In far too many businesses that person simply gets overlooked. Maybe they don’t interview well or they’re ‘not polished’ or they don’t ‘play the game’. So the promotion goes to someone more visible, more vocal, more conventional.

Six months later, the team feels different and something’s missing. The new leader has the title but not the trust. The person everyone actually relied on is still doing the real work but from the wrong seat.

I’ve seen this pattern in dozens of founder-led businesses. The owner knows, deep down, who the real leaders are. But the system they’ve built, the job descriptions, the performance frameworks, the interview processes, is designed to surface a different kind of person. A more visible kind. A more conventional kind.

Some of the best leadership decisions I’ve seen founders in the £2m–£50m range make weren’t about hiring externally or sending someone on a course. They were about finally recognising someone who’d been leading all along and giving them the seat that matched what they were already doing.

My keynote ‘Dare to Be Different’ is built around exactly this idea. That the leadership you need might already be inside your business, sitting in a seat you haven’t looked at yet. If you’re organising an event and want to give your audience something that genuinely changes how they think, lets have a coffee

#Leadershipinplainsight

There was nobody else to be seen as we waited for an ambulance so I had to step up to help. After 30-40 seconds I looked up to see where Joseph was. He’d positioned himself between me delivering CPR, and the lady. He’d full eye contact and was trying to reassure her.

After around 4-5 minutes I looked up again and he had led her away to a bench and was still talking to her when the emergency services arrived.

After we handed over to the paramedics we continnued our walk and I asked if he sought eye contact and moved her deliberately, he said ‘Yes’.

He then turned to me, looking at me and said ‘I just did what I thought was the right thing to do Dad’.

I thought I was stepping up and doing the leading that day but my son taught me that I wasn’t the only one.

That’s leadership. Its not a title, a qualification or ten years of experience. Its someone who sees what needs doing, knows they can help, and steps forward.

How many people in your business are sitting on exactly this kind of potential. Maybe they’re not putting their hand up because nobody’s asked, but maybe they’re not leading because you’re not giving them the permission.

The businesses I like to work with that are genuinely thriving aren’t the ones with the most senior leaders. They’re the ones where leadership is expected from everyone, regardless of role, and where stepping forward is rewarded rather than questioned.

#Unconventional #Leadership #Speaker

We’ve been conditioned to look for leadership in a very narrow set of places. Job titles. Seniority. The person who speaks most confidently in a room. The one who puts their hand up for every new initiative. The one who’s done the MBA or been on the expensive leadership programme.

And so we promote that person. We give them the team. We send them on the course. We call them a leader because they tick the boxes we’ve been taught to look for.

Meanwhile, some of the most natural leaders in the building are sitting in roles nobody associates with leadership at all. The junior who calms the team down when a project goes sideways. The ops person everyone gravitates towards when they need honest advice. The account manager whose clients would follow them to a competitor without hesitation, not because of what they sell, but because of who they are.

These people don’t look like leaders in the traditional sense. They haven’t been on the course. They’re not the loudest. They probably haven’t asked for a promotion. But they’re doing the thing that matters most: they’re making the people around them better.

When I ask a room full of business owners to think of a really great leader, someone who genuinely shaped them, they almost never name a CEO or a board member. They name a teacher. A coach. A first boss who took a chance on them. A grandparent who ran a shop. People whose leadership had nothing to do with status and everything to do with how they made others feel.

If you’re a founder building a business in the £2m–£50m range, the question isn’t whether you have leaders inside your business. You do. The question is whether you’re seeing them. Because if you’re only looking where you’ve been trained to look, you’re missing the people who could transform your team from the inside out.

This isn’t soft thinking. It’s commercial thinking. A business with depth of leadership is a business that runs when the founder isn’t there. It’s a business that retains its best people. It’s a business that someone wants to buy.

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I’ve been in rooms where business leaders introduce a shiny powerpoint, they can recite their 5 year plan from memory, but they can’t remember the names of all the people in the room.

When I run the ‘think of a really good leader’ exercise, the qualities people list are generally very similar:

* Listened to
* Believed in
* Gave me confidence
* Was honest
* Made time for me

Not once, never ever ever ever !! has anyone said ‘they had a brilliant strategy’ I’m not saying it dosen’t matter, because it does. But, thats not what people carry in their heads once they leave the meeting room.

The reason this matters commercially is incredibly simple – the leaders that teams remember are the ones that stick with them when the ‘sh#t hits the fan’. They’re the ones who build loyalty that survives a bad quarter, a tough restructure, or a competitor offering 10% more money. They’re also the ones who create teams that don’t fall apart when the founder steps back.

Strategy gets the buy in for the journey ahead, but its your people that will get you to the destination you’re aiming for.

#Unconventional #Leadership #Speaker

BUT I can tell you exactly how he made me feel. He made Captain, he said he believed in me and he made feel confident about myself, at times when I was often doubting myself.

46 years ago, I still remember his name and I still remember the feeling. It wasn’t about what he said – it was all about how he made me feel.

When I share this in a room full of business owners and ask them to think of their own version, the room goes quiet in a way it rarely does during a business talk.

The reason is that everyone has a ‘Mr Bryan’ – a teacher, a coach, a first boss, a parent, a mentor — someone who made them believe they could do more than they thought they could.

Here’s what I find truly remarkable about this. Its that these leaders weren’t trying to be remembered. They weren’t reading books about leadership or attending courses on how to inspire people. They were just being themselves, paying attention, being kind, investing in someone who needed it.

THEY STAYED – not in the room but they stay in someone’s head for years……….and that’s the kind of leadership that actually changes things.

The question isn’t whether your team will remember you, because they will. The real question is WHAT they’ll remember.

If you want to explore what lasting leadership looks like in your business with an Unconventional approach, my work with Senior Leadership Teams is built around exactly this kind of conversation.

#Unconventional #Leadership #Speaker

The week after leaving school I got a job on a trawler, making tea boy, gutting fish, scrubbing fish boxes and generally cleaning the boat. It was definitely real life.

And it didn’t take me long to realise that what I wanted for myself was not only out of reach, it had never felt so far away. I didn’t know it then, but it was teaching me about life, leadership and teamwork. Lessons I’ve never forgotten and lessons that I value to this day.

We all have a definition of a good leader and I don’t think there’s a one size fits all, because we’re all so different. You might feel you have natural leadership ability and take it easily in your stride, or you might struggle with it every day, worrying you’re not good enough.

I think it’s about being authentic and recognising the value of everyone in the team.

But whatever you feel about your leadership ability, it actually doesn’t matter.

Why do I say this? because ultimately you don’t decide if you’re a leader, people decide whether or not they are prepared to follow you. It really is that simple, if people are following you, you’re a leader.

The top five things that helped me become a confident leader:

1. Remembering what it felt like when I had a good leader and how I responded
2. Being very clear about my definition of success and how to achieve it
3. Leading with a light hand. Trusting my own skills and the skills and ability of my team
4. Showing my trust in my team by resisting the urge to micromanage
5. Controlling my own destiny, admitting when I’m wrong, asking for help from my team and consistently showing that I value their contribution

I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to go about the business of leadership. It can be complex, rewarding, thankless, frustrating, and impossible, but when your team starts to be consistently successful, and you realise that you’re no longer flying by the seat of your pants, you can start to enjoy it.

I think enjoying being a leader really matters because confidence and enjoyment are contagious. I know I’m most successful when I see my team enjoying the challenges we face together and overcoming them together.

I am confident in my ability to lead, but I never lose sight of my goals: to be better, to keep learning and to keep improving.

When I sold a second business, I didn’t get remotely emotional about the brand, the revenue or the office we had. For the month running up to the sale I spent most of my time thinking about the people I would be leaving behind once I left.

I’ve since realised that quite a lot of what we were doing was setting up the next generation of the leaders I’d worked with, some of which have gone on to grow far more that I could have helped them to. When I stop and think about that, it makes me extremely proud.

Most business leaders I meet think their legacy is the deal, but its not. I’ve asked a number of exited founders what they’re most proud of and a large proportion tell me it seeing where its people have got to.

Ask yourself, are you really building a team and creating an environment where people grow into roles that take your business forward ? If the answer is ‘No’ then its unlikely that someone else will want to invest in it either.

When I ask a room full of business owners to think of a great leader, they don’t think of someone who built a great business. They think of someone who built them and trusted them to keep on growing. That is the kind of leadership team an acquirer gets interested in buying.

As someone who’s been there a couple of times, your real legacy isn’t the money you’ve got in the bank, it’s the next generation of leaders you create, develop and leave behind.

My son Joseph was joining me. Was I doing it to impress him? Not consciously, but my ego definitely was. 20 minutes into the first climb, I knew after recently rowing the Atlantic and using different muscle groups, I was nowhere near the level of training and fitness needed for this tough challenge.

Even worse, I was holding the amazing Richard Carman and Will Manners back. Swallowing my pride, I dropped out. I told them I would be waiting to support them all the way. They accomplished the incredible 3 Peaks Cycle Challenge, raising over £6700 for The Brain Tumour Charity.

I like to be out there doing it and I think I’m pretty good at looking at what I do, what I want to do, and able to assess my ability realistically. I have climbed Mont Blanc, so I know I can climb. This time? I’d totally underestimated my fitness level but my overriding feeling was not wanting to be a dead weight for Rich and Will to carry.

Dropping back to being ‘just’ one of the team is a hard lesson to learn. I struggle with it and I know I probably always will. I’m hardwired for competition, but I want to change this limiting behaviour. When you’re not the one in a starring role it can be tough to feel that your contribution is valuable and valued. I’m not used to taking a supporting role, but being able to accept this was a rich experience. I’m more than grateful that they had complete trust in Joseph and me to be the ones they’d rely on in an emergency.

Leadership roles are varied and the term ‘leader’ implies one person per team. I haven’t found that to be the case, not in business or in life. Any team of individuals has varied and significant skills, crucial to the overall success of a venture. Recognising leadership ability and not limiting it to the person up front, helps us to value each individual contribution and understand the vital role each one plays to motivating other team members.

In cricket for example, you have the captain. He/she is the outright leader, but there are sub groups with their own leaders: the bowling group, led by the bowler who can inspire best performances; the batting group, influenced by the batter who leads by example; the introverted personalities, led by the person whose mission is to keep the spirits up. Leaders lead, whether they’re officially appointed or not.

Recognising leadership motivates people and gives them responsibility to continue to perform and lead others to greater achievements. When you’re ‘seen’ you do better. And when your leadership is recognised, even in a minor role, it makes you feel great.

Understanding that wanting to climb the peaks was my ego talking, but knowing how vital the support vehicle was to Rich and Will, allowed me to forget about my ego. I enjoyed every second of the trip and the time I spent with Joseph? It was a priceless gift.

It’s been a hard route back to normal, whatever ‘normal’ is now.

As we head back after the holiday period and toward FY23, many businesses will be looking for a quick sales boost to fight off the potential of a winter of discontent. With the possible tightening of belts, this can often mean lowering standards to achieve more sales.

Add the increasing use of AI material, masquerading as human content, and it’s difficult to know if what we hear can be trusted. We’re bombarded with noise from social media, emails, ads and news reporting.

How do we evaluate what’s authentic and what’s not? What steps can we take to make sure what we’re seeing and hearing is true?

The simple answer is we can’t. At some point we must decide to believe the people we ‘feel’ are authentic, because we have no other choice.

As a consultant, speaker and mentor to businesses that are looking to improve their growth, I’m conscious that sales activity and sales people are often considered near the bottom rung in terms of authenticity.

I speak a lot about authenticity, because it seems to be disappearing more every day. Not only is it at the heart of a good leader, I think it’s at the very heart of being a good person. I know that if I believe a person is authentic, I listen harder, trust what they say and am more likely to buy from them.

When I mentor business leaders, I emphasise the importance of clear communication with their staff and customers. It’s essential to building their reputation as a trusted, authentic brand. A good reputation translates very quickly into accelerated growth.

We’ve probably all been guilty of closing a sale that we knew was not quite right for a customer, I know I did when I was starting out.  Age and experience have taught me that it’s never OK.

Authenticity means not selling to a customer who won’t benefit from your product or service. It means listening more than talking in the discovery stage. And it means open and honest answers to every question.

Every sales person should understand that active listening, good matching of need to product and an easy close will happen naturally, once you focus on trust.

Many times, during discovery, I have told a prospect that what I offer isn’t right for them and have recommended someone or something else that will better suit their need. Yes, it’s true that I lost that potential sale, but each time, I’ve gained an ambassador who recommends me to others.

Personal recommendation produces the golden ticket prospect. Your reputation has won you the opportunity and your authenticity has been recognised. Being authentic makes you feel good, your customers benefit and your business grows.

Your reputation is an asset, authenticity is priceless.

No such luck, and we arrive at Samphire Hoe to start the swim in the half light of near dawn. As leader, I elected to be the first swimmer. It’s time to clip on lights and goggles, strip down to trunks and prepare to get into the water – WTF am I doing? I’m in such a state that later, I can’t recall the feel and temperature of the water. I swim like a madman from boat to beach, face planting on the pebbles, trying to stand up and pretending to be in control. I can’t stop shaking. My guts are rolling with nerves and adrenaline as I step clear of the water line.
Fortunately there’s no time to dwell, the hooter sounds and it’s on!

I plunge back into the swell, taking on a couple of slugs of sea water in the first couple of strokes. I try to count to 60 to mark a minute, but can’t concentrate. I’m struggling to breathe with the occasional retch of sea water coming back up. I realise I’m already out of my depth both literally and metaphorically. Anxiety takes hold, I’m not tough enough for this, I’m sinking. I start to shout at myself, ‘just swim, don’t you f#@king dare let the team down’. Occasionally I add, ‘you’ll be able to breathe properly later’. I hope it’s true because 15 minutes in, I’m ill from the amount of sea water I’ve swallowed, retching under water every now and then and my whole body is screaming out to stop, but I keep going, keep going, keep going…

Best practice starts at the top. Leading by example is a great motivator. Good leaders are not born, they’re trained. No-one in any position should be left just to logon and carry on. This includes the CEO, the management and the executive positions. Our swim team trained long and hard for our attempt and our training gave us the confidence to keep going, when we faced the
enormity of the English Channel.

All professional team members are picked for their good skills and knowledge, ensuring they continue to grow in expertise means regular training and coaching. Unique company knowledge, and the skills and experience required for a business’ specific growth strategies need to be learned and practiced.

A well-trained workforce, who know what they’re doing, understand what’s expected of them and expect to be responsible and held accountable, will outperform any other team, under any other style of leadership or team management. They make their own success because it matters and they have ‘skin in the game’.
Thorough training builds confidence. It ensures you’re able to make good decisions in the toughest circumstances and swim through critical moments, without it, the danger of sinking is very, very real.