Julia Middleton's Thoughts on Leadership

I spoke for a long time with a business leader in China about leadership. It made me realise that as a Westerner if I hear the words “Leadership” and “China” in one sentence my mind immediately computes “Mao” and to some extent turns off. Yours might too.
 So it was interesting to go further. He talked [...]

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Back from holiday; weeks of unrelenting rain; the only variation was whether it was light drizzle or heavy rain.
 In the end we ran out of “things to do in the rain.” We stopped checking the forecast too because we had no hope of change. We bonded, made new friends and learnt new games but after [...]

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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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It is interesting that the word brave is so often watered down. “No, no”, they say, “you don’t mean brave, you mean take calculated risks.” Well I don’t really – I mean be brave. Things are moving fast, and by the time most things are fully calculated the opportunity is likely to be gone. I [...]

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I was brought up to have no respect for any position, age, background or title. My father told me that no one was better than me other than as a result of their ability, experience, achievements or character. At best people like this in me, and at worst they think my lack of deference is [...]

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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, and [...]

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A whole host of Common Purpose graduates send me information about their mad ideas, but the maddest probably arrived this morning – it was great!
At first, I wasn’t sure I was really up for today and thought it would be better to sleep through it. Common Purpose is, just occasionally, really hard work, and two [...]

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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 to play
that all will be [...]

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