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Presents an interview with Bob Stewart, an independent consultant specializing in courses and lectures on leadership, motivation, ethics, crisis management, negotiation, planning and tactics. Drawing on his military experience, covers such areas as the most significant attributes of an effective leader, the need for flexibility and the challenges posed in terms of leading and motivating teams. Finally, discusses his role within Hill & Knowlton Public Affairs Corporate Division and the Foundation of The Leadership Backbone.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Colonel Bob Stewart, who completed 26 years army service and was the first British battalion commander in Bosnia, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. He is currently an independent consultant specializing in political and security matters, Vice President of the United Kingdom National Defence Association and President of Action for Armed Forces.

This briefing is prepared by an independent interviewer.

Colonel Bob Stewart provides a very honest, personal account of what it's like to be a leader on the frontline, detailing essential qualities and skills relevant to every leader or manager by drawing on his own experience, both in the army and in business, highlighting the key attributes he believes any leader should have.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

This interview suggests that each person has the capacity to lead and can learn how to lead, by analysing what they're required to do, assessing the intelligence, (the situation that they see on the ground) and reacting accordingly.

An interview with Thomas A. Stewart, recently appointed editor of the Harvard Business Review and formerly Editorial Director of Business 2.0 and a member of the Board of Editors of Fortune. His latest book is The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty‐first Century Organization (2002). Stewart’s message: Knowledge is the most important factor of production in the modern economy and a key to achieving competitive advantage. Investment in intellectual capital almost invariably provokes further complementary investments, producing a self‐feeding circle of investment and value creation. If you don’t know why you’re doing knowledge management, you shouldn’t be doing it. To apply knowledge management ideas and tools to solve business problems, you have to first identify the business problems. More companies are now operating in real time. In these companies, management can see their companies running almost the way an open‐heart surgeon can see the heart beating. That is going to change the art of management in a lot of ways. One effect will be to increase the visibility of the importance of knowledge and information. The response to 9/11 has made people much more aware of the value of their knowledge and much more aware of how to manage, collect, and protect both that knowledge and the people who create and embody it. As we move forward, I think we will be seeing an explicit recognition that deploying and redeploying people and knowledge leads to the fastest growth.

Argues that functional analysis has been misrepresented and misinterpreted. Refutes the idea that functional analysis claims to be objective, empirical or reductionist. Suggests rather, that it is based on a process of “interpretative understanding” of best practice and future requirements. Disputes the criticism that functional analysis ignores the importance of process in favour of simply describing the tangible results of system activity, and that it is solely concerned with the technical component of work performance, ignoring its social context.

An empirical study of the criteria of managerial effectiveness in UK secondary schools is described, and the implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the current controversial debate in the UK surrounding the “universal competence approach” versus the “process approach” to Management Education, Training and Development (METD). Using critical incident technique and factor analysis to generate job dimensions from behavioural data, 16 criteria were identified. When compared with those applying in industrial, commercial and public sector organisations, as reported in the UK and USA literature, seven appeared to be held in common. These were deemed to be “universal” but made up less than half the total job domain; the other nine criteria appeared to be “situation” specific. The results suggest that to some extent the “universally effective manager” does exist, however, other strong evidence supports the views of those who promote the alternative “process approach”.

Provides a contribution to the debate in the UK on the appropriateness of competence‐based qualifications. Identifies a number of weaknesses in the competence philosophy as currently defined, and a number of operational problems in implementing a national scheme of competence‐based vocational qualifications. Argues that the change to competence qualifications is unlikely to bring benefits commensurate with the required investment, and that the approach will be unworkable for higher level professional and managerial jobs. The first in a series of three, which is intended to stimulate critical debate within the education and training professions. The series will end with recommendations on a way forward within the established NCVQ framework.

The second in a series of three articles which provide a contribution to the debate in the UK on the appropriateness of competence‐based qualifications. Identifies and emphasizes some of the particular strengths of established qualification methodologies which provide clear advantage over the competence philosophy. Draws attention to a number of false assumptions about current practices which premise the competency case.