Friday High Five

I’ve been thinking about what it takes to be a great leader this week.

Baroness Manningham-Butler

The most impressive leader I’ve ever had the honour of interviewing was Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5. 

She made the point then, and it has stuck with me, that leadership is not about command and control, but vision and strategy. “You must be honest about difficulties, but demonstrate your confidence in the future and in your people,” she told me.

It seems too early to be dismissing our relatively new government, but they seem to have let the air out of their own balloon already, with a series of self-inflicted mistakes and mis-steps, and a failure to communicate that confidence in the future.

I contrasted Labour in Liverpool with how the Mayor Andy Burnham delivered his welcome address to an audience at the new offices of Alvarez & Marsal in Manchester this week. Outside of his natural habitat, and not so fresh from DJing at Labour conference the night before, I expected him to talk up business, slap them on the back and then everyone there could go back to talking about private equity, dry powder and interest rates.

Instead he evoked Abraham Lincoln, spoke of the workers and merchants of Manchester rejecting slave cotton in 1862 and linked it to a proud city with a generational opportunity to build life chances for our young people. To hope that kids from Hulme and Rochdale could see a pathway to a career at A&M, through the MBacc reforms to our schools that he is driving through.

A&M’s boss in the office, Wiganer Jonathan Boyers, embodies a lot of this. That’s why so many people across the Rainmakers community wanted to come and work for him.

Andy Burnham (centre) with Jonathan Boyers and Victoria Price (pic by Phil Gibbons Photography)

You can often develop a sixth sense for good leaders. On office walkabouts with a boss I was interviewing I used to be able to spot the fakes and bullies. I think things are more complex and subtle now, but the needs are ever greater.

We value good leadership and would therefore urge you to nominate the people who you feel embody the best qualities to enter our Leadership Awards.

The awards are free to enter.

The deadline for entries is Friday 8 November 2024.

Download the entry form here and email it to events@thebusinessdesk.com. Good luck!

Have a great weekend.