Leighton on Leadership Gala Dinner

Surviving the credit crunch, corporate social responsibility and the importance of good communication were three themes that dominated the first ever On Leadership event, at a gala dinner in London.

Billed by one guest as the ‘best pre-Christmas networking party in town', with a ‘galaxy of talent', the On Leadership event at the London Intercontinental in Park Lane provided lessons in leadership from some of the UK's top businessmen.

Allan Leighton was joined on stage by business luminaries Sir Stuart Rose of Marks & Spencer and ex-BUPA chief executive Val Gooding for a live discussion in front of 375 guests on what it takes to head a business today. Also on hand was a roll-call of senior business people in the audience, including Lastminute.com's founder Martha Lane Fox, the Royal Mail's chief executive Adam Crozier and Random House chairman and chief executive Gail Rebuck, who all chipped in with their thoughts on leading businesses through the downturn.

Although all the participants have cut their teeth running huge companies, Leighton insisted that the advice was just as relevant for small firms. ‘Running a small business is exactly the same as running a big business - in fact in some ways it's harder,' he said.
The timing of the event, in the same week that retail giants Woolworths and MFI went into administration, fuelled much discussion on leadership in times of adversity. Channel Four's Jon Snow, who compered the event, asked the panel to describe the problems of running a business when it was impossible to judge how bad the economy would be six months down the line.

The key, said Rose, is to keep moving, keeping the business relevant and ahead of the times. He said; "Woolies is a very good example of a business that did not move with the times. If you do not move in the business world you are dead.

"There are always customers who don't want change. I get letters all the time from people complaining about things such as M&S making the food section too dark. Well, fine, it might seem dark to some, but to others it is quite sexy and modern. My view is if you don't try to move on, the business is dead.

"The credit crunch is only going to accelerate the process of decline. The strong businesses will survive, the ones in the middle will hopefully very quickly run like hell to keep out of it and the ones who can't make it will go bust."

Leighton echoed the point, adding that, as well as hiring a great CEO, another key to survival is to get the best out of staff and that takes respect.

"There are two groups of people in any business, the top four or five people who run it and then the people who do the work on a day-to-day basis who are the ones who make the money," he said. "Making it work is about respect. My mum taught me respect is something you earn. Well, it isn't, it is something you give.
"If people feel respected, if they feel like they're doing an important job, and if you keep their job as simple as possible, they'll blossom."
Surinder Arora, the founder of hotel group Arora, offered an interesting analogy on the notion of respect and getting the most from a team.
He said; "Years ago, I used to referee football. In every game we used to have so many bookings and sending offs that I wasn't really enjoying it. Then, one of the league referees turned to me and said; ‘Surinder, if you want these 22 players to respect you, you have to respect them first'. He was right and that is the way I have hopefully gone on in my business life too.

"All businesses have to be stronger right now and listen to these lessons because only the fittest will survive and still be there at the other end of the recession."

But, asked Snow, can the blame for the demise of companies such as Woolworths, be solely laid at the door of poor leadership?

‘Yes,' said Leighton, who added that it was impossible to simply opt to lead in the good times.

"Businesses that fail, fail because of the leadership," he said. "You can be unlucky, but I don't buy that as a reason for the complete collapse of a company

"You cannot accept being a leader if all you want to do is the good stuff. There are bad leaders and good leaders. Businesses that are successful are successful because they are well lead and businesses that are unsuccessful are unsuccessful because they are badly led."

"We've all gone along with it in the boom times. We've all had our debt, we've all used our credit cards and we've all jumped onto that particular bandwagon. We can't just suddenly jump off it saying; it was nothing to do with us. If you do not understand what your business is about and you don't understand the products that you are selling, then you have got no chance."

Val Gooding said that now, perhaps more than ever, communication skills were vital for a leader, citing the recent US election success of Barack Obama. She said; "Obama is an amazingly articulate human being. He is a great communicator and has a way of getting across to a very wide range of people and managing to get them on side.

"We don't know yet whether he can translate that into running a country and becoming the greatest leader in the Western World, because we have no evidence, but on the evidence of running that campaign and winning, the key differentiator was his articulate communication skills."

Gooding also tackled a question from the audience about whether charitable giving and corporate social responsibility would suffer as a result of the economic downturn. She shared the view of her fellow panel members that CSR was now so ingrained in many businesses that it was almost unthinkable that such initiatives would disappear.

She said; "If you are in business, the one thing that you must do is stay in business and deliver value for your shareholders, because if you fail to do that your primary responsibility is missed. However, Corporate Social Responsibility is about running a good business, staying in business and using the principles of sustainability to contribute to the community more broadly.

"One of the things that has been achieved in the last decade or so, is that CSR ideas have become a lot more embedded in the fabric of what we all do. It is not going to be a case of we are going to slash all our budgets and we are not doing all that stuff any more. For many companies it is now part of the business."

Leighton quoted some inspiring figures from the Royal Mail, where 52,000 people on the payroll give to charity every month. He said; "We don't decide that is what is happening, that is what they do. The best thing about CSR is it happens because everyone in the organisation wants it to happen."

To finish, Leighton was asked what or who most inspired him as a leader. He answered that it was no individual or single event, but rather that he was learning from his peers every single day.

He said; "It doesn't matter what background you come from; if you are smart, you watch how other people operate and adapt it to your own personality, you will learn.

"There is not a day goes by where I don't see someone do something that I thought was pretty good. I think, I can do that and then adapt it to my own personality. Never stop learning."