ICAS ICAS logo

Quicklinks

  1. About Us

    Find out about who we are and what we do here at ICAS.

  2. Find a CA

    Search our directory of individual CAs and Member organisations by name, location and professional criteria.

  3. CA Magazine

    View the latest issues of the dedicated magazine for ICAS Chartered Accountants.

  4. Contact Us

    Get in touch with ICAS by phone, email or post, with dedicated contacts for Members, Students and firms.

Login
  • Annual renewal
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Find a CA
  1. About us
    1. Governance
  2. Members
    1. Become a member
    2. Newly qualified
    3. Manage my membership
    4. Benefits of membership
    5. Professional development
    6. CA Wellbeing
    7. Mentoring
    8. Member rewards
    9. Area networks
    10. International communities
    11. Get involved
    12. Top Young CAs
    13. Career breaks
    14. Proud to be a CA
    15. ICAS podcast
    16. Newly admitted members 2022
  3. CA Students
    1. Student information
    2. Student resources
    3. Learning requirements
    4. Learning updates
    5. Learning blog
    6. Totum Pro | Student discount card
  4. Become a CA
    1. How to become a CA
    2. Routes to becoming a CA
    3. CA Stories
    4. Find a training agreement
    5. Why become a CA
    6. Qualification information
    7. University exemptions
  5. Employers
    1. Become an Authorised Training Office
    2. Resources for Authorised Training Offices
    3. Professional entry
    4. Apprenticeships
  6. Find a CA
  7. ICAS events
    1. CA Summit
  8. CA magazine
  9. Insight series 2022
    1. Finance + Trust
    2. Finance + Technology
    3. Finance + EDI
    4. Finance + Mental Fitness
    5. Finance + Leadership
    6. Finance + Sustainability
  10. Professional resources
    1. Anti-money laundering
    2. Audit and assurance
    3. Brexit
    4. Charities
    5. Coronavirus
    6. Corporate and financial reporting
    7. Business and governance
    8. Ethics
    9. Insolvency
    10. ICAS Research
    11. Pensions
    12. Practice
    13. Public sector
    14. Sustainability
    15. Tax
  11. Regulation
    1. Complaints and sanctions
    2. Regulatory authorisations
    3. Guidance and help sheets
    4. Regulatory monitoring
  12. CA jobs
    1. Hays | A Trusted ICAS CA Jobs Partner
    2. CA jobs partner: Rutherford Cross
    3. Resources for your job search
    4. Advertise with CA jobs
    5. Director of Finance and Company Secretary | Glasgow
    6. Hays | A Trusted ICAS CA Jobs Partner
  13. Work at ICAS
    1. Business centres
    2. Meet our team
    3. Benefits
    4. Vacancies
    5. Imagine your career at ICAS
  14. Contact us
    1. Technical and regulation queries
    2. ICAS logo request

Lasting leadership: six secrets to success

Leadership secrets header
  • LinkedIn (opens new window)
  • Twitter (opens new window)
By Lysanne Currie, CA Magazine

28 October 2020

Pippa's career

1993: Joins Bankers Trust as Managing Director.

2000: Becomes Special Assistant to the President of the United States.

2001: Becomes guest commentator at Bloomberg.

2007: Joins Ditchley Foundation as Governor2010 Becomes guest anchor on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

2013: Becomes member of MIT advisory board and Ditchley Foundation board.

2014: Co-founds H Robotics2016  Publishes bestseller Signals.

2018: Publishes The Leadership Lab.

2020: Publishes The Infinite Leader.

Economist, entrepreneur and former White House adviser Pippa Malmgren now advises the UK government, among others. She talks to Lysanne Currie about the leadership skills that will be needed for a post-Covid world

Read November's CA magazine now

Pippa Malmgren’s The Infinite Leader: Balancing the Demands of Modern Business Leadership couldn’t have rolled off the printing presses at a more opportune moment – published in an era of global pandemics, economic meltdowns and some seriously suboptimal leaders. So, why have there been such spectacular failures in some places? And why have female-led governments seemingly responded better to the pandemic?

Following 2018’s The Leadership Lab, co-authors Malmgren and entrepreneur Chris Lewis set out to address these issues in The Infinite Leader, focusing on soft-skill solutions such as collaboration, empathy and “zero-state thinking”, which produces long-term success through a balance of analytical logic and intuition.

“Balancing is the key to leadership success,” says Malmgren. “It helps us pivot back and forth between many different ways of thinking and different skillsets in order to land correctly on any given issue.” The authors also scotch some damaging myths along the way (confidence does not equal competence… who knew?) but remain broadly optimistic. “We’re far more empowered today as individuals than ever before,” she insists. Here she offers six pointers for more resilient and longer-lasting leadership.

1. Avoid cognitive bias

Humans still believe the tallest person in the room should be the leader and, historically, they have been: CEOs tend to be significantly taller than the rest of the population. Also, we often believe the person with the lowest voice has the greatest authority. One reason why women often do less well in leadership stakes is because their voice puts them in a different category, and you will find a lot of successful female leaders will start lowering their voices.

It works, but do we want it to work? Or do we want to give freedom to people to be who they are and recognise their gifts without needing to present them in a way other people recognise as being qualified? Choose to make conscious decisions and to listen differently – to not have cognitive bias. Maybe somebody with a higher voice will be a better leader, have a better answer or be a more valuable team member.

2. Rethink, reframe and reimagine

The pandemic gave us the opportunity to dive deeper when writing The Infinite Leader. Leaders need not just a strong vision for the future, but also the agility to look at businesses with fresh eyes to accommodate the shifting sands. Some businesses will be born purely because of the crisis. For example, family-owned restaurants run by identifiable personalities have sprung back quickly, as neighbourhoods want to support them. There are no such emotional allegiances to a lot of the big global food chains, so they’ve really suffered.

I spoke to the CEO of a B2B pizza company who, when Covid-19 hit, had to completely reimagine, reshape and reform their whole business model within 10 days as their customers – pubs – had shut down. They began delivering to homes and they’re now taking on Domino’s – one of the best-financed brand names in the world. Amazingly, not only did they succeed, they started beating Domino’s because they taste better and have better-quality ingredients. They sell their pizza as a kit and it’s fun – families at home get to make something together and compose their own recipes. They made a decision to re-audience their business, which took brave and extraordinary leadership.

3. Leadership is love

People say love has nothing to do with business, but it does. There’s a cowboy museum in the US that nobody was allowed into because of Covid. A security guard there said, “If nobody else is going to write the social media, then I will, because I love this museum and I don’t want it to fail.” He’d never used Twitter in his life, but he wrote these beautiful moving posts about what John Wayne wore, for instance, and in such enthusiastic and passionate ways that he soon had tens of thousands of followers. It was just pure love – and that’s a kind of magic that allows you to transform and perform through these high-pressure circumstances. As a leader, do you love your staff enough to bring out things they didn’t know they had in them?

4. Age diversity is key

When we talk about who we want on a team, we often focus on youth at the expense of older generations. But some younger people are struggling at the moment, worried they’ll never overcome these times, whereas older people have been through severe crises: their parents will have lived through World War Two and they will themselves have experienced multiple financial crises. They know fundamentally that dark times pass and they appreciate that they will get through them. As a result, they often end up bringing open-minded enthusiasm to organisations.

5. Everyone is a leader

Every day we’re called upon to make leadership decisions, and we always think of it as something someone else does. But have you thought about who’s demonstrating true leadership in your business? It might be a single parent running a household and a business at the same time. Ask yourself: who really knows what is going on in this place? Often, it’ll be someone in admin or a PA – somebody who knows the gossip. Are you tapping their knowledge? Are you assuming that just because they don’t have the right title, they can’t have the right input? Cast your net wider to get a true handle on your company.

6. Make time to ‘be’

It is a shocking fact that many CEOs are so busy they can’t feel the pain in their right arm that indicates a coming heart attack. If that can’t be felt, how is a leader going to feel the organisation? Make time to look inside yourself and feel your interior. Much of the job of leaders is not to do, but to “be”. Chris and I always say every leader has a to-do list, but almost none has a to-be list. Now is the time to start writing one.

2022 06 aon 2022 06 aon
ICAS logo

Footer links

  • Contact us
  • Terms and conditions
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Privacy notice
  • CA magazine

Connect with ICAS

  • Facebook (opens new window) Facebook Icon
  • Twitter (opens new window) Twitter Icon
  • LinkedIn (opens new window) LinkedIn Icon
  • Instagram (opens new window) Instagram Icon

ICAS is a member of the following bodies

  • Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (opens new window) Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies logo
  • Chartered Accountants Worldwide (opens new window) Chartered Accountants Worldwide logo
  • Global Accounting Alliance (opens new window) Global Accounting Alliance
  • International Federation of Accountants (opens new window) IFAC
  • Access Accountancy (opens new window) Access Acountancy

Charities

  • ICAS Foundation (opens new window) ICAS Foundation
  • SCABA (opens new window) scaba
© ICAS 2022

The mark and designation “CA” is a registered trade mark of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), and is available for use in the UK and EU only to members of ICAS. If you are not a member of ICAS, you should not use the “CA” mark and designation in the UK or EU in relation to accountancy, tax or insolvency services. The mark and designation “Chartered Accountant” is a registered trade mark of ICAS, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and Chartered Accountants Ireland. If you are not a member of one of these organisations, you should not use the “Chartered Accountant” mark and designation in the UK or EU in relation to these services. Further restrictions on the use of these marks also apply where you are a member.

ICAS logo

Our cookie policy

ICAS.com uses cookies which are essential for our website to work. We would also like to use analytical cookies to help us improve our website and your user experience. Any data collected is anonymised. Please have a look at the further information in our cookie policy and confirm if you are happy for us to use analytical cookies: