When we delivered the “Leadership Breakthroughs” programme earlier this month in Dubai, we asked 46 experienced leaders form India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia to form trios across their national lines, and venture outside for 30 minutes to approach three total strangers. After initial apprehension, they get to work and return with excitement and rich insights after speaking to wealthy hotel guests, china business people, hotel workers, shop keepers, cleaners, young people, security guards or taxi drivers. We have also recently held “Discovery Interviews” like these in Johannesburg, Nairobi and London. Interviewees typically take “leader” to mean politician or president and sadly they associate mistrust, suspicion, cynicism, corruption and distance. But which leaders do they trust? It appears the circle of trust is tightly drawn, close to home: they will most probably cite a mother, father or near relative who is surviving against the odds. With seemingly intractable problems bearing down on their families (lack of money, or hong kong jobs or schools, healthcare etc) participants start to notice a void (“I can’t expect my family to solve everything”). Occasionally an exceptional boss or another who is working in the void is named such as the “Wombles” who swept up after the London riots. With the Arab Spring, a crisis in Europe and trust-destroying scandals in the UK the leadership void only gapes wider. This gives a purpose to our work of developing leaders. Tony and the MiDDLEGROUND team, 18th March 2012