Does a Leader Really Lead?

We assume our leaders lead. I’m no longer sure that’s true.

Britain has just appointed its seventh Prime Minister in ten years. Most of the commentary lands on the same word: direction — or rather, the absence of it. It made me go back to the word itself. Lead comes from the Old English lædan, meaning to guide, to cause to go with one. To lead, originally, meant going first and showing the way, inspiring others follow your path.  Not taking a poll on which path they’d prefer.

Sir Keir Starmer inherited a majority most Prime Ministers would consider a gift from the gods. And still, somehow, he didn’t capitalise on it. He set policy — winter fuel payments among them — only to reverse it when factions within his own party pushed back. If there was a plan for his premiership, it was never communicated clearly enough for the country, or his own MPs, to follow it. That’s not leading. That’s tracking the flock and calling it strategy.

And we notice. His ratings fell. His party lost confidence. The cynicism that follows is entirely understandable. We ask: are they governing for the country, or for their own survival in the next reshuffle? In a world as complex and interconnected as ours, can anyone really be certain what’s best — or is the retreat into polling and placation simply what happens when certainty runs out?

Here’s the lesson for the leaders I work with, because this isn’t really a story about Westminster. It’s a story about what happens to leadership under pressure, at any scale. When the demands on your time and energy multiply, when the stakeholders around you all want something different, the temptation is always the same: soften your position, wait for consensus, let the loudest faction set the direction. It looks like collaboration. It often isn’t. It’s abdication wearing a nicer coat.

I often see this in senior leaders who are exceptional operators but who’ve quietly stopped leading. They’re managing opinions instead of setting direction. They’re reversing decisions under pressure instead of communicating the reasoning behind them clearly enough that people can actually follow. And like Starmer, they wonder why trust erodes even as they work harder than ever.

The prescription is not complicated.  Simple, but not easy. Get radically clear on the two or three things you actually stand for — not what will please the most people in the room, but what you believe is right. Communicate that direction relentlessly, in plain language, before the pressure hits, not after. And when you do change course, say why, out loud, rather than letting silence do the explaining for you. A leader who reverses a decision with clarity keeps trust. A leader who reverses a decision under duress, quietly, loses it, even if the new decision is the better one.

As the new PM takes office, with all the fanfare his party can muster, I find myself wondering what it actually takes: to lead a country and a fractious party in the same breath, to make sense of a world with no map, and still keep the sheep on the fells heading somewhere on purpose.

Does he have a sheep dog that can bring them down safely? I’m honestly not sure.

Do you?