What a cup has to teach us about leadership.
Last week I found myself incensed because of a cup. Not just any cup: Thérèse Coffey’s permanent cup.
During an interview with BBC Breakfast, the newly appointed Environment Secretary for the UK was asked what she was doing in her own life to address climate concerns.
Spluttering her words, she found herself reaching for something to say…anything to say in fact. And finally managed to come out with… wait for it: “Cups. Permanent cups.”
NB: The 1 minute clip of the interview is painful because it is so shameful.
As someone who has deliberately shaped her life to respond to the needs of the climate & nature crisis, the smallness of her response disgusted me. As someone who is not tasked with being the Environment Minister for the UK, yet is managing quite happily to live a zero-waste, vegan, low-carbon, non-consumerist (I don’t buy anything new, clothes or otherwise) and consciously caring life, I’m afraid that permanent cups just don’t cut the mustard.
I know children who would give better answers than this. (I tested this theory in fact, and my colleague’s eight-year-old came up with four things on the spot, a friend’s six-year-old listed at least ten things she was doing herself. She is six.)
What right does Thérèse Coffey have to be representing, leading and – most dangerously – making decisions on behalf of this country? What competence does she have in the role in which she serves? What qualities does she have to allow her to be a leader in this space?
It is this final question that I’ve been turning over in my head this past week.
What qualities does she have to allow her to be a leader in this space?
I’m just back Cornwall and the inaugural Anthropy Conference, a three-day gathering of UK leaders from right across the sector to explore the future of Britain. It was an ambitious space with ambitious people. The sign at the entrance invited us all to leave egos and silos at the door (not always adhered to unfortunately) and the conversations were shaped to allow learning, listening, wisdom and action.
One of my strongest takeaways from the discussions was a line from the host Sir Tim Smit (the conference was hosted at the extraordinary Eden Project) who said “Leadership is a life examined”.
This got me thinking - even more deeply than I normally do - on the role of leadership in these times, and what it means to be a reflective leader and lead an examined life.
A long time ago, Socrates famously said:
“I say that it is the greatest good for a (wo)man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living.”
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Across the world, we are seeing an incredibly average response from so many of our leaders to the profoundly existential crises which we face. I’m afraid I have no time for people calling themselves ‘leaders’ who are purely interested in ego, power or show. These times call for leaders who practice what they preach, who lead with integrity and with the awareness that how they are and how they act is so much more important than what they say. We need leaders who live by the values with which they are entrusted to lead others.
I struggle to understand how we can expect young people to appreciate the values of good leadership when so many examples they are shown are so shamefully inadequate, and so lacking in understanding or integrity for the ‘leading’ they are trying to do. I want to point young people towards those able to lead from their hearts, who lead with integrity, humility and grace. I know a very large number of these people, unfortunately not in our government.
We are all leaders of our own lives, leaders of others around us – and we all have the capacity to grow into our deeper, wiser, better selves, as we all have the choice to practice integrity. This is not something given but something we choose - with a lifetime supply freely available to us all.
For me, leadership is as simple as consciously caring about what we do, understanding that we can constantly learn, unlearn, relearn and reflect. And all of that comes for free.
So how about you? How are you practising what you are preaching?
#Leadership #Reflection #Humility #Grace #GrowthMindset #Integrity