What is the best form of leadership?

How do we hold leaders and systems accountable without undermining authority?

How do we get the best out of people?

Is there such a thing as good bureaucracy?

How do you balance risk, freedom and learning?

Who are successful role models of empowering, inspiring, visionary, values-driven leadership?

How can organisations enable their staff to live their purpose and values?

How can hierarchies be empowering and adaptive?

How can you manage the risks of devolving power and empowering people?

What can businesses and leaders learn from living systems?

How can our organisations liberate the human spirit and harness collective intelligence?

How do we restore a healthy authority in ourselves, our roles and our institutions?

How do you make authority fair, accountable, evidence-based and mindful of complexity?

Human beings know instinctively how to lead, follow and organise. These skills are perfectly adapted to the conditions that we lived in for the majority of our history as families and clans. We operate best in groups of about eight people within a larger group of about 150. Up to that size, we can remember everyone’s name, face, role, character and organise naturally like any other social animal, without any bureaucracy, forms, computers or paperwork. Smaller organisations are well within that limit and our natural instincts serve us well in leading and organising in an implicit or informal way. It is a challenge to run large organisations without stifling freedom, innovation, vocation, diversity, individuality and flexibility.

We must make sure that our organisations are as closely aligned with human nature as possible. We must be constantly vigilant – watching for systems, processes or leaders that crush the human spirit or limit our potential. There have been hundreds of thousands of books written about leadership, but, in fact, there are only two secrets of successful leadership. The first secret is that you should treat people as human beings to get the best from them. The second secret is that there is no other secret. Leadership and organisation must be adapted to the particular context. Identify the shared goals, know the opportunities, risks, threats, competition and resources, then create your strategy and determine what tasks need to be carried out. Ask yourself, who is to lead whom, to do what, where and why. Consider different types of people, their values, motivations, resources, life conditions and culture. Then ask how.