‘Alpha’ style of leadership fails to deliver workforce trust

Dominic Cummings’s alpha style of leadership has largely been expunged from corporate boardrooms and it was only a matter of time before Downing Street too trod a more consensual path. Ultimately he did not have his workforce behind him, crucial for any boss with such an ambitious change programme in mind. A parting of ways with the chairman of his board, in this case Boris Johnson, was unavoidable.

The alpha is easy spot. A big character propounding big ideas, they expect to be the most important person in any room they walk into. They can inspire their people, scare them even. Blessed with fierce self-belief they are a fixed point around which strategy and direction gather – but also a magnet for controversy.

Alphas can reign very successfully for years – think back to Lord Weinstock’s 33 years at the helm of GEC, one of the UK’S great conglomerates. But discovering the emperor is wearing no clothes can be jarring.

Ironically, the only place these overweening figureheads still exist in numbers is the tech world. Investors have granted extraordinary latitude to the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to follow pet projects as they see fit, while demanding focus and accountability from mere-mortal chief executives. With his bold plan for the UK to build its own $1 trillion digital giants, perhaps Cummings saw common ground with this crowd, although his own stock did not soar so high during lockdown.

During his time in office, Cummings butted heads with a leadership type I have christened the diplomats. The permanent secretaries who manage through bureaucracy and seek to balance diverse stakeholder voices were no doubt regarded as anathema to such a top-down tactician. Their exodus suggested that transformation would trump tradition, but the ship has righted itself.

In fact diplomats, as seen at the helm of the largest accounting and legal firms in the City, are now far more palatable leaders than the alphas of old. Those that have taken a civil service training out into the world are valued for their disciplined thinking and problem-solving skills. And unlike Cummings, they often have a restricted mandate.

For all the talk of a diversity drive – and much progress has been made to improve the make-up of boards – most organisations like their leaders to look reassuringly familiar, in terms of their CV and behaviour, if not their appearance. That could explain the incredible number of bosses to have rolled off the Procter & Gamble production line. They parlayed early experience selling soap powder and shampoo into a wide range of executive roles where sales, marketing and people skills were in hot demand. It also explains why a Mckinsey training has become such a touchstone for any headhunter running short of ideas.

Mavericks – otherwise known as the “weirdos and misfits” that Cummings looked to hire – have a role, but rarely at the top, unless they have founded something themselves.

Approachable, inclusive, predictable, communicative: these attributes make leadership sound far from exciting, but they foster trust and are often what gets things done.