LEADERSHIP STYLES HOW I DID IT
‘Be guided by strong core values’
Sharon Bolton is professor of management, work and organisation at Stirling
Management School, which she led for nearly six years, and the director of an e-commerce start- up. The Chartered Director and 2015 IoD Director of the Year Award winner offers her insights.
Never accept things at face value. I was a new mother in my thirties when I took my degree. It was transformative – I met inspirational academics who showed me new ways of thinking about the world.
Champion value-led leadership. I’ve witnessed leadership based on arrogance and even megalomania. Even when times are tough, you must be guided by strong core values.
Ensure that you can sleep at night, whatever choice you make. I took that advice from my dad, an IoD member who sat on the board of the Burmah group. He always stressed the importance of integrity.
Personal credibility is key. I see Chartered Director as the equivalent of a PhD. I took it to gain a better understanding of the director’s governance responsibilities and to establish the credibility I need in taking on business-focused roles.
CONGRATULATIONS to the latest members to qualify as Chartered Directors: Paul Currie, Charlotte Denton, Anne Donaghy, Chris Fry, Julian Hynd, Steve Jackson, Thomas Noel, Zelmira Polk and Guy Waterland.
iod.com/chartered
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director.co.uk LEAD LIKE… ELLEN RIPLEY
Take a moment to consider the qualities of the trailblazing heroine of Alien, which celebrates its 40th birthday in May Words Christian Koch
FEMINIST ICON When Alien introduced Ripley – played by a then-unknown Sigourney Weaver – in 1979, the character defied convention. The old Hollywood clichés of women as glamorous sidekicks or damsels in distress didn’t apply here. Resourceful, confident and blunt, she didn’t wear make-up or have a love interest. “Usually women in films carry the burden of sympathy, coming to life only when a man enters,” Weaver said. “Doesn’t everyone know that women are incredibly strong?”
INSTINCTIVE LEADER
Ripley challenges the male-led crew of her spaceship, arguing that they shouldn’t bring their second in command back on board after he is infected by a parasite on the moon LV-426. They ignore her, but she emerges as the sole human survivor. In the 1986 sequel Aliens, Ripley starts out as a civilian adviser to a unit of marines, yet quickly takes control again after its commanding of icer panics under attack.
EQ BEATS ET Like many great leaders, Ripley balances an iron will with plentiful reserves of emotional intelligence (EQ). Take the scene in Aliens where she first encounters the last surviving colonist on LV-426, a girl called Newt. Speaking to the mistrustful and traumatised child in a hitherto unseen maternal manner, she prises out secrets that later aid their survival.
STEELY ALTRUIST Despite suff ering post-traumatic stress disorder from her ordeal in Alien, Ripley chooses to face her fear again in Aliens after being in cryogenic stasis for 57 years (“Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?” she quips upon her return.) Her steel is never more evident than in 1992’s Alien3, where she leaps to an apparently fiery end to ensure that the parasite she is carrying cannot harm others. Unfortunately for her nemeses, Ripley rises from the ashes in clone form in 1997’s Alien: Resurrection.
PHOTO: ALAMY. INTERVIEW: RYAN HERMAN
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