• It has become something of a taboo in our society to say you don't want to be a leader — especially if you are one. Richard Hytner, a former CEO at the global advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, experienced it firsthand and is trying to break that stigma.- Lillian Cunningham, Editor, On Leadership, The Washington Post
  • Hytner notes that talent development, for example, is crucial to companies now, so the lack of a great track record for hiring, inspiring, and keeping star employees sometimes trips up aspiring CEOs.- Anne Fisher, Fortune Magazine
  • He argues convincingly that a great team of a chief executive and a number two is a more successful proposition than a solitary leader. Mr Hytner describes the various types of consiglieri – lodestones, educators, anchors and deliverers, according to his segmentation.- Luke Johnson, Financial Times
  • Richard Hytner, deputy chairman of London-based advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, thinks corporate understudies are too often overlooked. He’s set out to burnish the reputation of the second-in-command...- Adam Auriemma, the Wall Street Journal
  • It’s a trove of advice about how to be a great deputy and principal adviser, a calling that has brought out the best in people as varied and admirable as Warren Buffett’s Charlie Munger, Anna Wintour’s Grace Coddington, Abraham Lincoln’s William Seward, and Henry VIII’s Thomas Cromwell.- Frederick E. Allen, Forbes

Media Article

Contemplating Coaching and Contentment

Contemplating Coaching and Contentment

One of Meyler Campbell’s self-described “less diligent students” had the opportunity to address the graduating class on September 25, when Richard Hytner, Worldwide Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi and author of Consiglieri: Leading from the Shadows, spoke to newly minted alumni of the esteemed coaching programme.

“My own experience as a Meyler Campbell coachee has firmed up my belief that it takes a rare kind of person to opt for the role of supporting second as a first choice,” said Hytner, who is also an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the London Business School. “It is one you are all choosing to make in your lives as coaches. Contentment as a C—and I believe this applies to coaches—requires enough contemplation to know one’s limitations and an authentic acceptance of them. It involves a kind of stillness that eludes most As. And stillness requires sacrifice.”

During his speech, Hytner described the path that led him to write Consiglieri, a unique volume in the world of business leadership books, and how the work relates to Meyler Campbell’s coaching curriculum. “I was. . . surprised and underwhelmed by the paucity of literature and help available for those who support these leaders,” Hytner explained. “There is, of course, an impressive and diverse body of work devoted to coaching but not all leaders wish to be, or have it within them, to be coaches.”

Rhetorically asking who among the graduates would choose to be CEO of Volkswagen during their current calamity, Hytner lavished praise on those who lead from the shadows, “people whose private pleasure is to make great success of others.” Notables in that valued role include “Tom Hagen for Don Corleone, Ringo Starr for the Beatles, Robin for Batman, Gromitt for Wallace, Sandberg for Zuckerberg and, if she has any sense, Elizabeth Warren for Hillary Clinton.”

Complementing Meyler Campbell’s GROW coaching framework (Goal, Reality, Options, Will), Hytner rounded out his remarks by introducing to the newly accredited coaches a LEAD framework, “there to remind Cs how their As wish to feel as a result of their contribution: Liberated, Enlightened, Anchored and Decisive.”

To learn more about Meyler Campbell visit http://www.meylercampbell.com/

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