Dr Chris Dalton At the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show in London this year, one garden caught the eye of the judges, the imagination of the public and the headlines in the press like no other. The Rewilding Garden, co-engineered by landscape designers Urquhart and Hunt and (we’re told) some beavers, won Gold Medal…
Tag: Leadership
What we need is leadership! Yes, but what kind?
Professor David Pendleton While debating leadership with a group of very smart people, I was provoked by a man with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. I had just been extolling the virtues of distributed leadership and sharing some compelling evidence about it when my interlocuter wanted to remind me…
Can Personal Development start a movement?
Dr Chris Dalton, Henley Centre for Leadership We are coming to the end of our second year with COVID and the last 12 months have provided no shortage of leadership and change subjects worthy of comment from a business school. The climate crisis, the COP26 event in Glasgow, the emergent and unintended consequences of past…
How do I know if I’m doing the right things?
Prof David Pendleton, Professor in Leadership How many hours do you work in a typical week? Probably too many. Your family would probably like to see you more. Your friends likewise. You may well need to take more exercise, to read around your subject or just for interest, to do those jobs at home that…
COP26, silence of the leadership development, and the band on the Titanic!
By Professor Bernd Vogel, Henley Centre for Leadership It is the last day. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, at the opening of COP26 said, “Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet.” Compare that to conversations amongst leadership development academics, practitioners, or clients. I often feel like a member of…
Career sustainability and the purpose of education
Dr David Pendleton, Professor in Leadership, Henley Business School Eight years ago, I was sitting at a large dining table in a private dining room in the St Louis Club, having just arrived from the UK via Chicago. I was surrounded by 20 of the great and the good from that fabled midwestern city who…
Fragile – Resilient – Anti-fragile
We hear a lot about building resilience, whether that is in organisational systems or individuals. Resilience, in the dictionary is defined as ‘the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity’. For a person, it is defined as ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness’. Resilience means knowing how to…
What a past presidency can teach us about the future of leadership
Rather uncomfortable – we as an active part of the Trump leadership phenomenon? A first uncomfortable thought. How much of the Trump phenomenon is in all of us, at work, in our leadership or community behaviour? Have you, at times, subordinated everything, including some of your values, to winning? A leisurely approach to accountability? Economical…
Biden his time
My dear friend John Rishton has an aphorism: commentary is easy, leadership is hard. John has been there. He was CEO of two major international organisations and FD of another. He knows the truth of what he has said. The USA presidential election is demonstrating the validity of the principle. The airwaves are now buzzing…
Deputising in a crisis
Dominic Raab is leading the UK through coronavirus hurdles as the “designated survivor.” With Boris Johnson in intensive care, the foreign secretary is required to run the country during the most significant public health crisis in a generation. This will include chairing Cobra and cabinet meeting for the time being, until Johnson’s health and his…
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