Where have all the leaders gone?

I don’t know about you but I feel like in my day to day life I see leaders everywhere. In companies. In schools. In airports. In sport. All over Instagram. But then I look at our government, the people with probably the most important role of all - running a country - and that should therefore, in theory, be attracting the strongest and greatest leaders in the land and I am struggling to locate a single person that I would classify as a true leader. Certainly not the soon to be ex Prime Minister. And certainly not either of the two candidates who will replace him.

I was discussing this with someone a while ago and I really wish I could remember who it was because, as I was bemoaning this leadership void, he/she/they said something very wise: Politics has nothing to do with leadership because politics is about power - gaining power, and holding onto power. And true leadership is something very different: it is about doing the right and best thing, even when it is difficult, unpopular and may result in a weakening of position and power. So no wonder we don’t see many real leaders in politics. And no wonder then that the world is in the state it is in.

One of the most depressing things of all in this for me is that we have a chance here to have a woman in a key leadership position, but the woman we will get is not someone I think merits being called a leader. She has shown she is willing to change her position for power (not leadership) on Brexit, her support of the asylum seekers to Rwanda plan, amongst other things, surely raises questions about her human decency and her proposal to scrap all civil service roles that focus on diversity & inclusion clearly indicates she does not understand something that great leaders do: the power of diversity. All in all, I think we can be pretty confident that, if chosen as the new PM, this is not a woman who is going to impress with her leadership and further the cause of gender equality. Which is extremely frustrating, when there are so many brilliant women in the country who would.

In her latest newsletter, the inspirational entrepreneur Holly Tucker is clearly as frustrated with this as me and thinks we need to launch a new party - and I am so with her. We should call it The Leadership Party. It would not be about politics. Its goal would not be power. Its goal would be to LEAD - to lead the country to be better and stronger. A totally diverse, representative group of people sharing their diverse, representative insights & ideas, listening, collaborating and developing brilliant strategies & plans. Led by a real leader who is driven by doing the right thing, even if it is difficult or not universally popular. The kind of person and party we should be giving power to, because they will give it right back to us.