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Jeff Grout is a London Business Forum (LBF) regular and it’s not hard to see why; he delivers a stream of practical advice without deviation or hesitation. What is most remarkable is the wealth of information that Grout covers without even breaking into a sweat, neatly packaging years of insight and experience into one succinct, inspirational event.

Leadership was his theme and he began by stressing its powerful effects:

“It’s not just the business world that has a fascination with leadership. Everything from sporting success to the collapse of society, it seems, is put down to good or bad leadership.”

So what characteristics sort good leaders from bad? “Successful leaders focus everybody on a simple clear objective and a narrow range of priorities,” Grout told the LBF. However, a study by Cranfield School of Management found that whilst 90% of leaders knew what they wanted to achieve, only 20% of them achieved it. The main reason for this was that management teams were trying to meet too many objectives. The first thing that leaders must do, suggested Grout, is “declutter the agenda.” Where organisations had only three or four core priorities, the Cranfield study found that 90% of them succeeded.

To be a leader, explained Grout, you must have followers. Grout has devised his own simple test to measure “followship.” He calls it the T-test. It involves asking questions of the senior management and then the same questions of employees down the vertical spine of the organisation:

1. What is the overall business objective?
2. What are the immediate priorities?
3. What are you personally doing to contribute to the priorities?

If everyone that you ask can provide answers and if the answers match both across the management team and down the vertical spine then you know you’re heading in the right direction.

Leadership is also about identifying the right talent to take you where you want to go. Forget about experience and qualifications Grout insisted, hire for “attitude” and look for “commercial awareness” and “communication skills.” Grout believes that so many companies get recruitment wrong and he knows what he’s talking about having spent several years as a professional recruitment consultant.

Why he asked the LBF audience is so little weight put on the importance of interview training? “None of us would allow a 17 year old to get into a car without driving lessons.” Yet, allowing a senior leader to interview a candidate without training can, he believes, “be just as catastrophic.” To remove someone from their post after a recruitment mistake costs a company, on average, twice that person’s annual salary.

Once you’ve hired the right people, you have to know how to keep them. As a leader it is often hard to measure morale, Grout suggested. “Your job title is a hug obstacle to you finding out.” Grout believes that you will have the “loyalty, commitment and trust of your people” if…

1. You make them feel part of something.
2. You make people feel their individual role has some significance.
3. You regularly catch people doing something right.

Ron Dennis, head of McLaren, knows this. Grout explained that 260 people contributed to Lewis Hamilton being crowned World Formula One Champion on 2008, but only 50 of those people are able to go to the Grand Prix. To ensure that every person felt part of the victory, Dennis invited all 260 people to the staff canteen to give them a “blow by blow account of what happened.” In HR, explained Grout, this is call “employee engagement” but Grout prefers Dennis’s term: “the insider feeling.”

Another leader acutely aware of the need to inspire people to follow his vision was Greg Dyke, former director general of the BBC. Dyke inherited his role from a predecessor who was widely disliked and he realised that good communication would go a long way towards reuniting the senior management team with the body of the company.

In his first 100 days at the BBC, Dyke “deliberately got out of London […] and visited locations that no director general had visited before.” Grout revealed to the LBF how Dyke queued in the staff canteen, spoke to everybody he met and asked them two questions:

1. “Tell me one thing we should do to improve our service to the viewer/ listener.”
2. “Tell me what I should do to improve your life at work

In his second 100 days in the post, Dyke acted on as many suggestions as possible to show that he had been listening. “Good communication goes two ways,” Grout stressed.

The most successful leaders aren’t afraid of change. They stimulate debate about how to better manage performance. “Harness the power of your new people’s first impressions,” Grout urged. After their first 100 days, ask new starters the following questions:

1. What are the good things we do that we should keep doing?
2. What are the bad things we do?
3. What are the things we do occasionally that we should do consistently?
4. What are the things that we aren’t doing that we should start doing?

The best leaders understand that communicating business goals isn’t just about “telling” those who will play a part in executing them; they are hands-on and look beyond senior management to ensure that everyone is united behind their vision.

Finally, Grout concluded, “Leadership is about building confidence and belief that your people can achieve the goal that you’ve set them.”