Farewell from Fiona Carruthers outgoing OM President

Year 12: What words should define ‘Monkton’ leaders?

To give students time to reflect on and consider their own leadership skills and weaknesses and to provide tools to build those skills and develop their potential into something more, the MLA focuses on character development, helping students to understand themselves and others better, developing relational and emotional intelligence.

The MLA has been designed in association with the Leadership College London which delivers leadership courses and training including for Masters courses and corporations. Monkton and LCL share a passion for developing the next generation of leaders to not only go out and influence the future but to do so understanding themselves and those around them, and to be driven to consciously influence the world around them for the better.

The award is made up of 5 sections: Leadership workshops, the Monkton Lecture Series, service, leadership projects and leadership roles. Since September 76 Year 12 students have been participating in the Monkton Leadership Award.

Students are being encouraged by tutors to identify areas that they are passionate and excited about and to look for new opportunities to influence and lead through them.

Leadership projects have ranged from a near-space balloon launch to a sanitation project in India. In each of these projects students are being encouraged by tutors to identify areas that they are passionate and excited about and to look for new opportunities to influence and lead through them.

Achievements and learning through the MLA can be reflected in genuinely unique university applications, but more importantly their learning is intended to foster a habit of reflection and self testing and to develop an adventurous confidence in each individual.

Mark Herbert

Leaderfull

“I am NOT a leader!”

What does it mean to be a leader? Are leaders born or made? Is leadership a realm in which only certain people ought to dabble? These are just a few of the questions I have been wrestling with in recent years.

In my work as a leadership coach I meet a surprising number of people who self-declare, with varying levels of conviction, “I’m NOT a leader!” Very often this is driven by a narrow view of what leadership means, or by some negative experience of leadership such as failure or disappointment. The regularity of hearing such comments has driven me to reflect more deeply.

Having held a number of leadership positions whilst at Monkton (Sports Captain, Prefect, Head of House, Senior Cadet), I look back with great fondness and huge thankfulness for the opportunities I was given to learn more about myself and to develop as a leader from a young age. Many of the lessons I learned at Monkton, both from personal successes and failures and through the example of many role models, have proved to be hugely significant in my adult life.

Twenty years on I can still remember conversations I had with various members of staff and peers which have left an indelible mark on me.

Yet having experienced being one of the leaders in my peer group, I worry that too often, we concentrate leadership attention on the ‘chosen few’ – the people who hold the leadership positions. In doing this we overlook so many other leadership qualities. In my professional life, I’ve witnessed many leaders who do very little actual leading and many who are ‘not’ leaders who in reality are leading. This has led me to draw the conclusion that leadership is primarily about influence, not position, and this has become one of the driving forces behind my company - Leaderfull. The world is full of unrecognised leaders who simply need inspiring, challenging and nurturing.

I have been asked if my emphasis on servant leadership has been shaped by my Christian faith and the answer is quite simply most of it.

It is the servanthood of Jesus that makes Him so impressive; one who “did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). For me, serving ought to be the primary aim in leadership.

Prior to setting up Leaderfull, I was a church pastor for ten years. I often took younger people with me on various visits. This helped them to better understand what I did, but also provided the perfect context for leadership development.

On one such occasion, I took my thirteen-yearold goddaughter with me on a hospital visit to see an eighty-year-old man in the congregation who was dying of leukaemia. Pulling up in the carpark, I gave my goddaughter a few top tips of what to expect on a geriatric ward and some pointers for bedside manner etc. We entered the ward and my goddaughter wonderfully took over. She drew up a chair by the side of the patient’s bed, took him by the hand and began speaking. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, she read to him, made him laugh, listened to him, and prayed with him. I said nothing. Driving home that day I reflected on what has become one of my most powerful leadership learnings to date:

The only leading I needed to do that day was to get out of the way.

By doing so, my goddaughter was able to flourish – she was leading; taking responsibility in the moment to have a positive influence over the life of another person. Too much leadership development focuses on what a leader does, whilst ignoring the important question of the legacy the leader will leave. What (and who) a leader leaves behind is perhaps the strongest litmus test for the quality of their leadership. Good leaders do good – and sometimes great – things; great leaders help nurture other great leaders.

Mark Herbert (OM ‘03) runs a leadership development and coaching business called Leaderfull (leader-full.co.uk) and is the author of I am NOT a leader - a book he wrote to challenge leadership stereotypes and support leadership development.

I look back with great fondness and huge thankfulness for the opportunities I was given to learn more about myself and to develop as a leader from a young age.