
things
00:06:41
competitiveness is a very masculine word
00:06:43
it's a very sort of strong word it seems
00:06:45
to be the opposite of cooperativeness
00:06:46
you know competitive people fight
00:06:48
against each other whereas Cooperative
00:06:50
people help each other the idea comes
00:06:52
from a literature an old literature now
00:06:55
on three basic motives a man called
00:06:58
McClellan many years ago he talked about
00:06:59
need for achievement need for
00:07:01
affiliation and need for power and this
00:07:04
need for achievement is really what
00:07:05
competitive is all about it's about
00:07:07
winning it's about getting to the best
00:07:10
you know school children would do the
00:07:11
Duke of edinburgh's award it is an
00:07:13
achievement it is you've done something
00:07:15
and you've done it well you want people
00:07:17
to be competitive you want them to win
00:07:19
you want to be successful you want them
00:07:20
to achieve but you don't want to do it
00:07:23
wildly at all costs breaking the law to
00:07:26
the cost of your health that is not good
00:07:29
but to be desirous of achievement to
00:07:34
want to become number one to be among
00:07:36
the winning team those are the things
00:07:38
which drive people and it drives them
00:07:40
for all time people to know about
00:07:42
motivation this is the one that is the
00:07:44
most powerful of the six traits the
00:07:47
indicators of motivation need for
00:07:50
achievement competitiveness yearning to
00:07:52
be successful
00:07:55
I think there's another key Dimension
00:07:58
which is very competitive people
00:08:00
occasionally you don't make it all right
00:08:02
you haven't won that particular event
00:08:04
yes you haven't delivered that
00:08:06
particular quarter
00:08:07
so how do you then respond how do you
00:08:10
approach the event the second time
00:08:11
around how resilient are you how much
00:08:14
time do you take to reflect and really
00:08:16
take the learnings on board and
00:08:17
sometimes that can be really bruising
00:08:18
and encourage people to be very open and
00:08:20
honest with you about how and then help
00:08:22
them as a team see reality and help them
00:08:24
understand why we haven't achieved it
00:08:26
they're really great leaders for me are
00:08:28
the ones that are able to bounce back
00:08:30
not from consecutive failure after
00:08:33
failure that probably means they are in
00:08:35
the wrong job but I think as a leader
00:08:37
and Leadership groups we should accept
00:08:39
that sometimes people will fail because
00:08:42
they push the boundaries and they may
00:08:43
have tried incredibly hard it's how they
00:08:45
then deal with it the next time around
00:08:46
and make sure they are successful
00:08:48
subsequently but generally speaking all
00:08:50
the great sportsmen
00:08:51
when they fail or when they taste
00:08:54
failure you can see it on their body
00:08:56
language in their face in their voices
00:08:58
Lewis Hamilton is a great example
00:09:00
incredibly successful but when he has a
00:09:02
bad race or a bad event you can read it
00:09:04
all over him and you can actually look
00:09:06
down into cockpit when he's driving and
00:09:08
you can see the style he's driving in
00:09:10
because he's so
00:09:11
frustrated with what's just happened
00:09:14
because he set himself a standard
00:09:15
against which he failed and it'll be a
00:09:18
motivator not a you know you you are
00:09:20
made or broken by adversity and it's
00:09:23
that early experience sometimes that if
00:09:26
you look into the biography of people
00:09:28
gives you a very good indicator David
00:09:30
said right at the beginning Look
00:09:32
Backwards look at their history of
00:09:33
relationships look at the way they've
00:09:35
made decisions in the past look at the
00:09:37
way they've formed relationships that is
00:09:39
the indicator I think of whether they're
00:09:41
going to thrive and survive
