At their junior school my children attended there were 3 headmasters over the years. One was excellent - he knew all the boys by name and created an environment in which everybody thrived. He left for reasons I never understood. His successor tried to welcome parents in the car park on his first morning for some reason – which did not go down well - and lasted one term. The next was a sort of compromise choice, a safe pair of hands under whom the school continued to maintain its standards but did not dramatically improve.
 
At their secondary school the headmaster was by contrast an inspiration creating a school approach where sport, music, theatre and academic life were equally valued turning out balanced and relatively mature young men. I attended his retirement drinks and went up to him and thanked him for educating and looking after our boys. He humbly responded, “No thank, you for entrusting their education to us”.
 
I am continually surprised in professional practice how, despite our individualism (a characteristic of professionals) and the correct emphasis on teams and team work, it still really matters as with schools who heads the practice. Their leadership sets the tone, the standards and the values which the business group as a whole then follow. The approach and attitude they bring flows down to the entire team.
 
So, to take two extremes by way of illustration. First a manager who, however gifted they be individually, rules by following the FUD principle - creating an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt which keeps the team in line and doing their job - because they fear for their livelihood. It works but does not encourage any individual contributions beyond what is strictly necessary. Everybody keeps their head below the parapet and survival is paramount.
 
By contrast as with my secondary school headmaster some leaders choose to create an open and co-operative and inclusive culture in which teams are encouraged to contribute and participate and all suggestions are welcome and valued. People tend to build on other’s ideas without worrying about who will be praised or blamed.
 
Whatever style is adopted is infectious and will tend to be followed by immediate direct reports and in turn their direct reports so that the whole professional practice or business is in effect created in the image of the ultimate leader.
 
And the approach must be genuine. Here is an article Top 10 Ways to Lead by Example which starts with some sound advice Good leaders must lead by example. By walking your talk, you become a person others want to follow. When leaders say one thing, but do another, they erode trust--a critical element of productive leadership.
 
Being an inclusive leader is also more challenging and as this American Express blog suggests makes you more vulnerable because you are in effect admitting you may not be perfect – anathema for the FUD leader. The blog quotes Taro Fukuyama CEO and founder of Fond"One of our core values at Fond is 'build trust like a family,' which we define as being vulnerable to each other, being open to feedback, admitting mistakes and admitting weakness," says Fukuyama. "We believe these practices will build the strongest trust among the team."
 
See also this article Leading by Example which cites the example of Jack Welch of General Electric  He developed the whole idea of a "boundaryless organization." This means that everyone is free to brainstorm and think of ideas – instead of waiting for someone "higher up" in the bureaucracy to think of them first. He wanted his team turned loose, and he promised to listen to ideas from anyone in the company.
 
And this Forbes piece The Best Managers - Always - Lead By Example which says:
 
There are two highly practical reasons why leading by example makes excellent career and business sense.
 
1) It's effective.
 
2) It makes people want to follow you.
 
It sets the right tone for those in the lower levels of an organization who are closely watching (as most everyone is) how their leaders behave. It disarms any resentment that may be felt, rightly or wrongly, toward those in high managerial places. It's difficult to resent managers who roll up their sleeves and wade into the trenches when they need to, and who share the same sacrifices their teams do.
 
It also quotes the philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer "Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing."
 
Or going even further back in history as the Greek philosopher Epictetus, who was born a slave, advised “Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself.”
 
And doing so by adopting an inclusive approach is likely to be far more successful. As Oprah Winfrey commented “Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”

I remember taking advice from a Queen’s Counsel – a senior barrister in the English legal system – on the wording of an important letter in a dispute. Having listened he immediately dictated the letter to me over the phone. It was perfect - short and making all the points required in elegant and above all simple prose. It neatly avoided all of the potential legal hazards I was worried about.
 
By contrast how many times have promising projects developed a new and very clever system or way of working, only for it to founder and not be taken up in practice because the intended users find it too complex.
 
Really good presenters on intricate and difficult professional topics can explain their subject in simple terms so the audience can actually understand even if they don’t have quite the same expertise. As Albert Einstein said; “If you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it well enough.”
 
They are applying the KISS principle – an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid. This is described by Wikipedia as a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.
 
The phrase was first said to have been coined by the late Kelly Johnson, who was the lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (a place responsible for the S-71 Blackbird spy plane amongst many other notable achievements). As Wikipedia goes on to say The principle is best exemplified by the story of Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the "stupid" refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to repair them.
 
KISS is now seen as an important design principle in many engineering professions (including software engineering) and is often brought to bear by managers in many professions as well as by trainers and educators– see  KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) - A Design Principle.
 
This article 10 Tips To KISS Your Life also suggests the principle has quite a general application Too many people over-complicate things in life. This can lead to paralysis by analysis. If you apply the KISS principle to your life, you will be more productive, feel better about the decisions you make, and can have a happier and more pleasant disposition.
 
Leonardo Da Vinci’s sums it up well when he says “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

​Before the days of the Internet and email the main means of business communication was by post. Everyday correspondence on contract negotiations or disputes would be delivered every morning. The mail room and its staff and distribution system was a critical business function. It paid to know the mail operatives and be friends with them if you ever wanted favours like an overseas courier arranged late in the day. We still of course have post rooms though because there are a few critical items sent by “snail mail” and businesses like individuals order products online which are delivered by couriers. So, a new phone or accessory will still need some system to distribute them through offices.
 
However, pre Gmail and Microsoft Office matters generally moved slower driven by the speed of the communications medium - even faxes would arrive at a far more sedate pace than emails or IM’s and sending really long contracts by them was impractical. This sounds hard to believe these days of 24/7 always on, but it did have advantages. It gave professionals more time to think and the opportunity to see what was happening and to manage, control and supervise work and communications with clients or other professionals. In some legal practices the partners and senior lawyers would all sit down first thing in the morning and open and distribute the post which gave them a good understanding of progress on individual matters – and also when problems might be occurring.
 
Nowadays it is much more challenging to manage communications in a professional practice where everybody from the post room staff to the senior partner has their own email address. A junior professional can send out advice by email (or IM or even Text) without it being as easy to require a review by a more senior person, which was far easier to arrange with a letter of advice. You can find lots of advice about how to manage individual emails and mailboxes but far less on the content of the communication. There is software that will to apply automatic email rules to block messages that contain information that should never leave your company’s building, including sensitive data or offensive language -  see, for example, this product. There is far less advice on offer about how to ensure communications are at an appropriate professional level. I think it comes down to organisations setting appropriate rules and standards.
 
Letters also created less stress. There was time to consider; the quickest you could send a respond was by the evening’s post. As a result, there is far more material on the challenge of being managed by emailand equivalent communications. See this Harvard Business Review article 6 Ways to Set Boundaries Around Email which comments Email is no longer just email: messages are sent across dozens of platforms, and people now field text messages, Instagram DM’s, Slack alerts, Voxer messages, Facebook inboxes, and more. The world is full of bids for our attention, and we get stuck in the loop of answering messages, putting in longer hours to “catch up.” But if we shift to answering emails at all times, we shift to receiving emails at all times, a vicious problem.
 
Or this piece from the same journal Stop Letting Email Control Your Work Day which states Email in particular is a major contributor to employees’ perceptions of feeling stressed or overwhelmed, according to a 2011 study. In their research, the authors concluded that the email inbox itself has become a symbol of stress and overload. Combine that with a 2012 McKinsey report that found employees spend approximately 28% of their time in the office responding to, reading, or composing emails. The average person checks his or her email upwards of seventy times per day, and on the high end that number approaches 350 times!
 
As Noreena Hertz the English academic, economist, author said Email is having an increasingly pernicious effect. Not only is it having a perceptible effect on productivity, it's skewing what it is we focus on. The immediate increasingly crowds out the important.  
 
And sometimes, just sometimes actually meeting up for a negotiation or a management meeting achieves far more than an exchange of twenty or more emails. Charles Dickens of all people commented Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

I am writing the start of today’s blog whilst going through a car wash where there is annoyingly a queue - which is going to make me late for lunch after walking the dog and shopping. I am trying as always to fit everything in even at the weekend and making the most of every minute of time available - which is a typical way of behaving these days - fitting everything in wherever and however you can.
 
Actually, I managed to start today, a Sunday, in a much more relaxed way than is normally the case, taking my time over breakfast and watching the news, then reading a book (Philip Pullman’s the Book of Dust Volume 2) and then watching the Remembrance Service on television.
 
In our pressurised working and personal world when it is easy to be always “on” finding this sort of personal quiet time is increasingly hard and yet I suggest really important to both aspects.
 
See, for example, this article Why taking time to think can be critical for your business which says I've talked before about great leaders who spend 10 hours a week (or more) just thinking. Warren Buffett keeps his schedule wide open; LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner schedules two hour blocks each day to devote to thinking. I take every Friday away from the office.
 
And also this article Why Successful People Spend 10 Hours a Week Just Thinking which cites Warren Buffet as well and argues the case for thinking time quoting Abraham Lincoln  "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." While this one Take time for ‘think time’ comments It’s the paradox of our time. Self-help authors are nearly unanimous in their praise of devoting time to creative thinking and reflection. Yet, according to a recent study, overworked and stressed-out executives are spending little or no time thinking about the future of their companies – and, by implication, their lives.
 
This is the challenge, finding time to think and reflect. My parents brought me up in Africa and originally they travelled to and from there in passenger liners giving them lots of time to relax and think. Nowadays you get twelve hours on the plane between crowded airports at either end – not the same really.
 
This Forbes article 11 Ways To Create More Time To Think echoes my experiences of today commenting that Breakfast could be the most important meal of the dayeffectively because it provides time to think.
 
As the American model Kaia Gerber says Taking time for yourself is crucial when you're surrounded by people all day.
 
And as I have found today it is a matter of choice - Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying, 'I don't want to– Lao Tzu the Chinese philosopher. Or returning to the common sense and wisdom of Abraham Lincoln - Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.

The Cambridge English dictionary defines a mentor as a person who gives a younger or less experienced person help and advice over a period of time, especially at work or school. I prefer the Collins English dictionary approach because it is broader A person's mentor is someone who gives them help and advice over a period of time, especially help and advice related to their job.
 
It certainly used to be the case that mentoring was seen as a part of training new entrants to the professions. Thus, in the legal world a training principle would provide advice and support to a trainee, often sharing an office with them to impart knowledge and experience “by osmosis” as it were. Harder to do in these days of open plan offices and homeworking, but nevertheless an aspect of developing people at work as they start their careers.
 
However, I have come to realise over the years of professional life as a lawyer that mentoring is by no means confined to this training context. In fact, it is very different and much more far reaching. As professionals I think we tend to assume that once we have gained a reasonable amount of experience we can’t really learn from others anymore.
 
I suggest this is completely wrong. I recall the CEO of a very large UK IT company, who was extremely good at his job and quite inspirational to fellow senior managers, explaining how he used to regularly seek advice and guidance from another very experienced executive in a different industry. He said it gave him more balance and perspective. Heads of schools also benefit from having a mentor maybe from business who can help with their complex and demanding roles. As John C Maxwell the American author who writes about leadership commented The best way a mentor can prepare another leader is to expose him or her to other great people.
 
I have found personally even as a seasoned lawyer that seeking advice and support especially in times of challenges at work such as managing or dealing with expanding or contracting business (both demanding in different ways) is invaluable. It allows you to see that there may be another way of looking at things and helps take you out of the personal work bubble it is so easy to stay in.
 
See this Financial Times article about a mentor in the legal world Six rules for harnessing the power of a mentor which contains some good advice on the mentoring process. Also these Mentoring Guidelines from Manchester Metropolitan University are good commencing withMentoring is essentially about helping people to develop more effectively. It is a relationship designed to build confidence and support the mentee so they are able to take control of their own development and work and distinguishing the activity from training, teaching or coaching.
 
See also this Cambridge University advice on mentoring which contains a much more meaningful definitionMentoring is a system of semi-structured guidance whereby one person shares their knowledge, skills and experience to assist others to progress in their own lives and careers. Mentors need to be readily accessible and prepared to offer help as the need arises - within agreed bounds.
 
Steven Spielberg suggests The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.
 
And none of this is new we just all learn it again. Benjamin Disraeli commented in the last century The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
 
There is a wise old Japanese proverb Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a good mentor.