Qualities that earn leaders high accolades

Leadership is change, change is leadership – it really is that simple, writes corporate change expert Debbie Nicol.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting on a panel of judges for Meed's Gulf Capital SME Awards. My job was to help decide who would be awarded the business accolade of Entrepreneur of the Year. It was there I met a leader in the true sense of the word.

This lady stood out from the crowd. As I was experiencing her vision, drive, innovation and results, it was no wonder that her interviews on the radio had caught my attention. It was clear what she stood for, something she personified within the first three minutes of her 10-minute presentation.

In their book The Leadership Challenge, the authors James M Kouzes and Barry Posner define leadership as being "the art of mobilising others to want to struggle for shared aspirations". And this lady was a textbook case study of "struggle".

For too long, bank customers had found themselves in situations that they either did not understand, could not have ever imagined or simply could not interpret because of legal jargon.

Pages and pages of terminology were simply beyond the comprehension of the average consumer. This entrepreneur felt the pain of those who found themselves in debt, saw the damaging effect it had on families and genuinely wanted to help people steer themselves out of financial trouble.

Debbie Nicol, managing director of the Dubai-based business en motion, is a consultant on leadership and organisational development, strategic change and corporate culture.

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