• It has become something of a taboo in our society to say you don't want to be a leader — especially if you are one. Richard Hytner, a former CEO at the global advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, experienced it firsthand and is trying to break that stigma.- Lillian Cunningham, Editor, On Leadership, The Washington Post
  • Hytner notes that talent development, for example, is crucial to companies now, so the lack of a great track record for hiring, inspiring, and keeping star employees sometimes trips up aspiring CEOs.- Anne Fisher, Fortune Magazine
  • He argues convincingly that a great team of a chief executive and a number two is a more successful proposition than a solitary leader. Mr Hytner describes the various types of consiglieri – lodestones, educators, anchors and deliverers, according to his segmentation.- Luke Johnson, Financial Times
  • Richard Hytner, deputy chairman of London-based advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, thinks corporate understudies are too often overlooked. He’s set out to burnish the reputation of the second-in-command...- Adam Auriemma, the Wall Street Journal
  • It’s a trove of advice about how to be a great deputy and principal adviser, a calling that has brought out the best in people as varied and admirable as Warren Buffett’s Charlie Munger, Anna Wintour’s Grace Coddington, Abraham Lincoln’s William Seward, and Henry VIII’s Thomas Cromwell.- Frederick E. Allen, Forbes

Media Article

Re-Cap: Master’s Lecture at Wellington College

Re-Cap: Master’s Lecture at Wellington College

Wednesday, November 26th – Richard Hytner addressed a crowd of over 80 pupils and parents at the Wellington College Master’s Lecture. Sparking a debate between self-identified number 1’s and 2’s (or A’s and C’s, as delineated in his book Consiglieri: Leading from the Shadows), Richard explored questions raised by the audience, including:

How much does it matter how a leader communicates in public?

Why do organizations not equip their aspiring leaders to lead as a second-in-command?

Should a company’s share price be so dependent on the limelight of one leader?

Should a C expect to take the bullet for the A?

Should there be a disparity in wages between an A and a C, if both are so clearly leadership roles?

Dr. Anthony Seldon, acclaimed educationalist, political historian and author, hosted a dinner prior to the lecture where conversations took the group to even more inquiries on leadership dynamics like gender roles, leaders in sports, and emotional intelligence in professional life.

The preamble to his post-dinner speech was as follows:

How very appropriate to have been asked to talk about the importance of Seconds at a school founded in honour of the First Duke of Wellington. The fact that he is more often referred to as just the Duke of Wellington, not the first Duke, is loaded with significance. Is it simply, as some believe, because his importance to our national history merits exclusive rights to the Dukedom? Or does it hint at the very problem that my book seeks to redress? Namely that if you are not Number 1 you are Number who? He did not lead us to victory at Waterloo, but my natural affinity is with the second Duke of Wellington, and not just because his middle name was Richard – Arthur Richard Wellesley. More because, whatever his contribution to the world, it was predestined to be completely ignored.

To learn more about Wellington College events, visit wellingtoncollege.org.uk/

 

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