Leaders can learn from 'timeless' Army values in fast world

Leadership lessons learned in the British Army are as relevant in today’s fast-moving world as they ever were, according to one of the Army’s most senior leadership trainers.

Major General Nick Cowley, commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, was speaking on the fourth episode of Reading Ahead, the new University of Reading podcast marking the institution’s centenary. 

The fourth episode of an eight-part series hosted by University Chancellor Paul Lindley, Major General Cowley and Daniel Tapp, a University of Reading student and one of the first cohort of the University’s Global Sustainability Leadership Scholars, discussed what core skills leaders will need to face the challenges of the century ahead..

Major General Cowley said: “The standards we hold ourselves to are unchanging. In the Army, we talk about courage, loyalty, selflessness commitment, discipline, integrity, respect for others. Those things have been tested over time and things like respect for others, to me, are timeless.

"As the world's moving quicker it's really important wehave [an] ethical underpinning because the decisions we make as leaders now have so much more implication. We must absolutely have a bedrock of ethical responsible leadership based on values and the faster the world's moving the more, we must emphasise that.

"I think having roots on what is ethically right [...] whilst at the same time being very curious, very quick to bring on new information, being agile [...] if we can do those two things in parallel, we've got a fighting chance in the modern world."

Major General Cowley and Tapp also discussed a partnership between the University of Reading and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which gives Army officers and soldiers the opportunity to study for degrees and postgraduate qualifications alongside their military training, equipping them with the kind of intellectual grounding Cowley believes matters increasingly in a fast-changing world.

Tapp, reflecting on his own experience of leadership, said: "I think a good leader is just like a compass. Not necessarily a map. They’ll lead us in the right direction, even when we've got no clue what it will look like. So, I think in that way character becomes a compass and leaders themselves become compasses."

Reading Ahead episode four is available now on podcast platforms, including Spotify and YouTube.