Andrew Broadhead
When I think of ‘leadership’ I am always drawn to a classic management science cliché; "One may be appointed a manager, but not a leader". This may be a cliché, but I think it’s true, and it summarises my view of leadership in organisations.
When considering 'leaders' we often expect traits to be displayed by individuals who have been appointed 'manager' or those in senior positions. But displaying ‘leadership traits’ is not exclusive to these groups: what about the leaders at the coalface?
Examples of leadership can be seen throughout organisations and leadership traits can be found in a variety of situations.
My favourite example is from an old colleague of mine who was a chef for the Toby Carvery brand, then part of Bass Leisure Retail. Upon discovering that his co-workers were flagging, as their workload mounted and they hurtled towards the all important lunchtime service deadline, he disappeared in to the kitchen. He returned with a tray of bacon butties, oozing with brown sauce and accompanied by several pots of tea. The team duly dug in, made short shrift of the butties and got back to work and delivered a seamless service.
You could argue that the team would have pulled it together minus the bacon break, but having witnessed this first hand, I would suggest that this leader’s intervention did help, providing a timely one-off motivational boost, but perhaps more importantly, his own bacon butty based leadership legacy.
Nobody told or asked him to do this, but in doing this he engendered great motivation and commitment to the cause. My colleague wasn’t a manager but his initiative and foresight shows leadership.
Great leaders set and continually reinforce the desired behaviour from those whom they lead. These behaviours then become part of the fabric of the organisation and with it the legend of great leadership is created.... all for the price of a bacon sandwich.
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Andrew Broadhead is currently Head of Marketing for Richardson Eyres, a value added reseller specialising in data centre technologies, where he is responsible for delivering incremental business opportunity and the company's brand and messaging strategies. Andrew formerly held sales and marketing positions with Dell, where he was the recipient of the 2003 IDMA Award for Excellence in ROI. He is a graduate of Nottingham Trent University with a B.A (Hons) in Hotel & Catering Management.
Andrew also has a number of passions outside of work including playing golf, football and petanque, writing & illustration and music. Andrew is also a qualified sound engineer and is currently working with the Salford Talking News charity as a sound technician.
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