Julia Middleton's thoughts on leadership

I am on the flight to Mumbai, home of Bollywood, celebrity and fame. The last few days have been about deciding the business plan with the board and my colleagues in India. We have been working through which of the multitude of opportunities here we are going to do first. And there are almost infinite [...]

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I was in Frankfurt on Monday – in the pouring, sheeting, drenching, rain – talking to a big company about leadership. I sat in the airport on my way back and watched all the world leaders doing their talks (in the rain) about the wall coming down on the other side of Germany. They all [...]

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A deeply frustrated friend came home the other day muttering “some people can actually do it, but most just act it”. He was talking about a group of leaders he is on a board with. “They act it, leadership, well; they have been really, really well trained; they know what to say and how to [...]

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A couple of weeks ago, I spent the day with several Egyptians. None of them saw Obama in person – they had been told not to go out on their balcony or even look out of their window as his motorcade went past – but they heard his speech and told me with delight, “It’s [...]

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Strange how the world suddenly stops. Someone needs you totally; someone you care for dies. Suddenly, the vast action list of the morning becomes irrelevant. Nothing like this has happened, but I am in quarantine – my son has swine flu! So people with masks over their faces come and check us out at home, [...]

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Tiananmen Square was twenty years ago this week. How the world – and China – have changed. The symbol for me was the earthquake last year when the Chinese government opened its reporting to foreign journalists. Over the last few months we have been talking to many leaders in China about whether we could start [...]

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I hit 50 today. That’s 50 people I have met in the last seven days who have told me that they plan to “sit tight” through the recession. And they call themselves leaders! Their assumption is: it will get back to where it was it’s just a question of waiting that they have no role [...]

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On a recent trip to the US, I don’t think I met anyone who did not use the word authentic in some way. ‘Authentic’ was coupled with loads of words – “authentic leaders”, “authentic brands”, “authentic messages”, “authentic ideas”… It raises the question of what purpose ‘authentic’ serves in such pairings. And more than this, other [...]

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Well I have finally been convinced by those around me to start blogging. I will be posting some of my thoughts on leadership here shortly.

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