On September 8th we were delighted to hold the annual FLS Conference at the prestigious RAF Club in London.

With over 100 senior leaders in attendance, it was an impressive opportunity to not only explore the challenges facing leaders today, but also how we can positively and skilfully harness these tricky moments.

Key insights were shared by Baroness Sue Campbell and ex-nuclear submarine commander L. David Marquet. These included snippets from their recently launched books. A panel expertly chaired by John Inverdale included:

• Tom Bucknall - Head of the Centre for Army Leadership, Sandhurst.

• Genevieve Glover - Chief People Officer at Barchester Healthcare.

• Sarah Robertson - Scotland and GB hockey. Olympian.

• Jonathan Webb - Vice Chair, World Rugby and Orthopaedic surgeon.

• Lucy Wray Mercey - Owner/CEO London Mavericks Netball.

Attendees represented a broad range of organisations including; The RFU, St George’s Park, Google Deep Mind, London Business School, The Royal Navy, Sported, The Open University, Empire Fighting Chance, Matchroom Sport, Bristol University, Police, Access Sport, Birmingham Panthers, Gatenby Sanderson, Gazing Performance, Wasps Rugby, YELL, British Elite Athletes Association, Age Care Technologies, HALMA Healthcare, Gilbert Rugby, Exertis Ltd, Hurlingham Polo, Loughborough University, Bath Rec, Kings Foundation, England Futsal, NOUS Group, Sustainable Energy 24, The Well, Metis Digital, Dept for Energy and Security, England Polo, Radicality Co UK, United Polo. There were so many insights that it’s difficult to summarise, but here are a few that bubbled through;

• Leading through change is a constant.

• Creating environments where people are aligned to purpose is central to high performance.

• We need to know ourselves and others incredibly well, including our strengths, blind spots and our values.

• We need to skilfully balance emotion and logic.

• Leaders must retain their curiosity about possibilities, others’ ideas and others’ potential.

A final point was that if you want your people to be brilliant, then they need autonomy and have the opportunity to maximise their talents.

Before Bob Reeves summarized, Frank Dick, Colonel Lucy Giles, Richard Lloyd and I shared our reflections. A special thank you must go to FLS Director Eboni Usoro-Brown, FLS Associate Olly Lausen-Mitchell and the wonderfully supportive Pete Atkinson. It was wonderful to see Jonathon Webb again. We last met at the Bristol Royal Infirmary in 1989 when he assessed my broken leg!

We were incredibly pleased with the attendance and genuine engagement of so many inspirational leaders, but also the huge amount of wonderful feedback. Here are a few snippets;

“Congratulations to the wonderful team at FLS for this remarkable afternoon, which was definitely worth the transport challenges (signal failure AND a tube strike!) and with 2 wonderful books to take home which I will devour!”

“I just wanted to drop you a note to say thank you for the invitation to Monday’s conference at the RAF Club. It was in my top three best development days in my 34 years wandering the Earth trying to be an effective rugby coach.”

“I just wanted to drop you a note to say thank you so much for the brilliant afternoon. It was amazing to hear from such a range of fantastic leaders across different sectors. I left feeling very inspired and found it very thought provoking.”

“It struck me that yesterday was such high quality, and so relevant. People in the room were comfortable discussing the challenges and, importantly, being vulnerable with like-minded people. There was quite a bit of coaching going on in the room. You have created a safe place for FLS followers to come.”