• 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

Getting Labour to Work

Getting Labour to Work

As UK politicians and the public acclimate to Jeremy Corbyn’s stunning Labour Party Leadership win, Richard Hytner offers some counsel to the new team and Conservatives alike. In a Huffington Post UK politics page column titled “The Moment Corbyn Buried New Labour, Cameron’s Advisors Blew It,” Hytner, Worldwide Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi and author of Consiglieri: Leading from the Shadows, proclaims: “Ignore his policies—and many will choose to—comrade Corbyn has finally buried New Labour.”

Hytner, Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the London Business School, weighs in on Corbyn’s refreshingly unvarnished presentational style, suggesting the new leader’s every utterance amounts to: “Here I am, this is what I stand for, take it or leave it.” On the other side of the aisle, the Tory side comes in for some stern criticism for issuing a warning upon the occasion of Corbyn’s victory that the new Labour head is a threat to national security. “What was needed was a dignified welcome to the front bench,” suggests Hytner, “followed by a cool-headed dismantling at the dispatch box of the new opposition leader’s loopier ideas.”

The column goes on to describe how Corbyn’s consiglieri—his deputies, advisors, assistants, and those who lead from the shadows—will need to step up their game whilst the new leader adapts to his move from the commentary box to the well of Parliament. Reminding the reader of Machiavelli’s words—“the first thing one does to evaluate a ruler’s prudence is to look at the men he has around him”—Hytner offers five sage pieces of advice for getting Labour to work:

  1. Get your borders in order—agree on what the boss needs to see and know.
  2. Commit to candid conversation.
  3. Agree on where and how laundry should be aired.
  4. Remember that recognition flows both ways.
  5. The Shadow Cabinet must commit to the new leader wholeheartedly (that means you Andy Burnham!).

A surprise conservative landslide in May! The end of New Labour in September! A self-declared socialist as leader of the opposition party! Blighty is in for interesting times. . .

Read the full article here.

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