Hosted the second in our series of webinars with Henley Business School last night, and like last week’s session, learnt a lot. Not just from guests Tracey Swanepoel and Jon Foster-Pedley – but also from challenges technology seems to love throwing when you least expect it.
The webinar’s focus was on business leadership during these unusual times. Our experts agreed that real quality has never been more valuable. The ideal traits: stability, dependability, consistency, caring and decisiveness. Not dissimilar to what every citizen anywhere in the world wants right now from their own political leadership.
Which reminded me of a game Warren Buffett enjoys playing with the dozens of student groups he hosts every year at his modest offices in Omaha (followed, of course, by T-Bone and hash browns at Gorat’s). Buffett likes asking his young guests to choose the person in the group they’d pick if able to earn 10% of what they earned over the rest of their lifetime.
Their choice, Buffett shares, is never the smartest, nor the person who is easiest on the eye. After they’ve reflected, most groups select the person among them who is the most dependable, reliable, stable. Which tells us qualities possessed by real leaders are the things we admire most in others – measured and consistent through stormy weather or fair.
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