We love just about everything that Malcolm Gladwell has written but during this, the week of International Women’s Day his recollection of the story of Ms Abbie Conant, American musician being selected and then unselected as the lead trombonist in the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra strikes us as pertinent (Blink Penguin Books 2005).

In a recent bit of sport commentary, I heard a broadcaster say of a player “from up here in the box I always thought him to be a humble man, but his teammates tell me he’s actually very confident”. This made me reflect on how frequently I hear people mix up the complex relationship between humility and confidence.

I remember a line in an old war movie. A wise old Colonel is telling a young officer “on the battlefield you represent me and the way you represent me, reflects on me”.

My great-grandfather Edwin (Ted) Leane was one of The Fighting Leanes of Prospect – once called the “most famous family of soldiers in Australian history” by historian and war correspondent, Charles Bean.

As an active Navy reservist, I watched with interest late in 2020 as the Department of Defence took seven sets of intra-Defence organisational Values (Navy, Army, RAAF, Special Ops Command, Australian Public Service, Australian Defence Force Academy and Cadets), poured them into a big values magi-mix and produced a new set of Defence Values…a sort of ‘one size fits all’. There was very sound strategic reason for this, specifically the ongoing push for “better alignment in support of a stronger, more capable, Joint and integrated Force”.

One way a leader can murder team performance is to selfishly place themselves in the middle of everything, right in the hub. Picture an old sailing ship helm. Hub in the middle, spokes and a rim at the outer limit. This is hardly original thinking but in my mind if the leader is in the hub, team members sit on the handles that protrude from the outer rim and the spokes are lines of communication.