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On Leadership by Allan Leighton

Written by: Andrew Rondeau

Article Overview: I totally believe if you want to improve a certain skill then you should model yourself on someone who already has had success in that skill.

On Leadership by Allan Leighton

I am a huge lover of self-development especially management and leadership, and a few months ago I became aware of a book by a guy called Allan Leighton. The book is On Leadership: Practical Wisdom From The People Who Know.

So I completed a small amount of research on Allan and found that he is the Chairman of Royal Mail Group amongst others. Previously he was credited with turning around a ‘basket case’ (Allan’s words) i.e. ASDA into a highly successful company that was eventually sold to US retail giant Wal-Mart.

So here is a guy who has a successful career as a manager, as a leader and I thought I could discover some new ideas from him.

So I purchased the book.

Little did I know but the book was not just Allan talking about his successful ideas but it also included 50+ other top successful leaders tips and thoughts as well.

What Allan had done was talk to his ‘mates’ in the business world for 20 minutes max and picked their brains on leadership.

Allan believes meetings should last no longer than 20 minutes (and I was to experience that – see below).

One of the stories, which Allan shares, goes back to the time he worked for Mars – the confectionary maker. On his first day at Mars any Maltesers that fell off the line, Allan had to sweep up. He spent three exhausting hours with a brush chasing little balls of chocolate as they rolled around the factory floor. His success rate was dreadful.

Eventually the supervisor came over and deliberately trod on one of the Maltesers. Allan swept the crushed Malteser up, trod on all the other Maltesers and swept them up in a fraction of the time.

The supervisor had purposely watched Allan struggle for 3 hours. From that day onwards, Allan believed in ‘asking for help’ rather than struggling along.

And today, Allan spends as much time as possible going ‘back to the floor’ to see the operations running, offering advise and listening to his staff.

It is a great book if you want to learn from those Managers and Leaders who are household names in the Corporate world.

Individuals like James Dyson. You know what everyone who starts working for Dyson have to do on their first day? Build a vacuum cleaner. This is whether you are an accountant, call centre operator and or any other job at Dyson’s.

It is a great idea.

Others include Lord Browne (BP), Sir Philip Green (Arcadia), Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco), Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp), Stuart Rose (M&S), plus 50 others.

The result is like having 50+ plus books in one. It is jam-packed with ideas.

One of which I am implementing now – meetings only lasting 20 minutes. No more. It keeps you focussed, you make decisions and then you agree the next steps. Try it.

Allan’s approach to interviewing successful leaders gave me an idea about one of my own new products. I decided to do the same and I approached Allan for an interview. I asked for 1 hour. I was gobsmaked when he personally replied, said ‘yes’ and added I would only get 20 minutes of his time. I did not mind.

We conducted the interview, it was brilliant. He was so approachable, down to earth, shared some great insights and ideas on being a successful manager. He did try and stop the interview after 20 minutes – I kept asking questions and actually got 25 minutes!

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Article Tags: allan leighton, asda, balls, basket case, brains, business world, chocolate, fraction, mail group, malteser, maltesers, mates, royal mail, self development, spent three, success rate, successful company, supervisor, wal mart, wisdom



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