Judgements aside, the ease of making a cup of instant coffee is its greatest benefit. Scoop, pour, and stir – and you have a cup of coffee. But I will say the flavour, the quality, and the enjoyment of that morning cup of coffee is not the same. Think of the difference between fast food and a three-course meal, the level of satisfaction from the fast food rarely equals the level of enjoyment from a great three-course meal.

Our society is too caught up with instant gratification. Yes sometimes things need to be done quickly but in always looking for the fastest or easiest way out of a problem we forget about the importance of trying things. Quick wins minimise the importance and necessity of failure. They narrow the concept of success, causing a cycle where people are expected to succeed quickly and often.

We are not all born leaders. Becoming a good leader can take a lot of time. 

Recently I have started to play with the idea of the Nescafe leader. It is a fascinating concept. It is the “scoop pour and stir style” of leadership, where leaders are more likely to be born than made and if you don’t do it right the first time then it does not work. These are leaders who are off the shelf, ready to go, and super experienced with need for development but no need to be tried and tested prior to an emergency.

I have yet to meet a person who can do these things. Many of the inspiring leaders I speak to have had to take a much longer road with hard knocks. They did not hear someone’s top tips and become. They recognised the fact that we are all different. What works for you may not work for me and vice versa. So the leadership learning process is about transferring another individual’s understanding and making it relevant to me. 

Ultimately I ponder the value of top tips for leadership. Do they help people become better leaders of do they distract them from their goal, leading? Nescafe coffee drinkers could do with sitting and enjoying their coffee – from the process of making it to the flavours it can generate to the social aspect it can bring to one’s life. In the same way we should look at leadership as a process to be enjoyed, with stages and times.

Ethan Ohs

Having dealt with numerous youngsters when running summer camps,  I quickly found that 90% of my time and attention was spent on those who were misbehaving. Through them receiving this extra attention, over a period of time they developed into positive leaders within the group.

Watching the American Presidential Election; Senator Obama was attacked at one point because he advocated reaching out and speaking to countries that the US has traditionally isolated for ‘bad behaviour’. Bad behaviour is an understatement, but I do wonder if embargoes and isolation work as well as we think.

Most parents will know that ignoring problems with children does not work and punishment only works when you follow through (one parent cannot ground a child while the other lets the child go out and play).    In addition if you’ve worked with children, the worst thing you can do is talk condescendingly towards them,  so why is it that we do these things on an international scale. The West scolds Russia for what happened in Georgia, but didn’t Georgia play a role in it too? 

International issues are complicated, and I won’t pretend to know how to solve problems, but one thing I have found is that sometimes tackling a problem from a new angle yields a more favourable outcome. The solution is not to get exasperated with and ignore them, but rather take the extra time to support them for them to see the world in a new light. Why aren’t world leaders looking at new ways to dialogue with countries that are misbehaving and why do we taunt someone for suggesting it?

Ethan Ohs

This would not be the last time that my ideology would be challenged, as it turns out it was going to happen more and more the longer my career continued.  Even scarier for me now is to think of the words of my mentor: ‘Ethan, it won’t ever get easier, you won’t ever find some great clarity, you have to learn to hold the unknown and exist in the transition.  That is what leadership is about.’

His words come back to haunt me regularly, exist in transition, allow change to occur and be comfortable with the unknown.  A far cry from the idealism I held in my early 20s when I thought I had a clear understanding of who I was and where I wanted to be and how the world worked and how it should work in the future.  I had principles!

As an emerging leader the Hero’s Journey is an ever-present reminder of the struggles I will face.  As a leader I will be tempted.  As a leader I will be mislead, I will lose battles in order to win wars, I will retreat into myself to emerge a new man like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

This is all well and good – my hero’s journey is a complicated path, in this path I am fighting to hold dear to my idealism as I develop a sense of pragmatism.  I must wage a war against reality while questioning my Utopia.  It is holding two objects that seem to be completely disparate and making something whole from them.

I don’t think it is too different from other people’s ideology.  I am hoping that by remaining aware of what is happening to me, by questioning it, by pushing and questioning it that much more, I am making myself a superior leader rather than just a leader.

What my youth failed to prepare me for is that life is a journey and not a destination.  Rather than trying to control or extinguish the fire in my belly I hope to feed it and in feeding it I will know the best way to lead, and the skills I have developed along the way will keep the smoke that fire creates from blinding me as I make new decisions.

Ethan Ohs

Democracy can do more than outlive climate change; I think it will have a new fire (green of course) driving it as a result of climate change.  My generation has been lucky enough to grow up in a time of unparalleled prosperity – not everyone on the planet, but those who like me have grown up in western cultures.

We have enjoyed the benefits of artificially cheap labour, food, travel, energy – living.  Life has become more than a human right for those I have grown up with, fun has become the human right.  Climate change will alter many views, for the first time in generations young people are beginning to realise their parents will have lived better lives than themselves.

It is time to call for new kinds of leadership around the world.  Gordon Brown, David Cameron, George Bush, Nicolas Sarkozy please step aside.  It is time to have leaders who are real. Leaders who are in front of the public grapple with issues.  It is time to have leaders who attack the populist agenda that has dominated our politics for too long.  They need to not only make decisions of conviction but they need to be willing to enter into open, and honest, debate with their constituents to defend their calls.

This is going to require a degree of humanity and a great deal of superhuman strength.  It means more than simply bowing to the face of public opinion, it means telling the public when they are wrong on an issue.  I think it will be an amazing day when a leader can do this and keep their legitimacy.

I want a leader who:

a) Admits when they are wrong.
This is more than saying they are wrong but actively works to correct their mistake in an honest, humble, and open manner.

b) Sees a bigger picture.
Enough of our looking forward five, ten, twenty years.  What is the legacy we are leaving in one hundred or two thousand years? I want a leader who can look ahead and make that future we will never see matter to us.

c) Is a true leader?
Enough pandering to the crowd. I want a leader who can not only make us excited but who can teach us and even through the hard lessons keep us excited.  A leader who can bring lessons back home in real and tangible form.

d) Is human.
I want to know you make mistakes and I want the chance to forgive you for them.

e) Speaks honestly.
Share your conviction with me. Admit when you don’t know something. Tell me I am wrong and show me how to get better.

Funny thing is: if this is the leader I want then it’s time for me to be that leader.  I will never be able to honestly follow a leader who points out my own weaknesses if I am not humble enough to readily admit them.  I will never show people a better way unless I am ready to learn one myself.

It’s not being super human, it’s being truly human that we need in our leaders.  If democracy is going to survive the threats to our being then it is going to have to evolve. Everyone in a democracy is going to have to wake up to the fact that they are leaders in their own right and as leaders they need to step up to the plate and lead as well.

Ethan Ohs