In this, the last episode of Leading Questions series 3, Andy Haldane talks about thriving on leading through crisis and the challenges and opportunities âwhen the old is broken and the new is yet to be forgedâ.
Having spent 32 years at the Bank of England, latterly as chief economist, headed up the UK governmentâs Levelling Up taskforce, founded the charity Pro Bono Economics, and spent the last two years as chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, Andy has a range of roles and experiences to draw on. Yet though he has been very honest publicly about his organisationsâ successes and failures over the years, he hasnât divulged much about his own leadership style and motivations â until now.
The man once named amongst the worldâs 100 most influential people by Time magazine has seen his fair share of crises â not least, during his time at the Bank of England, the global financial crisis of 2008, the European debt crisis, Black Wednesday, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
âLooking back over those 32 years, it was hallmarked or perhaps pockmarked by crises. They always come along, donât they? But we seem to have had a particularly virulent sequence over the last 15 years plus,â he says.
It is fortunate, then, that Andy is energised by the opportunity to drive big, system-wide change.
Motivated by his belief that the most effective and durable way of making change is to engage as broad a base of stakeholders as possible, Andy describes the importance of listening to those not often given a voice. Indeed, speaking to people for whom the economy was not working proved to be âone of the most valuable sources of intelligence I could have hadâ.
He also speaks of his tendency to be publicly honest about the things that have gone wrong and to suggest ideas radically different from the status quo; his concern that civil servants do not have âa long enough window of relative tranquillity to build their sea defences against whatever the next tsunami might beâ; and of the importance of having an âoptimistic, non-fatalistic mindsetâ.
This fascinating episode is a window into the motivations of a man in the business of âestablishing next practice rather than best practice thinkingâ, of considering whatâs around the corner, and of âinstilling a sense of belief about whatâs possibleâ.
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