I reckon I did once. But that over the years I have made so many mistakes – sometimes bad judgements, sometimes because I was over-stretched and didn’t make a judgement – that I have had a lot of practice apologising. Partly because when you are always asking people to do things – as you are in any charitable role – you sort of can’t afford it.

But I have found myself in numerous situations recently when I have had to double take. And spend an enormous amount of time going round the houses concocting ways forward so that people don’t have to back down or admit that they are wrong. So that they keep their pride. The trouble is that it takes so much time and so often delays decisions.

Expressing my frustration the other day to colleagues, they just laughed at me. All much younger than me they seemed to have got their heads around this before they were 52.

Just because they grow up to trust their instincts, use words with values in them, take the trouble to build relationships with colleagues and judge situations through a feel for people and not just facts, does not mean that they have become feminine.

At the moment I am having to work – yes I mean having – with a group of four men who deeply offend me. They reject my very language as over-emotional. They can’t see why a logical strategy simply won’t work just because the people involved won’t go for it. They can’t see that if you build trust amongst people then almost anything becomes possible. They dismiss my passion…actually that’s not fair, they admire it and dismiss it almost at the same time. They sneer at what they see as my over-emotional approach.

Why does trust building, intuition backing and values language have to be written off as over-emotional – ergo feminine? For that matter why isn’t under-emotional as much of an insult as over-emotional?

On Monday I am going to another think tank about what leaders need these days. I would never normally say it, but maybe we need more men to be confidently feminine. Except that it’s not feminine – just human.

The patt response they had been given was that you had to learn to delegate, but they are not stupid. Even if you delegate you still risk drowning from the things you can’t delegate. We ended up talking about how to make space for quiet moments. My father used to tell me that I should never trust a leader whom you didn’t occasionally find with their feet on the table, staring at the ceiling, thinking, maybe dreaming – but not asleep.

I do get there eventually, but I take longer – and it shows.

Then we start talking about people and those same people rate nil – in fact minus nil – on emotional intelligence. They don’t know how to deal with people unless they are the same kind of people as them, motivated by the same things, worried by the same things.

This weekend my daughter was talking about me getting older. She told me that now I need to start riding, what she calls, a push button horse. This means a horse that has no will of its own, it turns left or right or stops or starts or eats or sleeps as it is told.

It made me think that the colleagues I have been working with can only lead push button colleagues (or people who choose to be push button at work), not that they are not bright or lacking for ideas. But when you push their buttons they do what you know they will do. Without emotional intelligence you have to stick to leading push button colleagues.

When will emotional intelligence be understood? When will schools, universities and business schools start giving it equal importance. Why do I think it ranks up there? So that we have diverse, difficult, creative teams and leaders who can cope with stakeholders who operate differently from them. Please may it be soon.

The next day I chaired a complicated meeting that felt a bit like a messy roundabout with everyone going in every direction. People kept on telling us – indicating – what they were thinking but you only had to look at their bodies – even wheels – and you knew they were really headed in the opposite direction. Sure as a leader you have to listen, but watching is often just as important.

I never got close to the intricacies of the issues but I did watch a man stand up for what he believed in and fight on against the odds when a court had found against him.

I bet lots of people told him to walk away. But he risked his savings, and risked his reputation. And allowed himself to get diverted – no doubt obsessed – in order to do what he believed was right. I admire him.

Simon Singh wins libel appeal. Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA (guardian.co.uk)

Further reading on the Simon Singh libel suit:

• Simon Singh libel case dropped (The Guardian)
• Libel case dropped against Simon Singh (BBC News)
• Simon Singh wins libel appeal (Daily Mail)
• Simon Singh wins key battle in alernative medicine libel case (Telegraph)
• Q&A with Simon Singh: Why UK libel law must change (Wired.co.uk)

I think the report speaks to some strong points, but I do take issue with some of the content.

Alarm bells go off for me when civil society starts setting objectives. I really do think that if there’s an agenda point to be set, an open forum should be used to voice the view that it’s an important one. If people listen, it has resonance.  My idea of encouraging civil society is far more ‘bottom up’, and I really thought that this report was about encouraging a groundswell of participation.

The report also pushes the private sector out. In the foreword by Geoff Mulgan, it’s openly stated that: ‘For a century or more it has been pushed to the margins by commerce and the state, which have claimed the lion’s share of resources and power’. ‘It’ being civil society.

That may well be true, and I understand when you focus on civil society you focus on citizens acting together, not in state or market. But there is a big difference between the market and the private sector. It is crucial that we get the private sector to see itself as part of civil society – as citizens. That doesn’t simply translate to painting walls for community projects, or celebrating worship, or communication on the web, or arts and sports projects and campaigns. It needs to translate to how people work – and how they lead.

It’s this schizophrenia that young people and those in the early stages of their career that come on our courses find so hard to understand. They know that at work they are part of building society if they are in the private sector – even if they are just making money to pay taxes that pay for community development. Just ask people in India – they are very aware they are nation building there.

The report also explores the need for transparency – and specifically looks at the financial sector. I do fail to see how we can  say that civil society is not about the private sector, and then in the same breath tell the private sector that they must be transparent and behave like responsible citizens. But I take the point that we need strong institutions, and for institutions to be strong, they need sound leadership and to remain principled about their aims and purpose – which should ensure that they do not stifle transparency through bureaucracy.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, barrier to tempting people into civil society is the intrusive and inaccurate nature of a higher profile. Don’t get me wrong – transparency is crucial – but when untruths and invasions on one’s personal life become the recompense for standing up it is understandable that many many people refuse to enter civic space. But this is where courage is needed – one of the tenents of good leadership…and civil society cannot be without strong leaders.

Where growing participatory and deliberative democracy is concerned – well – that’s never a bad thing…for all the reasons the report outlines. But I would urge that even in the healthiest participative democracy, we still need leaders to stand up and rally voices and action.

Good crisis management is a part of good leadership. I don’t think you can have one without the other – and I think in that sense, leadership has two halves.

Crisis management is half the game. You need to be a leader to manage a crisis – just try a crisis without leadership and you will see what I mean.

The textbook definition is that crisis management is a strategic and tactical response to a specific situation. But really, it’s about courage. It’s the courage to make incomplete decisions at speed. It’s having the stamina to keep going, to at least appear to keep a cool head under fire, to make fine-line calls rather than clear decisions and to stay the course irrespective of the harsh judgements. And they will be harsh.

Crisis management is no mean feat. It’s a tough job, and you need to be a good leader to get it done – let alone to get it done well. It’s still only one half of the job of a leader – no matter how admirable it is.

The better leader you are, the better prepared your team is for a crisis. In fact, sometimes the true test of leadership is the quiet times – when there isn’t the adrenaline but you still have to have the drive to build something dynamic, robust and crisis proof. This is the second half of the leadership equation.

Painting a picture for the future sounds fabulously positive and indulgent. I’ve often heard cynics say that anyone can be a visionary. I really don’t think that’s true. It’s quite frightening to take on the responsibility for building vision – but you absolutely cannot lead without it.

I was always taught to keep my eyes on the hills and my feet on the ground. In a crisis, too many leaders do neither, and some only keep their feet on the ground…but they take their eyes off the hills.

Right now I appreciate that keeping your feet on the ground is essential, and it’s hard work. I’m just urging you to look up once in a while.

If you are keen to see what 12 UK leaders have to say on what they learned about leadership in 2009, what the challenges are now and opportunities going forward, watch our latest film on YouTube. You can also access these on the Common Purpose website.

My attitude to this, which will no doubt cause the eye-roll of many a fashion doyenne, by no means blunted my sadness to read of Alexander McQueen’s death last week. I was particularly touched to read the Montreal Gazette’s quote about him, which recalled that he said: “at the end of the day, it’s just clothes”.

I know his clothing design is what wowed everyone, but I can see from the legacy he left behind that his leadership qualities extended beyond ‘just clothes’.

This is a guy who stepped over the social barriers of living on a council estate in east London in the 1970s. Those barriers would have been quite imposing. He was a taxi driver’s son, and one of six children. So I’m imagining resources were scarce. He didn’t exactly fit the mould of a conventional ‘boy’ with his sketches of gowns and designs of clothes for his sisters, and I can’t imagine he was surrounded by a progressive understanding of sexual preferences. His academic record at school also sounds like it was pretty poor.

None of that stopped him asserting himself and getting a job on Savile Row, then moving through some of the leading brands in fashion to eventually be appointed a CBE and named International Designer of the Year.

There’s been plenty of press about him since his death. He has left behind an amazing legacy at such a young age…far too young to die.

It’s unusual that I would read the fashion pages, but this one really lingered. It lingered because of the numerous reports of people who said that anyone who worked with him would give 200 per cent because he was such an inspiration. I don’t doubt it. Anyone with the kind of drive and vision that saw him rise from rags to riches would be nothing short of inspiring.

I never met the man and I probably couldn’t identify his trademark designs if I tried, but he sounds like he was a great leader.