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Law At Work group managing director Simon Nash explains why it is time to challenge the stereotypical view of leaders as charismatic heroes and embrace a more nurturing approach instead
HALF a lifetime ago, I used to deliver leadership programmes from a stately home which used to be a 16th-century royal palace. The investment bank which invested in the training was communicating several things at once to the leaders who came for their off-site training.
Firstly, it spoke of the training itself as being some kind of executive perk. To spend a week in the beautifully landscaped grounds and the regal mansion said “you’ve made it”.
Secondly, it reinforced that, in the eyes of the bank, these leaders were “very important people”. Not everyone in the organisation was invited to sleep at the former favoured residence of James I.
Thirdly, it reinforced that learning leadership was something done well away from the coalface of the trading floor, the office or the sales room.
As I have reflected on this, there is a further, more subtle, implication. It speaks to an idea of leadership where the leader is a charismatic hero. Someone who through the force of his personality, and his positive energy, wrestles the organisation into obedience, conquers the opponents of the business in the market and brings home the spoils of victory.
This is a model reinforced in Hollywood movies and also depictions of heroic leadership in the news media. Politicians also adopt the image of this strong forceful leader and even our children’s minds are powerfully shaped by this propaganda of dominance.
But on my holiday this summer, I read the 2025 autobiography of Jacinda Ardern, who recently served as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand. Jacinda sought to embody an alternative approach to her leadership.
“One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong,” she wrote.
Leadership, for her, came from a different ethical stance.
“Everything I’ve ever thought about doing has been, in some sense, about helping people,” she continued.
And this kind of leadership is not just for politics. In business, leadership author and speaker Stephanie Hills recently wrote: “The best leaders don’t cross the line first, they make sure no one’s left behind.”
This approach to a new leadership ethic was echoed by speaker Jasmine Khanani of local business Raising Conscious Intention, who, at a recent Disrupt conference, said: “We have created a distinct crack in our innate wholeness, amplifying and building our masculine greatness for hundreds if not thousands of years, [but] our feminine yearns for greatness to grow from achievement to actualisation. This is a transformative journey that calls on feminine greatness to actually activate all the way to higher human potential.”
This call to embrace wildness and order; to make space for nurture as well as control; to lead from the heart and the head; gives hope to Jersey both in business and society.
Hope for a generation of integral leaders who are strong enough to care and caring enough to use their strength for the emergence of all that we know Jersey could be – a beautiful place to do good work.
That’s the kind of leadership more and more boards are asking me about, and that’s the journey on which I’m honoured to partner with some of Jersey’s best leaders.
There is hope in Jersey for integral leadership, if you know where to look.
