Like many others, I was very saddened by the untimely death of Charles Kennedy, an ex-leader of a political party in the UK. Many fine words have been written about his character and qualities. I had no personal connection with him so I won’t presume to add to those, but I’d like to comment a little on what the reaction to his death says about how we experience and evaluate leadership.

The qualities mentioned most often in the eulogies to him were his ability to relate easily to others, whatever their background; his strong connection with his origins in the Scottish Highlands; and the way he took a stand on fundamental issues to do with his political party and his country. In the instances which stood out, it was a stand which isolated him at the time, but in the rear-view mirror they look like exactly the right things to have done. He was popular without being populist, because of his ability to connect. He knew what mattered to him and he stuck to his principles, but without rubbishing other peoples’ principles or views. And above all he was profoundly human. In fact one of the best eulogies simply said ‘he speaks perfect human’. He could talk to anyone, he was funny, and he was one of us.

How hard this seems to be for so many of us. To just connect at an ordinary human level, regardless of role, position, education. It’s a matter of simply being more interested in the person in front of us than we are in our self, letting go of the need to be impressive, to know more, parade our clever credentials. And in particular letting go of the fear of being judged, or the desire to judge. We all judge and are judged, nothing makes that go away, but the FEAR of it is horribly debilitating and being the sort of person who makes that fear go away in others is a glorious skill.  I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few leaders who can do that, but they are rare enough beasts. Women are often more comfortable with ‘just plain talk’ than men are, but sadly, to sound ordinary, difficult as it is, often isn’t a quality that gets us to the top. We can be very seduced by people who ‘look like’ or ‘sound like’ leaders, not realising how much this picture is formed by unconscious bias. On which topic, more to come later, in a different blog.

For now, I’d like to ask a question of HR people out there. HR functions have a huge amount to contribute in assessing skill. How do you ensure HR systems can identify and promote people who look and sound ordinary, who don’t self-promote, don’t use business jargon, but who speak in ‘human’ and quietly get things done? Those managers and leaders who create little islands of co-operation, positivity and creativity and make things just look efficient and problem-free. Who aren’t tall, don’t have the right accent, and may even be ginger. Whose ordinariness is utterly extraordinary. How do we build a future where a leader described so well like this is not so out-of-the-ordinary:

‘On a continent where the fear of Germany is hardly dead, Merkel’s air of ordinariness makes a resurgent Germany seem less threatening. “Merkel has a character that suggests she’s one of us,” Göring-Eckardt told me. Germans call the Chancellor Mutti, or Mommy. The nickname was first applied by Merkel’s rivals in the Christian Democratic Union as an insult, and she didn’t like it, but after Mutti caught on with the public Merkel embraced it.’  (George Packer in the New Yorker)