Look for the leader within

The essence of John 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.

Sir John Whitmore and David Brown at the United Nations in Geneva listening to the Secretary General's farewell speech to the staff.

Give them permission

"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."

Encourage at all levels

Not only that, but John 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 devolved leadership to wider spectrum of people."

John 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

"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."

People are now wanting more

John believes that people now want much more from their lives, both at work and in their personal lives.



Sir John Whitmore in front of United Kingdom Parliament, London.

A sense of meaning and purpose

"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.

"Inner Authority" the key to unlocking our leadership potential

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."

John 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.

Genuine Real Vision

"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."

For more information

To request further information or to let us know of your interest please contact us on +44 (0) 2073 736 431 or by email at info@performanceconsultants.com