When does leadership start? - Guy Bloom & Jamie MacPherson

In this episode, Guy Bloom sits down with long time colleague Jamie MacPherson for a conversation grounded in real leadership experience. 

This is not theory. It is what leadership looks like in practice when expectations are high, pressure is real, and people are watching. 

Together, they explore: 

•  The gap between knowing and doing in leadership 
•  What shows up under pressure 
•  The behaviours that build trust and the ones that quietly erode it 
•  The reality of leading peers, not just teams 
•  Why experience does not always equal effectiveness 

This is a conversation shaped by years of working in and around leadership, not observing it from a distance.
 
If you are serious about your impact as a leader, there is something in here for you.

00:00 Introduction to Leadership Dynamics
01:03 Defining Leadership: What Does It Mean?
04:11 The Spectrum of Leadership: Big L vs. Small L
10:02 Contextual Leadership: When Position Doesn't Matter
14:02 The Role of Followership in Leadership
19:48 The Essence of Being a Leader
29:47 Conclusion: When Does Leadership Truly Start?
 

To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.

The link to everything CLICK HERE
UK: 07827 953814
Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com
Web: www.livingbrave.com

Transcript

Jamie (00:00)
I was just gonna... You can edit this out, can't you?

Guy Bloom (00:00)
Yeah.

could do if I wanted to. Yeah, go on, let's see if it's interesting. I might leave it here.

Jamie (00:06)
I was going to say,

is there anything between you and me and our dynamic that we need to be better at or watch out for this time?

Guy Bloom (00:13)
I think we should leave that in the episode as this is the second one. No, and I think we're all right. I think just you being me, even if people will gravitate towards... It'll be fine. It'll be perfect in its imperfection and people will go, that guy bloomed like he's not my cup of tea, but that Jamie fella, he's bloody fantastic or, you know, or something.

Jamie (00:21)
You being me and me being you and it'll be perfect as it is.

Nice.

Let the

dollars roll in.

Guy Bloom (00:39)
Let the dollars roll in and the pieces of the puzzle fall where they may. Right, let's get on. So, we're professionals. So actually just move your camera down a little bit so I've got a little bit, that's perfect. So ⁓ I think the title of today's episode is At What Point Do You Become A Leader? No? What is it?

Jamie (00:46)
Let's go.

At what level does leadership really start?

Guy Bloom (01:06)
OK, it's very similar.

Jamie (01:08)
It's similar, but it's not the same. Because I've done some prep.

Guy Bloom (01:10)
At what level?

Just leadership.

Jamie (01:15)
And I'm showing

it to the camera right now.

Guy Bloom (01:18)
God. Really

start. Okay. Well, okay, do know what? Let's see which one ends up being the better title. Yeah, but I'm in charge of making the titles. Okay, so ⁓ at what level does leadership really start?

Jamie (01:27)
Yeah, let's do it.

Guy Bloom (01:38)
That's a good question, isn't it? Now I'm going to offer something then which is going to make it sound as if I'm trying to prove the validity of my first choice of title, which is, this is my opening gambit even, which is we would have to understand...

Jamie (01:49)
Is this your opening gap?

Guy Bloom (02:01)
or an organization would have to understand, an individual might need to understand what it means then to, or what does leadership mean? Yeah, I think just that it's most simple without us doing a training course to define, you know, well, where does parenthood really kick in? Well, I might argue, you know.

⁓ at that point or this point but you'd have to have a definition of when it is. Is it when the baby's three or four years old or is it in preparation for the baby or is it you know is it a mindset? So yeah I think that's the first point of call which is what then is leadership?

Jamie (02:45)
Yeah, yeah, and I would go with that. And I looked up the etymology, is that the right word? The sort of history of the word leadership, because I've heard some things around leadership coming from somebody who used to stand on the front of boats leading ships. One of the interesting things that came out from that sort of studying of where words came from was apparently in old German or Norse, leadership.

Guy Bloom (02:51)
etymology.

Mm-hmm.

Jamie (03:14)
leading comes from the word letho, which I thought was quite nice, apparently, which means finding your way. So the whole sense of finding your way I thought was quite nice. Why? Because to your point about defining what leadership is, you could go quite narrow. And you could go, leadership kicks in like parenthood kicks in the moment you develop some sort of people responsibility or that sort of thing.

And I suppose I would go slightly the other end of the spectrum, which is a bit stoic, which is wherever you sit in an organization, be it from the most junior person to the CEO, at some point, we're having to lead ourselves, whatever the weather, and actually how well we do that will affect how well we might lead others. So then you're into this whole thing around.

Big L versus small L leadership. Do I lead myself and others or how well do I lead myself kind of stuff? Because I suppose in light of some of the things I've been through over the last couple of years is ultimately, whether it's a great environment or not, and you'll find yourself in somewhere, you've agreed to join that organization. Now you might discover it's not quite as helpful or things when you get in there.

but you've got to lead yourself to figure out a way of navigating, having an impact, making a difference, adding some sort of value. Yeah, that would be my opening gambit piece.

Guy Bloom (04:54)
Okay, so because it is just such a massive topic, each one of these could be a conversation that on a program or in discussion it could obviously go on for some time. I've got leadership's root as the word laden, L-A-E-D-A-N, which means to guide, to go before, to show the way. And I think that's probably interesting because I think that

Jamie (05:18)
Yeah, yeah.

Guy Bloom (05:22)
possibly starts to indicate situation and the context that you find yourself in and the position that you may hold and the expectation of it. So I may say that on that spectrum is I if we said at what level does leadership start? Well it might be positionally the job role

comes with an expectation. It's got it in the job title or if it hasn't it's in the description and if it isn't when we gave you the job you were told that it could be you know it's this resource it's this commercial expectation you're leading this many people so it's built into the to the job role so it doesn't really matter if you want to or not there's an expectation that comes with the job and at the other end I think you've got this well it may not be the job

And you still may be senior, but the situation you're in requires either you or somebody to step forward and to own the space or to have an opinion and to be curious. So I'm going to leave with, it could at one end be, where does leadership start? Leader of self. Coming back to what you were saying, your relationship with...

what leader of self might mean and your own personal narrative around that. No position, no job title versus the role that you can inhabit. But here's the interesting thing. I think you can have contextual leadership that requires no position, but I don't think you can have positional leadership without the other one of being your own identity. I think if you're in that role, you have to have done the work with your identity, but actually you could have done, you could.

be a leader of self and hold no position. I'll, and then we can go further with it, but I think those two streams exist.

Jamie (07:20)
Yeah, and I guess two things jumped into my head. One would be, I remember reading about Steve McQueen, the actor.

Guy Bloom (07:28)
Steve McQueen.

Jamie (07:29)
Dave McQueen, apparently earlier in his career.

Guy Bloom (07:32)
In fact, I'm

gonna pause you for a second. Stay there, don't go away.

This is how much I love Steve McQueen.

Jamie (07:41)
Here we go. Yeah, yeah. Well, so,

yeah, yeah. And so apparently, early in his life, so he had, he was in the Navy or the Marines or something or other. And people would, people talked about this particular incident where things were going wrong. I don't think it was active service in a, but something dangerous was happening. Was there a fire or something like that? And that...

Guy Bloom (07:47)
I love it.

Jamie (08:10)
to your point about context, he was junior, but he had stepped into a space where he sorted stuff out, he saved people. And the people remarked that it was, they hadn't seen that in him, but that he was the one who could stay cool under pressure, do the, respond appropriately in the moment. And as a result, know, demonstrated what people would regard as leadership, forget the position, forget the hierarchy, all that sort of stuff. So.

that sense of how you carry yourself in a situation. And I suppose the second example is one that I remember. So back in the day, it was a university holiday job. worked as a postman for a summer, was ⁓ hard on getting up in the morning, but actually was a really, really good job. we used to get, so I used to do the walks, used to deliver the mail and...

We used to be driven out, there'd be about five or six postmen with the bikes on the back of this van. And we'd be driven out to the beginning of our walks. And it's a really weird thing, isn't it? It's not, I mean, 30 years on, it's not a massively consequential job to my career that I chose later, but there's a guy who used to take us out in the vans and he struck me and it's left an impression on his ability to be conscientious about making sure we got to...

caught there on time, taking us to the dropout points. He was just doing a really good job and he was, and there was something about his demeanor that has stuck with me, even though he wasn't like the CEO or things like that. And I guess to the way does leadership really start was, I was kind of thinking about it. He was doing a good job, conscientious job, but it was like he almost had his own standards, not the standards that were expected for his role.

Guy Bloom (09:48)
Yeah.

Jamie (10:02)
You know, he's been told to do it in a certain way, but he's carrying himself and he's caring about how he does it to a greater degree. And I always, and therefore the impact on others around him was that he was good and he had a good, really nice impact in terms of, to your point, you know, leading the way. I'm not leading the way in terms of the black and white of my role, but I'm leading the way, I mean, I suppose you would call it culturally.

in terms of how you showed up. So I guess there are two kind of different stories around that sense of, you know, leadership could start anywhere. Part of it is harder to put your finger on, but essentially it's like, does it have an impact, a positive impact on those around you? it because it's a specific context or be it because of just how you carry yourself.

Guy Bloom (10:53)
Well, so if we're then going to say leadership may be context specific, i.e. you're on a motorway, there's an accident and somebody just takes control of the situation, it wouldn't be, well, excuse me, I'm a 55 year old MD. You go, well, actually I'm an 18 year old nurse. Well, I'll you who I'm listening to. Right, so that moment is required at work anyway, you've got the role, right.

Jamie (11:02)
Okay.

Guy Bloom (11:21)
accident turns up and you're a doctor from A &E. Well, I really would expect you now to own this, right? So it's in the role. And then there's something, which I'm hearing in what you're saying, which is this concept of followership, which is you may or may not hold a role, and that's where it becomes interesting, doesn't it? Because you could have the role, the job title...

but I'm doing what you say, but I'm not emotionally following you. I'm not invested in you. I'm doing it through direction and fear of repercussions. Or, regardless of the role that you have, the manner of you, and it may not be that I follow you as in I follow, maybe I follow your lead in this moment.

But what I am is, for the want of a word, I like the cut of your jib. There's something about the way that you are or behave, and it doesn't even have to be, in essence.

very crafted but if I, for example, I find you to be very honest or I just think you have a really strong sense of commercial awareness or it doesn't matter is, I, in that context, I follow you. I follow the manner of you, the lead of you, the intellect that you have or the behaviours that you demonstrate. So I think it can be contextual now. I think it can be role expectation and I think it can be the overarching experience I'm having of you, which could be very immediate. It's a specific scenario and

your manner means where you are taking control and actually I'm happy to follow you through to you are my boss I've known you for two years I ate your guts but I've got to do as you say so leadership where does it really start we'll get to that in a moment but this is the foundational thinking I think that leads to that

Jamie (13:09)
Well, and that's why I quite like that definition later at the beginning, is, and I know this is very big picture, but again, this whole sense of we're all in this thing called life and we find ourselves in organizations and we have a hierarchy and structure which protects and makes things potentially easier to navigate when you've got large numbers of people. But ultimately,

I've got to find my way. Am I getting from this situation what I want? Which could be to what you're saying, it's a situation of pressure and I recognise that if it's not me, then this isn't going to happen and I need to step in. But the sense of whatever my role expectation is, I show leadership because I lead myself and as a result, I inspire others to follow or do things in such a way that we get a

positive resolution in that situation, which is more stark with the Steve McQueen example where something's on fire and you've got to sort it out through to, you know, it's a fairly benign culture. We're not doing particularly well, but there's a particular individual or a team which might be lower down the hierarchy that seems to be knocking it out of the park. So I was working with a Formula One team and they were struggling culturally. And I mean, it wasn't because of lack of effort, but they were...

stuck in the middle of their ranking of teams and they wanted to get better and they were a bit stuck. But they recognized that there was a particular part of the business which by external metrics were the best out of all of their competitors. And they were able to lead, create positive performance, demonstrate really positive leadership where the general context was more, know, not really happening.

And they became weirdly the role models for actually we've got to do more of what they're doing, even though they're not in a central part of the whole business.

Guy Bloom (15:09)
Yeah, and I think this is where one of the big things that we do is, you we observe, we, you know, we're blessed to work in consultancies, sorry, we are the consultancy, we're blessed to in environments where...

Jamie (15:22)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (15:22)
we

see 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 versions of these things playing out, which is, some respects, it, in its simplicity comes its complexity, because actually it's quite a simple concept, but it plays out in a million different ways because of the context that people are in and the characteristics that people have. So I think the trick with this is maybe not a definitive answer, but probably some things are true. And one of them is, I think at one end,

at what level does leadership really start or at what point do you become a leader. I put those two things very close to each other, which is part of it is a personal decision.

And the other end of that is the expectation of you being one. Now those two things, when they're put together, work quite well. I think I am one, even if don't know if I'm any good at it, but I definitely believe I am one, and the role is expected. It's expected in the job. But those two things don't have to become together. I don't have the role, but my behaviour...

may be all the behaviours that are by definition expected within the role.

Jamie (16:40)
Yeah, yeah, And so therefore...

Guy Bloom (16:42)
I could, be it integrity,

be it curiosity, be it whatever you think good leadership is behaviourally, none of those things. In fact, generally when we're doing programmes, guess what, I know we know this, that when people list all the behavioural characteristics of a good leader, you end up going, you mean a good person, right?

Jamie (17:01)
Yeah, well, and I and I think part of this, we're trying to crack a nut of a challenge. I think I think that's really spot on is actually a good leader. Forget the role context stuff. And is the behavior that inspires others to I need to be more like that or I am that breathes life into what I'm doing. Why? Because they're just being really good people.

Guy Bloom (17:28)
Yeah.

Jamie (17:28)
There

being really good people in a situation where there might be an implicit, we need to get out because it's on fire through to it's a tough situation, but I'm going to speak up. I'm going to speak up with an elegance where it will get heard. That's just the skills of being a really, really good person. Now, if it, if it works out, then you might accrue through each interaction over time. They'll start to go, you're clearly a good person who is a good implicit lead. And so therefore we'll give you the.

explicit responsibilities of leadership, you now lead a team of 5,000 people or whatever it might be. I suppose the danger, know, where that then becomes an explicit expectation that you behave in such a way. But the best leaders are the ones where I'm not really changing who I'm being. I've already been a good, I'm being a good person, but just the clothes are a bit different.

Guy Bloom (18:24)
Yeah, and when we say good person, that doesn't necessarily mean likeable. And it doesn't necessarily mean nice. But what it can mean is that I respect you, I trust you, I have. So again, in my vernacular, I wouldn't say, let's not confuse good with, you know, they're lovely. Yeah, it could be. No, they're pretty on point. They're not, they don't want to be your friend, but by God, I trust them. I know where I am with them. And I wouldn't want anybody else to be my line manager.

Jamie (18:43)
Yeah, yeah.

Guy Bloom (18:54)
So that's worth just noting that when we say that. So I guess what I've got is though, characteristically, we know that if we're looking at psychometric profiles, fine, people are made up differently, but if we're just looking at the reality, take away psychometric profiles, some people are, they have good intentions, and some people are a bit of a git at the other end of the scale. Now,

Depending on that scale, isn't science at its finest, but it is just an inherent truth, is you've then got the hard context and the easy context. And I think that makes a difference because if the less than palatable person goes into an easy context, not being the most palatable person can really show out. Then when it becomes a hard context, those behaviors will probably magnify. The trouble for a

inverted commas good person is In an easy context you get to be good and it's and this is a phrase That I have which is its preservation of the personality It's you keeping the who you are if you are a good egg And we don't mean just likable, but you know all the things that good leadership would be that'd be a whole different thing in that sense But actually it's how do you stay like that?

That becomes, and that maybe is a separate podcast actually, how do you stay like that under pressure?

Jamie (20:21)
And it makes me think of it early in my consultancy career, I had a line manager who was a wonderful person, really nice, really curious, really interested in me. I felt like he was a really good leader, knew his topic, all that kind of good stuff. But he was also prepared. remember, I mean, we, don't we all, towards the end of the year, I'd get tired.

And I remember having a really good back and forth with this guy, but at one point he turned to me and went, can I just say, you seem to be going a bit soft on your goals as we get towards the end of the year. And I was slightly, a bit slightly like, that's slightly out of the character I thought that he was, because he was affable, friendly and personable and very appreciative.

But secondarily, it's one of those times where I recognise the truth of what he was saying and that actually to be a good leader, to preserve personality, actually what's really important is you continue to produce, you continue to deliver. And he did it in an elegant way, but also called me to, don't know, called me to a truth, which is you need to stay on target here, know, red leader, stay on target. And I suppose it changed my perspective on him.

Guy Bloom (21:38)
Hmm.

Jamie (21:45)
So it wasn't all nicely nice. There was an edge, which there is, know, leadership, need to get a result somehow. And that he was prepared, which added to my respect of him, prepared to call things out. But he did it in such a way that I was like, I like you and I understand why you've said that. And I probably respect you a bit more now because you've been prepared to go there.

Guy Bloom (22:07)
So that was a crafted leader, wasn't it? Somebody that can

turn the volume up in a manner that you may not enjoy, but you go, do you know what, even if I disagree with you, fair enough, you're offering it to me with craft, you're offering it to me with care, and that doesn't mean I have this thing that I do a lot times, it's not, are you all right? It's, are you all right? Or it's the willingness to have the grown-up conversation.

So if I pull back to what point does at what level does leadership really start? I probably would throw out there that it starts at two places. One doesn't require the other, but one does. So one is I don't require position for me to say leadership starts for me now. I'm going to

be a leader of self, I'm going to be very clear about who I am and what I am in the world and the way that I operate and I'm going to do all the things that I think are relevant for me to mature and grow and become more crafted and more skillful in the world. And then whatever role I inhabit, be it as mother, father, friend, line manager, it will be me in that context. So I don't need

Anybody's permission and this is what I find quite interesting. Do you need because you could ask we do it on courses, right? Do you require permission to lead? The answer would be well, you require permission to manage but not to lead because if leadership is behavioral, you don't require permission. So I don't need a role or a permission, but here's the bit. What level does leadership really start? Well, it definitely starts if you've got a job title for leadership in it.

Jamie (24:02)
Although that's a good, and I love that because we are still stuck, I think, in the linguistic bind of calling many of those leadership, explicit leadership roles manager. Rather than, we don't call them, we call them a development manager rather than a development leader.

And it's just curious as we know how language and labels can affect behavior and thought processes. What would happen if we changed, you know, you're not a manager of team, you are the leader of the team. And that, because I think people still get stuck in manage and all of the things that come with that rather than leadership, which is role modeling and all that.

Guy Bloom (24:46)
Yeah, and in guyspeak, in guysworld, which clearly is the right way of looking at things, is this. And I can see, and I know that some people when I say this, they either go, Eureka? I already thought that, or I don't agree with you, so we'll see what people think. Which is this, if I had the power, I would go, there's no more leadership titles, you are...

Jamie (24:51)
Haha!

Guy Bloom (25:12)
you come in at something like, know, whatever it is, team leader, department head, whatever it is, da da, then you go manager, department, senior manager, executive manager, you know, whatever. But there's no word leadership in any positional title. And then we all acknowledge that the leadership behaviors that you'd want to see from your CEO are exactly the same as we'd want from somebody who's cleaning the floor.

Jamie (25:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Which to the original, its behavior and the permission thing is sometimes the blocker or otherwise. I thought of two things. One was there's a photo that sometimes gets shown around of, I don't know whether it's Germany in the thirties. And there's hundreds of people doing the thing. And then there's one guy standing there like this. Now I don't know. And I'm attributing loads of things to that.

Guy Bloom (25:56)
talk about.

Yeah, the Seagull, yeah.

Jamie (26:06)
But what I find interesting and what seems to be potent for people is that whole sense of he's not getting swayed by peer pressure or by fear to go along with whatever it was to do that. So in some respects, he's behaving as a leader, a leader of different values in that context. The second thought was, I think there are some organizations

Guy Bloom (26:29)
Yeah.

Jamie (26:36)
who, there's a football organization in Spain and they talk about a ⁓ great person will always make a great player. The logic being that if you develop the person, the person's skills that are developed, their awareness, their knowledge, all that kind of stuff, will naturally inspire them to get better at the role that they're doing, which is to be a better player and things like that. So that their whole thing is actually from a leadership perspective.

we develop the human being, the person, the personality, the characteristics, the quality and the performance in a role will come as a byproduct, which is really nice.

Guy Bloom (27:14)
I agree for anybody

for anybody that wants to look up August Landmesser so August like yeah yeah yeah I'd say it's just great because we if people want to dig deeper into it so L N D E S S E R and you can read about it but it just is this phenomenal photograph which I think is brilliant for you to bring up of just 500 people in an audience giving a Nazi salute and this one bloke stood or sat there with his arm crossed

Jamie (27:20)
is that the photo?

Yes,

Is he with

arms crossed or something?

Guy Bloom (27:41)
I think he's

got arms crossed, yeah, and it's just, that's him going, nope. And that's leader of self, isn't it? That's his, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it.

Jamie (27:45)
Yeah, I'm not.

Which, if we shift a bit to, okay, so you're now in a context where you are a manager, you are expected to lead people. Another thing it's made me think of, which I think is a danger on leadership programmes is often on leadership programmes, the

essence of purpose is A, to improve the leadership capability of a certain level of a business and B, for those people to essentially through better leadership be more productive in whatever way, shape or form that is. Yet I often feel like the biggest successes in those processes is when those people feel like, do you know what? I can lead my leaders better now so I can get more traction. So yeah, I can lead down and we...

numbers are good and stuff like that. But actually what I've learned is how to or to think about in a new and nuanced way, how do I lead my leaders to get more permission, to get more trust, to get more support, blah, blah, blah. So it's interesting that actually the explicit development of leadership, sometimes what it is, as people go, the biggest thing is now I can navigate somebody above me who might not be as skilled or as positively impactful.

Guy Bloom (29:17)
Yeah. And I think that's because if you go back to that word, lay in, know, show the way, if you're gonna show the way, you have to know where you're going, right? And so, which means you have to hold space, which means you have to, and that doesn't mean take space, that means hold space. This is where I am, this is what I think, this is my opinion. In five minutes, I might change it, you might tell me I'm wrong, that's okay. You know, that's the stuff of life. So it's not about, you know, taking space by going, this is the way and off we go, but it's...

Jamie (29:18)
leader.

Guy Bloom (29:47)
right now with where we are, this is where I am and this is what I'm thinking. And I think for me, you know, we're talking about the characteristics of leadership, but I think at what point does leadership really start? I think it starts when you decide that you want to own your narrative and you want to take up a space in the world that has meaning to you and you're going to work toward being that person.

then you will or will not be in a role. Sometimes you'll be at home, sometimes you'll be with your friends, you might be 18, you might be 80. But I think once you get into that position of right now, my focus is on the who I'm being, regardless of what I'm doing. And the moment you decide I'm going to put as much energy into who I'm being as to what I'm doing, then now you're in the leadership space, regardless of the title that you inhabit.

Jamie (30:40)
Yeah,

and you would assume that if I work on my beingness, my interactions with those around me will improve. Through those interactions, broadly, you might expect things to get clearer, interests, engagement to go up, learning to accelerate. And therefore, whether you have an explicit management leadership role or not, you're more likely to accrue one.

Guy Bloom (31:08)
I agree with that because actually one of the things I'm just very, very alert to, especially at the most senior levels, is having sat with the CEO not so long ago and we were listening to somebody talk about a particular aspect of the business. And we walked out and said, poof, you really know your stuff, don't you? And he went, God, I don't know what the hell he was talking about. And he says, well, I don't. At that level, I don't know.

I asked her, what was the decision making criteria you had there? said, well there are some things I want to know that it's well thought through and, but you know the one thing I wanted to know guy? What? Is whether or not it was going to be owned, whether or not it was actually believed in, whether or not it was an opinion that was being given because it was to placate me or it's something the individual really believed in.

Why is that? Well, because when it goes wrong, which it will do at some point, know, somebody that's really clear about what they're about, it's their narrative, it's their story. So that leadership is once you have not an agenda, but you have intention and a purpose, people see that confidence, they see that certainty, which means even if I don't know, I think you do. And that's when people start buying into you.

Jamie (32:13)
I think as a facilitator, having done lots of strategy and things like that, you get a sense, which I'm assuming again, a CEO will get a sense of, which is, is this person speaking with enough detail, with enough understanding, with enough confidence that that whole package means I can trust them to run with this? Or are there so many holes in their thinking and in the way that they're presenting essentially a mini plan of how they're going to

fix something or other or how they're going to move forward on something that you kind of go through what they've said. I just don't get that confidence that they've covered things off. And I think as a part of what we're paid for when we facilitate those things is to be the safety valve to go this set of goals that you've put for the next three months just does not feel sharp enough, clear enough that it's going to get any traction when we leave this nice venue. And I'm assuming as well from CEOs, the example you're talking about is

I don't know the context detail, but I know enough of what they shared with me and how they've shared it that there's enough going on for me to be confident that they will in three months time have ticked X, Y and Z.

Guy Bloom (33:26)
is what they're telling me they're going to do, but I'm trying to figure out who they're going to be while they're doing it. And that's the thing.

Jamie (33:30)
Well, yeah, yeah.

Well, and maybe, yeah, that's it. The implicitly effective leader through their being is detailed enough, but doesn't get so detailed that they're fixated on a plan because they know that the world can change. So they've got their what if strategies, but they also know that they're not doing it on their own. So therefore they're kind of thinking, how do I, how do I loop in other expertise and other people in the team and make it a

collected all of those pieces which go, which make you go, they know what they're talking about.

Guy Bloom (34:06)
So if we bring this to a bit of a conclusion, ⁓ just because it's a topic that could never ever come to an end in some respects, but if I was going to say, if somebody said to me right now, what level does leadership really start? Jamie, what level does leadership really start? Guy, and we said, look, big topic, but in truth, in reality, shall I go first or do you want to go first? To answer that, I would say,

Jamie (34:32)
You go first. Go on, you go

Guy Bloom (34:35)
In a nutshell, that requires a lot more conversation, it starts when you decide it does, or it decides when the role that you're in demands it.

Jamie (34:45)
Yeah, and I would add leadership starts to your point earlier when an individual, I you talk about narrative, but when an individual, I suppose the narrative is the how, the being, but the sense of I want to do this thing. And if I, and I want to do it, A, because I think it's good for the business, B, because I think good for the team, C, because it's good for me. And I'm fixed on it and I'm determined enough about it.

that I will figure out how I need to go about doing that and inspire people to make that happen would be my build on that.

Guy Bloom (35:24)
note sir as always an absolute joy and we'll speak again in a minute take care

Jamie (35:25)
Always a pleasure. Yeah.