Julia Middleton's Thoughts on Leadership

Opening The Times this morning I saw an obituary for Admiral Sir Peter White. Reading it, I would love to say that I was thinking “He was a great man whom I was privileged to know” but in fact I was thinking “Another great man whom I had the privilege to know and whom I did not listen to enough”.

When I was 23 and in my first job (utterly loving it) at the Industrial Society, I was told that some old admiral was coming to join the team and his desk was going to face mine. He was wonderful. And his desk was totally beautiful – utterly and deeply tidy. The pencils were all pointed and in rows. He used to gaze across at my desk -  a tip! He has a very lovely mouth that formed into half smiles. And that was the look he used to give me about my desk.

It must have been a nightmare for him being around me. This was a man who had been there to witness the atrocities of the Japanese invasion in Shanghai, who had been at the sinking of the Bismarck and the Scharnhorst,  been at the Dunkirk evacuation, who had liberated POW’s in Japanese camps and was one of the first into Nagasaki. None of this did I know or bother to find out. And never, ever, not once in the two years that we sat opposite each other did he ever once make me feel like the silly child that I must have been. He did though repeatedly and unsuccessfully tell me to tidy my desk. He also used to say to me – when I was off to do something that he knew I was worried about – “stomach in,  chest out”. He was a deeply affectionate man and I knew he cared for me too.

May I care for young people as he did. And may I remember as I get older that young people aren’t really much interested in past glories.