Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller DCB

JLA Client Comments

EXTRACT FROM JLA SPEAKERS BREAKFAST

In any organisation the greatest challenges must come from within - we must be very critical of ourselves. It is acutely important to encourage challenging feedback. The most valuable people in my team were those who would tell me when they thought I was wrong.

Communication is key. The best way to help people manage in difficult times is through frankness. In this career you don't know what you will be faced with tomorrow, despite your best endeavours. For staff this can be exciting and engage their passion, it can also be enormously unnerving. It is important to face uncertainty and ambiguity head-on.

For us the prioritisation issues were acute. Given that we were dealing with terrorism that was a pretty sharp reality to be up against. I felt to get my staff through it I had to give the message that I would take responsibility.

A lot of leaders say our people are our most important asset, but I'm not sure how many act as though they really believe it. Thanking people, praising and valuing them, particularly when you can't put their pay up, might take you thirty seconds, but will make all the difference to them.

Many people can be good leaders in tough times, but there is no point in trying to be something you are not. Play to your strengths, and be yourself.

Above all, it is still important to laugh and see humour even in the most awful situations.