I've been thinking about leadership a lot recently, but a conversation with my friend Charlie stopped me in my tracks. I started wondering, how do you lead when there's only you to lead?
Charlie runs a horticultural business providing beautiful, sturdy herbs to garden centres around Wales. Most of the time Charlie's business is just Charlie. Charlie does the fun jobs, the grim jobs and the dull ones. He’s responsible for standards, morale and vision. Charlie wins when his business goes well, and when things take a wobble - last year's bitter winter, this Spring's tonsillitis, Charlie has to ride that too.
What got me thinking about leadership was listening to Charlie talk about somebody else's business.
Again, nothing global. A tiny Deli and Restaurant called Ultra Comida, in Narbeth, a little town in West Wales.
What Charlie saw in Ultra Comida was a real commitment to excellence. Excellence that really shines out in every last detail. And the effort that it takes to get that kind of detail right.
Charlie empathised. Excellence doesn't come easy and he knows it.
Hearing him talk though, of his admiration and delight in someone doing something, anything, really well, was exciting. There was so much energy and passion in what he had to say, it lifted the mood in the room and lifted me.
Enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm. It's hard to be so-so about something that's fabulous.
Of course tapas might not be your thing. Or gardening. Or having a supplier that really cares about how well her product meets your customer's needs. But boy, it's hard to not to love the buzz around a thing well done.
For the last couple of weeks I've been participating in a discussion hosted by the Wales Management Council. Just writing it here, it feels like a long way from Charlie's polytunnels, but I don't think it is.
The discussion kicked off around a dinner table of invited guests. The criteria for invitation were simply that each guest would be likely to have something interesting to contribute to a discussion about 'Management' and 'Wales'. And they did. The discussion has carried on since in the pages of a LinkedIn group. Passionate, enthusiastic and diverse. But also tentative, searching, curious.
The focus of our discussion has been excellence.
For the academics and entrepreneurs and others who made up that initial guest list, and the participants who have added their contributions to the discussion since, the puzzle is how to lead towards excellence, when you don't necessarily have anyone to lead.
As a group, we might have a slightly wider circle of influence than Charlie, running his company of one, but there isn't a whole crowd of folk lining up behind saying, 'Excellence? Brilliant! Where do we start?'
Thinking about it, I guess it's no different than any other kind of leadership. After all, when was there ever a whole crowd of folk just lining up to follow?
Which brings me back to Charlie.
If we want excellence and great leadership…
We need to be excellent leaders. (Hmmm – that brings the challenge home a little…) Starting with a company of one.
We need to be committed to the effort of excellence. (So, no easy out then.)
And we need to practise the care and support that makes effort sustainable.
The tough stuff is that we need to be what we want to see in the world. To slightly misquote Ghandi.
The good news is that we also need to get excited.
I doubt that anyone ever sold excellence on a ticket of ‘could try harder’.
No. That’s a job for enthusiasm.
Charlie’s enthusiasm reminded me of what excellence feels like. It feels challenging. It feels edgy and alive. It feels worth getting up for.
Leadership is all about taking people to a place that only exists, if people choose to follow.
So we need to paint the picture. Share the good stuff. Lift the energy in the room.
Perhaps the scale of our leadership ambitions matter less than our integrity, and our ability to communicate with enthusiasm, a real sense of something worthwhile, valuable and better.
Oh, and by the way, if you're interested in the chunkiest, most most fragrant and delicious garden herbs, ask your local garden centre to get in touch with Charles Warner at www.grown-inwales.co.uk
