Look for the leader within, says visiting guru

Sir John Whitmore says 'inner authority' is the key to unlocking leadership potential. Picture / Graeme Sedal

Last week, leadership guru Sir John Whitmore touched down for a short visit and a whirlwind tour of the hearts and minds of our top executives and sportspeople. In less than a week, he spread the good word to almost 600 people.

Whitmore has packed a huge amount of activity into his life: A motor racing champion with British and European saloon car titles to his name, a successful businessman in a range of arenas, educated in the fields of agriculture and psychology, an author of five books and the founder of a tennis and ski school. He is also an hereditary knight and was heralded as the number one business coach in Europe by Britain's Independent newspaper. Most recently, Whitmore set up the Institute of Human Excellence in Australia.

Here he was the guest of Angela Neighbours, a leadership expert in her own right, who met Whitmore at a conference in Australia and convinced him to (occasionally) join forces for the good of New Zealand leaders.

"New Zealand is so far away from everything, and I guess I've always had the position that I want to offer the best that we possibly can," says Neighbours.

The essence of Whitmore's philosophy is that each and every one of us can be a leader, and indeed, has the qualities and the capabilities to be one if we can only figure out how to unleash them.

"If you say, 'Prove it,' you look, when there's a real crisis - such as the tsunami - perfectly ordinary people do absolutely outstanding things in that moment to selflessly help others," he says.

"People are much more capable than the general belief. Because we are historically very hierarchical in the world of work we assume that the people at the top have brains and the rest of the people have hands. It's not true at all. Everyone has brains all the way through the organisation. What we need to do is to give them permission to use their brains as well as their hands."

Not only that, but Whitmore believes that those leadership qualities in all levels of an organisation must be encouraged in order to be successful in a changing world.

"[Because of] the accelerated nature of change today with globalisation, instant communication because of new technology, the economic uncertainties and all that sort of thing, it's a very hard call for leaders to cope with anyway.

"I think leaders are up against the wall, whether it be politics or business or anything else. One of the things that that demands is to divulge leadership to wider spectrum of people."

Whitmore says that the standard of leadership today is poor.

"This is partly because they can't cope, and partly because they are still working on old command and control models.

The traditional hierarchy is also crumbling, says Whitmore.

"Self-expectations are changing. People who have children often find their children behaving in a certain way and say 'I would never have got away with that when I was a child'. There was more of a discipline in history, and children now have expectations to make more choices and not just be quiet and sit down. Adults are exactly the same.

The breakdown of these hierarchical levels has come about through natural evolution, suggests Whitmore.

"Here we are in this period of massive amounts of communication - we can get any information we want at the push of a button on the internet - so naturally evolution accelerates because we have so much more opportunity.

"But at the same time, it does generate fear in some people because you get a massive amount of change - it's quite threatening for some people who are insecure and need things to stay the same for them to feel safe."

Whitmore believes that people are now wanting more from their work lives.

"People perform at their best when they feel that what they're doing has a sense of meaning and purpose," says Whitmore. "In the old days, provided people were paid sufficiently to do the job, they didn't mind what they were producing. Today, people are asking those questions more. What's interesting about this is that there is an assumption that only the top people who care about meaning and purpose and the blue-collar worker traditionally doesn't care about meaning. Actually research shows that it is just as important for anyone at any level to have a sense of meaning and purpose.

Whitmore refers to our 'inner authority' as the key to unlocking our leadership potential.

"Of course that's what determines whether you are going to be a leader or not. Leadership is dormant within all of us. What blocks it sometimes is layers of defence mechanisms that have come up through the conditioning of our life so far that we hide through fear."

Whitmore is quick to point out the difference between a leadership coach and an instructor. "The definition of coaching is a broad one. The behaviours of coaching will be somewhat similar because they are drawing out of the person the potential and the capabilities that that person has, rather than putting some in from the outside which is what an instructor will do.

"A lot of the coaching work that we do is about people development of a personal nature. That forms the foundation stone from which leadership can take place. But if that foundation stone is not there and they've just learned a set of skills, the trouble is they lack authenticity, they lack the genuine real vision. There's too much of that around."

Neighbours agrees: "Those organisations that allow people to start going on a journey internally for themselves lift their performance and therefore lift their organisation's performance. That's when there's a real future - and that's when people are going to stay in the organisation."

Considering the empathy needed to be a good coach or manager and get the best out of those you are working with, is the job best suited to the fairer sex?

"I think that's a gross generalisation," says Neighbours. "I experience a huge amount of empathy from male leaders as well as female leaders, in fact often sometimes more."

Whitmore believes that women rising in organisations used to adopt male characteristics in order to succeed.

"I think that is falling by the wayside now and it is also true that men are learning to be more balanced and are moving away from the old militaristic style.'

Whitmore has a favourable impression of New Zealand leaders and the opportunities presented here.

"I think you have an advantage in being a small country in the sense that new ideas can be collectively adopted much more quickly than with a large population.

"To try and change the way business is done in England can take forever. It's like trying to turn a battleship around. In New Zealand the key people can actually get together in one room."

Kiwis are also keen to give anything a go. "What I do find in Britain is more cynicism about new ideas than I see here. I think that people are open to saying 'let's have a look'."

Neighbours agrees. "I think there is a preparedness here to at least put your toe and the water and have a go."