Allan Leighton
Allan Leighton is widely respected as one of Britain's best business managers, having taken on some of the toughest jobs around. He first made his name at the then ailing supermarket group, Asda, transforming it from a £500mln company to one sold to the biggest retailer in the world, US giant Wal-Mart for £6.2bln. Allan then became President & CEO of Wal-Mart Europe.
In November 2000, he left Wal-Mart and developed a new work ethic - ‘Going Plural' and developed a portfolio of interests including Directorships with Dyson, Lastminute.com, Scottish Power and Cannons to name but a few.
He is currently Deputy Chairman, Selfridges & Co; Chairman, British Home Stores Ltd; Director, George Weston Ltd; Non Executive Director, BskyB & Chairman, Royal Mail Group.
In recent years, much of his time has been taken up with the Royal Mail Group which has returned to profit under his chairmanship.
Allan Leighton's Ten Golden Rules of Business
1) Keep it simple.
2) Focus on execution.
3) Listen to your operators.
4) Think small. Small is big.
5) Less often is more.
6) Your people come first.
7) Think like a customer.
8) If in doubt, do the right thing....
9) ....but then do things right.
10) Remember, EGO stands for "edging God out".
Find out how Allan puts these rules into
practice in the many companies he has
been involved with over the years.
Execution - An Undervalued Leadership Skill
"There are two important things in business: strategy & execution - 30% is strategy and 70% is execution"
Allan Leighton has long believed that execution is an undervalued leadership skill - all the best strategies in the world are useless unless executed correctly and efficiently. Here how Allan has managed to achieve this in both executive and nonexecutive positions.
Getting Communication Right
Communication must be focussed on both externally and internally and must always be two-way not just the top sending missives down to the front line. But how does a leader achieve this and how should this be prioritised in a leader's busy schedule? Allan believes there is little more important to a leader than communication. It is only if you are close to the front-line and close to the customer that you can ever truly understand your business and make the changes necessary to long-lasting success. Hear Allan talk about how he has made this happen.
For example, at Asda, he introduced "huddles" - meetings where staff would get together to discuss daily issues and, at the Royal Mail, he also tries to have a direct relationship with the workforce. He sees every single delivery office manager in the country, 2,500 of them, every twelve weeks, taking 2 days. He gets them in groups of 150 and ‘we don't have any slides, we have a flip chart and we say "What do you want to talk about?" Those two bits are the most important bits, in terms of communication inside the organization, because everything else spans off the back of that.
Similarly, he has a monthly survey of people's morale in the Royal Mail. ‘I get 55,000 responses, 80% response rates, and I cover the whole organisation in a 12 month period. So, every month I get a snapshot of where everybody is in terms of how they are feeling about the company.
Current Appointments:
Feb 2004 Deputy Chairman, Selfridges & Co
Mar 2002 Chairman, Royal Mail Group
Nov 2000 Chairman British Home Stores Ltd
Jan 2001 Deputy Chairman, George Weston Ltd
Deputy Chairman, Loblaws Ltd
Oct 1999 Non Executive Director, BskyB
Previous Career:
1996 - 1999 Chief Executive, Asda Stores Ltd
1999 - 2000 President & CEO, Wal-Mart Europe
2000 - 2004 Non Executive Chairman lastminute.com (stepped down at the end of 2004)
2000 - 2004 Non Executive Director, Dyson Ltd (stepped down at the end of 2004)
2001 - 2004 Non Executive Chairman, Cannons Group Ltd (stepped down at the end of 2004)
2001 - 2003 Chairman, Wilson Connolly Holdings PLC (company sold December 2003)
2001 - 2002 Non Executive Director, Scottish Power plc
1995 - 2000 Non Executive Director, Wilson Connolly Holdings PLC
2000 Deputy Chairman, Wilson Connolly Holdings PLC
1998 - 2003 Non Executive Deputy Chairman, Leeds United PLC
2001 Non Executive Director, Consignia plc
2002 Interim Chairman, Consignia plc
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