In the telling of this story the names are changed to protect the author. 

The General Counsel’s personal assistant meets me in reception.

“Hi Paul, lovely to see you again; John will be just a few minutes, he’s on a call, but I’ll show you to your meeting room.”

We walk along the corridor chatting about Janet’s son just starting at University and my daughter’s new job. From another meeting room we hear John abruptly and loudly end his call. Now fully pinstriped in our presence and gripped by his overly firm handshake the unspoken signal is no more conversation and an exaggeratedly quicker walking pace.

“Paul, I can only give you twenty minutes I need to be back on a call”

Just before the three of us arrive at our meeting room destination I notice a discarded tissue in the corridor.

Janet sees it, bends down, picks it up and says nothing at all.

John saw it too, huffed airily and muttered something about the place “going to the dogs”.

I cannot remember now whether the twenty minutes John “gave” me were a gift worth having, but the two minutes with Janet certainly were.

On my way home that evening I pondered who had been the leader in my day.

Was it knob-head John with his important calls, his overly firm handshake and his lofty decree of how much time I might have in his presence?

Or was it Janet seeing what needed to be done and doing it, caring that impressions count and being responsible for standards she wanted others to meet too?

I believe leadership is ensuring there is an authentic engagement with people as people, and with an environment we all help to collaboratively curate; fundamentally it is about the contribution we inspire others to make by our behaviour, not the status we assert or the self-indulging triviality of hierarchy.

Take care. Paul