Richard Hytner > Quotes

“Anchors are fools with substance, and the truths they dispense, though clothed in comedy, take precedence over amusing antics. They are professional fools, intelligent fools that know exactly what they are doing. Discerning and wise, these fools coax, cajole, instruct and criticise their leaders, transforming their mindsets, anchoring and initiating changes in their behaviour, without fear of retribution.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“So, even if you have most of the grey cells in the meeting, be clever enough to conceal your cleverness, if only to diffuse the insecurity of the A and his other Cs.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Nor is the remedy for power to be sliced and diced democratically. Other than in communist idylls and Hot Chocolate lyrics, not everyone can be a winner all of the time. My leadership philosophy remains rooted in the need for an out-and-out leader.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“I have identified four things that the ideal C should be: content, constant, catalytic and courageous.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Trust in leadership has two main parts to it – credibility and confidence.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“for some the most joyous C motivation of all, is the opportunity, indeed the requirement, for learning through new experience.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“One thing Angelo Dundee had no time for was cotton wool or sugar-coating when he saw his man Sugar Ray Leonard losing his fight with Tommy Hearn: ‘You’re blowin’ it son, you’re blowin’ it!’ was enough to change the course of the fight. If you want to take on the job of cornerman, to be Dundee to your prize fighter, try at all times to describe your contribution as modestly as he does: ‘I just put the reflexes in the proper direction.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“The leadership qualities shared by out-and-out leaders, the As, as well as by their more catalytic counterparts, the Cs, are founded on trust, determined by credibility and confidence. Where trust is the basic requirement, emotional intelligence is the differentiator.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“For many people there is a time to be an A and a time to be a C throughout their career.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Aristotle described contemplation as the highest form of activity. Your A might not thank you for taking too much time away from the action but as their C you require some contentment and there are no shortcuts to it. There is even less chance of a shortcut to our next vital C state.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Most of the leaders we readily associate with out-and-out A leadership earned their remit by mastering the C role earlier in their careers. That experience encourages them to surround themselves with the best Cs when they take up the final decision-maker’s mantle.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“In our increasingly always-on world, As must perform. If a stage or a platform is out of reach for a time, the natural A will feel withdrawal symptoms. Popularity is a popular motivation. Being adored and revered can be irresistible, intoxicating, though successful leaders know that congeniality rarely correlates with longevity. What really gets the A going above all is power.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Even if the status is a guilty pleasure, the A needs his C to look important. How else will he be able to achieve all that he needs to in the A’s service? When the leader declares to those assembled, ‘I’ve brought my No. 2 with me,’ the No. 2 looks just that little bit taller.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Becoming a C is an opportunity to learn new skills too: how to make things happen without any overt power; how to negotiate, among a diverse group of hotheads, a unified recommendation for the A; how to manage the fall-out from an unpopular decision, and smooth the way for its flawless execution.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“An A’s failure to respond in the appropriate time can leave them horribly exposed. The PA’s job is to know when to intervene and with what intelligence. Fleur, now executive assistant to the chief executive of News International, never allows her boss to get caught on the hop: ‘I’ve got lots of specific alerts set up on my phone, ready for news, and I check my phone like a mad woman, which I shouldn’t do, probably, but I do.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Yet there remains a vast gulf between a seemingly widespread understanding of the need for self-awareness and the practice of being self-aware. Pursuing self-awareness does not appear to come naturally to testosterone-fuelled Western leaders. If not dismissed as self-absorption, it is, like a dental appointment, dealt with as a rude interruption to the day’s more important business.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“It’s a competitive world out there so if you’re not improving your skills, doing qualifications, learning on the job, other people will be.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“If you believe in your A, if you can influence how that leader perceives and deals with challenges, then the chance to be the first follower is a powerful motivating force. You encourage the rest to get behind the best.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Remember that Cs spend years perfecting the art of acting in your best interests. How much time have you devoted to thinking about how to make your C’s job easier?”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Situational awareness and contextual intelligence will help Cs get intimate with their organisation’s resources. Knowing how to put them to best use is an act of creativity, the next step for the catalytic C, as they manage talent to facilitate thinking. Knowing the people in your organisation, matching them to task, unleashing their capabilities, and making random connections between them, all help create fresh ideas and alternative options.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Friends in high places are understandably treated with suspicion, particularly when they are appointed without the kind of qualifications or life experiences we would expect.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“AXA’s Amanda Blanc can look over the cliff edge and remain vertigo free: I’m the person that gets sacked if something goes wrong, and I say this to my team regularly, ‘You know, if something goes wrong here I go, not you, it’s me.’ The CEO is accountable and when you’ve got 1,700 people who are taking risks, however carefully and even with controls in place, there’s still a huge element of having to trust those people that they’re going to do the right thing. So, yes, the accountability is really tough.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Good Cs fit snugly into the robes of the devil’s advocate. In the interests of robust debate, Cs will sometimes serve up a deliberately naïve solution, and eat the resulting crow if they have to. The arguments of a C tend to be considered and reasonable but in the face of stiff internal resistance, a grand folly about to be perpetrated, the C may need to be unreasonably stubborn. When candour is called for, when the unspeakable needs to be spoken, the C stands up.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“In Spanish, there’s a saying that it’s better to be the head of a mouse than the tail of a lion.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“More than raw intellect and the ability to structure arguments, cases and proposals, the best Cs have superior contextual intelligence. The ability to discern situations and read patterns of play drives confidence in the A’s final decisions.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Anthony Simonds-Gooding, my first ever chairman, was a stickler for full and frank exchanges, pulling people up short the second he detected the scent of deceit. ‘To be quite honest with you’, they would begin, before he pounced on them: ‘There are no degrees of honesty, you either are honest or you are not, so I’m afraid “quite honest” just won’t do it.’ Just as there are no degrees of honesty, there are no shortcuts to courage. As the C gains more influence, he will need more of it.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Those who rely on their spouses to keep them in check, to hold mirrors up to their excesses, to act as sane sounding boards, tend, in my research, to enjoy a more profound sense of well-being.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Often themselves outstanding golfers, caddies lighten the load by feeding their As information on how the course works, estimating the yardage of each hole, suggesting the club they might choose and advising on the direction and speed of the wind. More importantly, say the best golfers, a caddie imparts calm, confidence and focus. They contribute to the certainty of their A’s decision-making. In some cases, the club lugger may prove to be the decisive factor, the difference between winner and runner-up.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“He feels his contribution is all the more satisfying – and effective – because from a seemingly unassailable position as an A superhero, Care came crashing down to earth: I unashamedly talk about the period I went through when I experienced significant depression which had consequences. I think that having an opportunity to share stuff with people creates possibilities in their minds … This is probably not correct or fair but through the difficult period I felt I had a lot of patrons and sponsors but I’m not sure I had mentors.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best

“Lodestones also take friction out of the system. People are understandably concerned to meet the expectations of their leader, particularly one who has a strong personality. Imagine that one such A asks a rhetorical question in a meeting. Someone eager to please or frightened about perceived lack of contribution decides to act on the question. Within days, an internal industry has been developed to try to answer the A’s question; within a week, the project has grown a life of its own; after three months of late nights, heated debate and takeaway pizzas, an answer to the A’s long-forgotten question lands with a thud on their desk. The A thumbs through the thick folder, calls in their C and, baffled at its origin, asks ‘What on earth is this all about?’ An answer from the C along the lines of, ‘Well, you asked this question in a meeting three months ago,’ wouldn’t cut it. The A didn’t mean for the machine to go into overdrive on their behalf and will be angry that you let that happen. People have suffered as a result of thinking too hard about what the big guy (or gal) wants. The intimidating A has got limited time. People are too nervous to stick their head around the door and ask, ‘Hey, boss, that question you just raised in the meeting, do you want someone to take a look at it, or were you just thinking aloud?’ A confident Lodestone may not even have to ask the question. They will have an instinct about what is important to the A based on the A’s current agenda, which will enable the C to prevent friction, and months of wasted effort, by telling their colleagues, ‘Don’t bother with that one, the boss was just asking a question.”
― Richard Hytner, Consiglieri - Leading from the Shadows: Why Coming Top Is Sometimes Second Best