OUR BIG THREE FROM ASHLEY

Sir Ashley Bloomfield is a familiar face and a household name. He played a key role in the leadership team that led us through the toughest years of Covid-19. 

Thanks to Spark, I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon gathering up pearls of leadership wisdom from one of the nicest and most humble guys on the planet.

It was awesome. Chats here, Q&A there, a little like Ted Talk roulette. So I’ve done what I can to capture the themes from an afternoon with Sir Ashley.

THREE DOMAINS OF LEADERSHIP

Sir Ashley describes leadership as “an invitation to collective action”. Or, in other words, gathering followers around a common purpose to make things happen. He described three ‘domains’ of leadership: leading context, leading others and leading self.

The first two are fairly obvious. It’s important to be clear what you’re aiming to achieve and why. And you need to guide the team on the road to delivery.

‘Leading self’ is the third leg of the milking stool. And more often gets forgotten. But it’s the most important of all. It’s hard to succeed in leading others if you don’t have sharp self-awareness and the ability to maintain your own boundaries and sanity.

KEY OUTTAKE: Put on your own gas mask first.

LEARNING FORWARD

A major theme in the various Q and As was “how do you plan when things are always changing?” The short answer is, “you can’t.” That’s not to say that planning isn’t important, it’s just far more dynamic when things are all a bit VUCA.

Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity are words we heard a lot through Covid. (Alongside ‘unprecedented’ and ‘pivot’). They’re all things most organisations hate. Leadership in a VUCA environment demands flexibility, humility and outstanding communication.

Sir Ashley acknowledged the reality of ‘making stuff up as you go along’ but described it as “learning forward”. His take was that it’s okay to not have all the answers or to make mistakes. But it’s essential to learn from those mistakes and fill the knowledge gaps fast. ‘What did we do? How did it go? How can we do it better?’

KEY OUTTAKE: Continuous learning is an unlock for uncertainty.

THE CURRENCY OF TRUST

We all remember Sir Ashley in our living rooms. Fast on the facts and calm under pressure. He describes the reality as different. Those twenty-minute briefings were challenging and stressful, but the purpose of the stand ups was building and maintaining trust.

We all did incredible things through Covid. We stayed home, we stayed safe and we went out of our way to keep our distance. None of these things happened by accident, we did what we needed to do because we trusted the people who were leading us.

That trust was built through clear, calm and consistent communication. And even when things changed, we always knew why. Leading context, leading others and leading self.

KEY OUTTAKE: The currency of leadership is trust.

INVITATION TO ACTION

“Leadership is an invitation to collective action”. That was Sir Ashley’s definition and it’s all about the team. He reminded us that we’re all leaders, in different ways and on different projects. So the ‘how to tips’ are relevant to all of us.

Strong leaders appear confident because they know how to look after themselves. They communicate clearly (especially through uncertainty) and celebrate ways to learn and do things better. And they clearly understand the critical importance of trust.

My favourite definition of leadership is ‘leaders are people who others choose to follow’. And I would follow Sir Ashley anywhere.