Last week’s Leaders in London event, held in the grand surroundings of Central Hall in Westminster, was an intriguing, if ultimately slightly frustrating event.
I’m always a little dubious as to whether leadership skills can be appropriated from the undeniably impressive list of speakers at such events; will the likes of Rudy Giuliani’s personal qualities rub off on delegates by a process of osmosis?
Can you adopt his fabled ‘zero tolerance’ tactics on absenteeism or late payment to secure a change in your organisation’s fortunes? And what tangible skills can you expect to glean from the promised ‘insights on decision-making, strategy and how to win’ from Garry Kasparov?
While the chess legend’s resulting speech bore little resemblance to that description, for my money (or press pass at least) it was the actually the most engaging presentation of the opening day.
Kasparov spoke well, told some great anecdotes from the triumphs and tantrums of his most famous chess clashes and gave some intriguing insights to his adventures in the murky world of Russian politics, where, in Vladimir Putin, he’s taken on his most tricky opponent of all.
I also found myself enjoying the worryingly titled ‘CEO panel’, in which Guardian Media Group’s Carolyn McCall joined Philip Rosedale of Second Life and Prudential’s Mark Tucker to reveal the ‘secrets of CEOs’.
The session was inspired by a book of the same name, written by Steve Tappin, who you won’t be surprised to discover was also on the panel. Having interviewed 150 global chief executives in researching his book, his application of the Pareto principle - the 80:20 rule - to business leadership broadly suggests that 80% of CEOs find their job stressful to a personally damaging extent.
An analysis by a neuroscientist of 1,000 CEOs found that on average, they experience just 13 emotions across a 24 hour period. That’s from an overall palette of human emotions, Tappin tells us, of 34,000.
This “narrow emotional bandwidth” was dominated by frustration, irritation, and disappointment. And CEOs also have so much of the stress hormone cortisol racing around their bloodstreams that they’re prone to health problems and premature ageing.
No wonder so few of them are enjoying their jobs. If you were to substitute ‘CEO’ for ‘entrepreneur’ in this debate, I wonder what the conclusions would be. While the demands of big company life are distinct on many levels from those of marshalling a small, growing firm, there’s also a lot of crossover.
But I suspect the average entrepreneur is a lot happier than Tappin’s miserable confidantes. Indeed, a 2005 survey of US entrepreneurs found low divorce rates, high levels of job satisfaction and no trouble sleeping six hours or more per night.
I’m sure there have been a few more sleepless nights among business builders over the past year for obvious reasons, but the true entrepreneur responds to pressure with optimism and the determination to sniff out and exploit latent opportunities. And that normally keeps them fairly chipper.
I also suspect self-reliance is a key factor, which is perhaps why so few entrepreneurs take well to the demands of public company life and its associated pressures and comprimises. Those that can walk that precarious line are a rare breed, so I’ll be interested to speak to Carphone Warehouse founder and CEO Charles Dunstone when I interview him next month to hear how he approaches it.
The well-regarded and self deprecating Dunstone has always had a different style to his friend and co-founder David Ross, who famously enjoys supermodel girlfriends, a country estate and trips on luxury yachts. I’ll be intrigued to see how he approaches the public furore caused by Ross’s share scandal and his subsequent resignation, enough to push anyone’s cortisol level through the roof.