Are Britain’s billionaires too blinkered to lead?

There are a lot of German words that I would claim to be my favourite. My team is exhausted by me talking about Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which is a compound noun meaning ‘the coming to terms of the past’. Another favourite of mine is Scheuklappen - the side-blinders that horses wear. They restrict peripheral vision and so the horses are forced to focus only on what is directly in front. It stops them from being startled by side movements or other objects, giving them more concentration in racing or driving scenarios. 

Many leaders wear metaphorical Scheuklappen to help them focus on the task at hand. In the best-selling book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes about making distractions invisible and donning a set of digital Scheuklappen that remote the distractions of mobile devices and nuisance notifications. Just this week, I was sent five ways to hit my goals by being more boundary-driven and focused in my working behaviour.

Are Scheuklappen always helpful in leadership?

As part of a project for Microsoft ten years ago, I interviewed a board coach about the motivations of the leaders at the top of businesses. We were investigating what makes certain businesses win and what causes collapse for the likes of Enron. The coach talked to me about motivations and since then, I’ve been fascinated by why people do what they do, and what it means for the shape and success of their businesses. In our work at The Unmistakables, I’ve interviewed hundreds of business leaders who share some of their innermost worries alongside what they see as opportunity, and we work to make sense of what that means for strategy, growth and relevance. 

When we overlay the idea of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), we see three core needs. The first is autonomy - a feeling that ‘I choose to do this’. The second is competence, meaning ‘I can do this well. The third is relatedness, which means ‘I matter to others’. When basic psychological needs are supported, people shift towards intrinsic motivation and internalised values. Often, when they’re frustrated or earlier on in their careers, they rely more on external incentives. 

Research suggests external rewards, social comparison and validation of their achievements start out as the primary drivers for people at work, but as people gain security and a sense of stability in their identity, they seek autonomy and prioritise meaning over reward. When financial pressure drops, then alignment becomes more important than applause. Scheuklappen become attractive for leaders who want to win their own race and build their own wealth in line with their own values. 

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has entered the conversation

When leaders make comments on the record, they become interpretations of their values. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s words that Britain has been ‘colonised by immigrants’ was like touchpaper to the febrile migration debate in the UK press. The non-apology for ‘offending some people’, followed by a statement from Manchester United of being ‘an inclusive and welcoming club’ shows the cracks appearing in institutions straddling the old world paradigm of wealth and the new world paradigm of fairness. 

Sir Ratcliffe is certainly an impressive man. He made his billions through buying a chemicals company that floated at £100m, and growing a private company, Ineos, that creates chemicals and raw materials that go into toiletries, medicines, food, mobile phones and furniture. In more recent years, he’s taken his wealth out of the UK and into Monaco; those Scheuklappen are more focused on his own legacy than what he can put back into the country he claims to want to see do well. 

Thinking about motivations, the challenge we have today is that many people who initially had stability are currently having their financial security threatened by artificial intelligence and continual restructures. This sits behind the rise in white-collar workers who are leaving their jobs for the trades and the fears playing out in the stock market of the incoming apocalypse. Across white-collar industries, seasoned professionals are having the rug pulled from underneath them. 

At the same time, we have the brutal reality of 60,000 young people applying for 2,000 entry-level jobs, at the likes of PwC and the soul-destroying search for work. Just this week, we’ve learnt that unemployment for 16 to 24-year-olds is now at 16.1% and so prospects feel bleak. This is all happening in the context of a widening gap between wealth and income inequality in the UK. In the early 1990s, roughly 65% of 25-34 year-olds owned a home, today that is nearer 35%. 

So when a multi-billionaire like Sir Jim Ratcliffe says Britain is being colonised by immigrants, it’s no wonder that we witnessed over 150,000 mentions and widespread outrage. The term ‘UK has been colonised by immigrants’ got almost 20,000 mentions alone. It came at a time of rising disquiet around billionaires, many of whom are being named in the Epstein files, and with that challenging the status quo when it comes to what success really looks like. What this shows is a rapid rethink of what the pay-off of leadership really is in a more uneven and unequal world. As companies replace CEOs in record numbers with younger versions, my sense is Scheuklappen will no longer be an option.