Mal Fletcher comments

Mal Fletcher

I was riding in a cab past the Palace of Westminster just as Tony Blair was closing his final Prime Minister's Question Time, and bidding farewell to ten years as premier of Britain.

A few minutes earlier we had passed Buckingham Palace, where news crews were already setting up to cover the arrival of Mr. Blair for his final audience with the Queen; just before Gordon Brown would arrive to be asked to head the government.

The British media have been talking about this day for a long while. Of course, as you'd expect in a vibrant democracy, many people have been hoping for an end to the Blair era for years. Despite the misgivings of many, though, he had still managed to win three terms in government, a feat never before achieved by a Labour leader.

Later in the day, I arrived in Paris, where the French have recently seen a change of personnel at the top, with President Sarokozy commencing his term in office.

As these leadership changes take place, I'm reminded that leadership at any level is a temporary thing; that leaders have only so much time in which they can bring change.

With all these changes, I find myself reflecting on what makes a good leader.

It may involve many practical tasks, but the essence of really effective leadership is the ability to re-shape cultures: be it in business, politics, community service or the church. Leadership is largely about realigning people's collective sense of what is good and right, so that they behave in more constructive and mutually beneficial ways.

That doesn't necessarily mean that leadership is about doing what pleases most of the people most of the time. Often, the effort to realign a culture in the long-term will mean painful and unpopular decisions in the short-term.

If, during a person's tenure at the top of any organisation, he or she can say, 'I've changed for the better the collective culture; I've moved it forward in a righteous direction', then they've succeeded as a leader.

I believe there are ten important facts relating to cultures within any organisation or people group.

I wrote about them in The Church of 2020, relating them to churches in particular; but they apply equally in business, politics and community service.

Each one has a direct bearing on the success or failure of leadership. Here they are:

• The group that has the strongest culture will become the leading voice in a society. Why do small lobby groups often exercise a level of influence in society that is way out of proportion to their size? Because they have developed a strong sense of identity and purpose based around their values and culture.
• Whoever defines the culture rules the group. If someone other than the leader is shaping the culture, cues for the group will be coming from all the wrong places.