Discover what it means to lead right with proven principles, intent-based strategies, and practical frameworks for executive leadership success.
Written by Laura Bouttell
Leadership right isn't about holding a title or wielding authority—it's about mastering the fundamental principles that transform ordinary managers into exceptional leaders who inspire, empower, and drive sustainable success.
Leadership is not a function of title or responsibility; leadership is a function of doing what leaders do—cause other people to be more effective. Great leadership begins with the person, not the position.
The difference between good leadership and great leadership often lies in understanding what "doing leadership right" truly means. From boardrooms in the City of London to tech startups in Manchester, the most successful organisations share one common thread: leaders who have mastered the art and science of leading effectively.
A good leader should have integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, compassion, and resilience. They should be learning agile and flex their influence while communicating the vision, showing gratitude, and collaborating effectively.
Leading right encompasses three fundamental dimensions:
Intentional Leadership: Leading with intent involves leading with purpose, clarity, and a deep understanding of your team's needs. It's about making deliberate choices that align with your values and organisational objectives.
Principled Decision-Making: Effective leaders don't just react to circumstances; they operate from a foundation of core principles that guide their actions consistently, even when facing pressure or uncertainty.
Empowering Others: Great leaders use their power by giving it to others. Effective leaders are a source of power and energy for people, teams, and the organisation.
Intent-based leadership is a leadership concept that pushes authority to where the information is. Decisions should be made by the person who has the most knowledge about the topic under discussion.
Intent-based leadership, pioneered by submarine commander L. David Marquet, represents a revolutionary approach to organisational effectiveness. Rather than traditional command-and-control structures, this methodology empowers individuals by:
Practical Application: Instead of saying "Captain, I request permission to proceed with the marketing campaign," teams operating under intent-based leadership state, "Captain, I intend to launch the digital marketing campaign targeting millennials in London, based on our consumer research data."
Based on research by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, leaders are at their best when they exhibit five key behaviors: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart.
These five practices create a comprehensive framework for leadership excellence:
Model the Way
Inspire a Shared Vision
Challenge the Process
Enable Others to Act
Encourage the Heart
Research shows a clear connection between emotional intelligence and leadership style effectiveness. Your emotional intelligence is what helps you deliver helpful feedback, manage burnout and stressful situations, and help each of your team members fulfill their maximum potential.
Emotionally intelligent leaders demonstrate four key competencies:
Self-Awareness: The better you understand yourself and recognize your own strengths and weaknesses, the more effective you can be as a leader.
Self-Management: Regulating emotions and maintaining composure under pressure
Social Awareness: Respect, when demonstrated consistently, is one of the most important things a leader can do. It helps ease tensions and conflict, fosters trust, and improves your effectiveness.
Relationship Management: Building rapport, influencing outcomes, and managing conflict constructively
Communication is the most difficult leadership responsibility in my opinion and one I still struggle with today. Often, leaders who fail to communicate clearly and regularly with their team create confusion, misunderstandings, and frustration.
Effective leadership communication requires mastery of multiple channels:
Clarity of Purpose: Task - what is the objective or goal of the assignment? Purpose - why does the assignment need to be done? End state - how should the situation look when the assignment is complete?
Active Listening: Great leaders know that communication is a two-way street that starts with listening. If a leader isn't a good listener, the result will be that their team is far less likely to listen to them in return.
Transparent Communication: Building trust through honest, timely, and relevant information sharing
Feedback Mastery: Leaders who solicit feedback, distil it and act on it, make themselves more effective. Leaders should also be skilled at giving feedback to develop their teams and role model this desired behaviour throughout the organisation.
Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle.
Modern leaders must demonstrate versatility across multiple leadership approaches:
Situational Awareness: Recognising when circumstances require different leadership responses Style Flexibility: While there isn't one right way to lead, identifying your leadership style can help you grow your skill set and empower your team. Cultural Intelligence: Understanding how leadership effectiveness varies across different contexts and cultures
Understanding effective leadership also requires recognising its opposite. Bad leadership happens when a leader isn't coping with some aspect of their leadership role. The bad leader is distracted, taking his eye off the ball.
Micromanagement: The irresistible urge to excessively control or monitor the work of subordinates is a common mistake for new leaders. Micromanagement is toxic to autonomy and morale.
Poor Communication: Poor communication plagues most ineffective leaders. Lacking strong communication skills creates major friction between leaders and team members.
Favouritism: Leaders don't have favorites. Effective leadership involves making everyone you interact with feel like an important member of the team.
Avoiding Conflict: Managers often veer away from confrontation and try to avoid it at all costs. But when performance or personality issues go unaddressed, they fester.
Taking Credit: Poor leaders take all the credit when things go well. They don't share it with the team. They are focused more on making themselves look good.
360-Degree Feedback: Consider a 360-degree survey, which asks your peers, reports and superiors how you're doing. Follow the feedback with coaching and development to improve any problem areas.
Strengths Identification: Improving your leadership begins with a focus on what you're already good at. When you intentionally apply your strengths as a leader, that's when your life and the lives of those you lead begin to change.
Values Clarification: To effectively Model the Way, you first need to get in touch with who you are: what you believe in, how you communicate, and how your values inform your behaviors.
Mentorship and Coaching: Regardless of the level of success they have reached, leaders must have mentors of varying types. These can include their traditional peers, people from a different generation or from other, unexpected, quarters.
Experiential Learning: Good leaders know that practice makes perfect. In order to continue to be a good leader every day, you must practice and work at it.
Continuous Learning: Great leaders are really great learners. Learning agility is the ability to know what to do when you don't know what to do.
Focus on Core Strengths: As a leader, you not only have to focus on what you do best, but your organization has to focus on what it does best.
Empowerment Culture: Leadership is not a function of title or responsibility; leadership is a function of doing what leaders do—cause other people to be more effective.
Performance Standards: A common set of standards needs to be applied to everyone on the team including other leaders! Set clear expectations and hold yourself and your team members accountable for meeting them.
British leadership development draws from a rich tradition of institutional excellence, from military heritage to academic rigour. Programmes at institutions like Henley Business School, Oxford Saïd Business School, and LSE Executive Education emphasise the integration of theoretical frameworks with practical application.
The British approach to leadership development often incorporates:
Historical Perspective: Learning from figures like Churchill, who demonstrated leadership under extreme pressure Cultural Sensitivity: Understanding leadership effectiveness across diverse, multicultural teams Ethical Foundation: Emphasising values-based leadership and corporate responsibility Global Perspective: Preparing leaders for international business environments
The key is not finding the "perfect" leadership style, but rather understanding your natural tendencies, recognizing their strengths and limitations, and developing the skills to adapt when circumstances require a different approach.
During crises, effective leaders demonstrate:
When driving innovation, leaders should:
During periods of expansion, effective leaders:
If people are the ultimate source of competitive advantage (and they are), then leadership is an essential skill that organizations must master. The performance of a company and its people is directly connected to leadership skills.
Employee Engagement: When a company's executives do a good job of leading by example, the personnel will show more commitment to achieve the organizational goals.
Cultural Transformation: Successful leaders prioritize leading with soft skills and carefully assess the root cause of a situation, responding in a non-threatening yet strategic manner.
Sustainable Performance: Great leaders create stability and drive change. Effective leaders build and maintain a changeless core.
Career Advancement: Understanding which leadership style aligns most closely with you is essential to maximizing its effectiveness and your potential as a leader.
Personal Fulfilment: Having control over one's own life is a basic human need. We are happier the more we are in control over what we do.
Legacy Building: People will work for money, but they'll die for a cause. Organizations are most effective when they get people to believe equally and emotionally in their causes.
Intent-based leadership is a leadership concept where you give intent to your employees and they give intent back to you. The premise pushes authority to where the information is, with decisions made by the person who has the most knowledge about the topic under discussion. This approach creates ownership and accountability while reducing dependency on hierarchical approval processes.
The most common leadership mistakes include poor communication, micromanagement, avoiding conflict, and failing to delegate effectively. Focus on developing clear communication skills, building trust through transparency, addressing issues promptly, and empowering your team members to take ownership of their work.
The most critical leadership skills include integrity, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, communication excellence, and the ability to give and receive feedback effectively. These foundational competencies enable leaders to build trust, navigate complexity, and drive sustainable results.
Consider implementing a 360-degree feedback survey and focus on key metrics like employee engagement, team performance, and your ability to develop others. Effective leaders see increased commitment from their teams, improved collaboration, and consistent achievement of objectives.
Management is about controlling, administering, and planning activities, and by extension, people. Leadership, on the other hand, involves inspiring, encouraging, and bringing out the very best in people by building a sense of trust and by challenging them to take positive risks.
Leadership presence develops through consistent practice of your values, building self-awareness, and demonstrating authenticity in your interactions. Focus on active listening, clear communication, and showing genuine care for your team members' development and success.
Emotional intelligence is crucial for leadership effectiveness as it helps you deliver helpful feedback, manage stressful situations, and help team members fulfill their maximum potential. It enables leaders to read situations accurately, manage their own reactions, and respond appropriately to others' needs.
Leadership right isn't a destination—it's a continuous journey of growth, learning, and service to others. By mastering these fundamental principles and avoiding common pitfalls, you can transform not only your own effectiveness but also the lives and careers of those you have the privilege to lead.