Wrong action better than inaction

And so to Cambridge, ancient seat of learning, and an exquisitely oak-panelled room with a fine view of the river Cam in one of the oldest colleges. I found myself hosting a seminar on leadership – something that Britain is badly short of in many areas at the moment.

The invitation came because of a presentation I once made to a group of civil servants. The talk was entitled Leadership From The Outside, and offered a brief walk through the musings of the good and the great I have had the fortune to interview over more than two decades as a journalist.

Personally, of course, I couldn't lead myself – let alone anyone else – out of a wet paper bag.

Perhaps that helps me pick up on the bits of other people's personalities that I admire but can never imitate or replicate in my own behaviour.

In any event, lots of people seem to be crazy for leadership skills right now – there's a general feeling that uncertain times in politics and business lie ahead.

I found an unusually thoughtful quotation on the subject (from a soldier, no less), which I'll share with you, as I shared it with my audience in Cambridge:

"Leadership is that mixture of example, persuasion and compulsion which makes men do what you want them to do. I would say that it is a projection of personality. It is the most personal thing in the world, because it is just plain you." – Field Marshall Bill Slim

Leadership occurs in all walks of life. There is leadership in the classroom, leadership in the boardroom, leadership on the hospital ward and leadership on the battlefield.

I have met mostly political and business leaders, and the question I ask myself (and I am asked by others) is whether leadership an inherited gift that comes to some and bypasses others? Or is it a character trait that can be continuously developed?

In the nature versus nurture debate I certainly subscribe more to the nurture than nature view of leadership. In the training and management courses favoured by big corporations (I have been a fly on the wall at a few of these), the search is not for "natural leaders". Instead the people in charge look for a base that can be built upon and that can be moulded into a leader.

People look at an individual and seek some trait that will allow the company to focus its effort on leadership development with the eventual aim being to produce future leaders within the company. The idea in most cases is then to gradually develop those young men and women who can stand up in front of – often people their own age if not older – and instil in them a sense of confidence and trust. Leaders, I believe, have to give the impression they know where they are going – even (perhaps especially) if they are lost.

The search for leadership talent is not one aimed at unearthing a fully formed Bernard Arnault or a Rupert Murdoch.

Instead, companies are looking for young men and women with the potential to become decent, competent young executives.

Of all the business leaders I've met, I think for me the greatest leadership tenet they stress is the importance of making decisions.

Perhaps the greatest lesson they try to impart is "right or wrong – do something". I remember one bank chairman who told me that the great enemy was indecision – there's a kind of mental paralysis which can set in among managers, and that inevitably leads to lost accounts, shrinking businesses, and sloppy execution of the simplest of business offerings. Inaction is often worse than doing something.

There's an easy parallel to draw with a soldier leading his troops into the thick of the enemy, perhaps charging the enemy at the strongest point. Semi-suicidal glory has its place in business too: people are stirred by courage and the attempt to do the right things.

I'm thinking here of one or two small businessmen I know who refused to cut staff in the darkest days of the post-credit-crunch downturn. Their staff took wage cuts, their companies (one was a mortgage broker with a suddenly non-existent income stream) hung on, and they are still together. The companies that survive the toughest conditions through good leadership always emerge stronger.

With the benefit of more than 20 years of hindsight I would offer that for me the acme of a leader is someone who knows when and when not to make a decision and who has the courage to follow it through. Sometimes in my business it means saying "follow me" to your soldiers rather than "on you go".

Ultimately Field Marshal Slim's view of leadership being "just plain you" resonates with me. I see leadership everywhere and am convinced that – with the appropriate training – a successful leader in one walk of life would be likely to be equally successful in another. There is no particular art or science to leadership as far as I can see.

Instead there is a blend of intelligence, reasoning, common sense, intuition, drive – and ultimately decision making – which some men and women use to great effect; while for others they lack the confidence, courage (moral rather than physical) and ability to "do something".

For the former fame, honour – and very probably riches too – beckon. For the latter they look enviously on at the former and find reasons of nepotism, political correctness and just bad luck to justify their own failure.

- The writer is a journalist, author and commentator on international business affairs

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