What Makes A Great CEO – Q&A With Tim Campbell

Tim Campbell, MBE is a British businessman best known as the winner of the first series of BBC TVs The Apprentice. He is founder of the Bright Ideas Trust, a charity that offers business mentoring and support to young entrepreneurs aged between 16 and 30 who are not currently in employment, education or training.

Now the dust has settled since Glassdoor’s Annual Highest Rated CEOs, Campbell gives his views about the qualities that make great leaders.

What are the leadership qualities you most admire?

The most important thing a leader must do is provide a clear, specific overarching vision for the organization. You need to make it easy for staff to buy into your strategy. That means setting out a succinct, understandable idea of what the business is trying to achieve and the direction it’s going in. Great leaders don’t get caught up in every minor detail. They resist trying to control everything because that displays a lack of confidence in staff. A good leader hires the right talent then delegates to and empowers them, intervening only at crucial moments. Are great leaders born or made? Leaders can be made - but great ones can only be built on firm foundations. I believe you need to start with natural personality traits such as being disciplined, displaying integrity and having excellent interpersonal skills. Working with inspirational people rubs off on you and you can learn from others what may work for your leadership style. Every person in a position of power is a potential teacher. I've learnt what doesn't work too -  seeing how others get it drastically wrong by not being authentic and attempting to mimic another. What did you learn about leadership and management style from Lord Sugar? One of the most important things was how to delegate well. In my early days I tried to control everybody’s tasks - right down to the tiniest operational issues. Lord Sugar showed me how to empower my team by giving them tasks relevant to their expertise and experience and leave the alone to carry them out. That gave me far more time to work on controlling overall strategy and generating opportunities - and my team grew in confidence so they performed better in meeting our business goals. What is the biggest challenge you faced as a CEO - and how did you overcome it? When I started on my own, it was managing my time. I had to keep reminding myself that I couldn’t do everything in a day and that some things didn't have to be done that day. Gradually I leaned to prioritise so I used my time much more effectively. This doesn’t just apply in the office  - you need to strike the right work-life balance so your family doesn’t have to suffer too much. It’s lonely at the top - who have you turned to for help? Having a stable family life at all times was vital. They gave me the confidence and self-belief to succeed. But it's not that lonely running a company. You not only have your team,employees and customers along for the ride giving you feedback - I have also found the advice and guidance I got from business mentors was always forthcoming and crucial in difficult times. It is tremendously valuable to get an objective view from a wise and experienced person who has been there before you. Who are the leaders you rate most highly? Lord Sugar has been my biggest career role model. His ability to maximize the effectiveness of people while tackling huge tasks is astonishing. Rosaleen Blair is also a huge career role model having worked with her extensively at Alexander Mann Solutions. She taught me about the meaning of authentic leadership and legacy. The American entrepreneur Bob Johnson, who successfully founded the Black Entertainment Television network in 1979 and became the first African-American billionaire and Tom Ilube, an amazing tech entrepreneur, are also some of my heroes. John Caudwell, the founder of Phones 4U, has to be admired as his story is a real rags to riches tale. He started his career because he couldn’t afford to heat his home and ended creating employment for thousands and selling the firm for £1.46 billion. The multi talented British DJ, music producer and entrepreneur Jazzie B, OBE, the founding member of the pioneering Soul II Soul group, is another alongside Damon Buffini and Steve Bartlett from Social Chain leading the charge for the next generation.