Eclectic Leadership Creed: A Manifesto for Business & Politics

Would you trust a surgeon who hadn’t spent years studying, apprenticing, and completing their internship? Would you board a plane with a pilot who hadn’t logged the minimum hours in the cockpit? (if you knew certainly).

Of course not.

We demand proof of competence in almost every high-stakes profession. Doctors, pilots, engineers — all must go through rigorous training and testing before we allow them to carry our lives in their hands.

And yet, when it comes to leadership — whether in business, politics, or community life — we often appoint people with little or no evidence that they are ready to lead. Leadership is too often treated as something you can “grow into,” rather than something that requires preparation, discipline, and evidence of capability.

That gap got me thinking. A client recently asked me whether Eclectic Leadership is just another leadership model, or whether it’s more like a behavioural framework — maybe even a manifesto. The more I reflected, the more I realised: Eclectic Leadership is not only a framework. It is also a creed. A manifesto that insists on taking leadership as seriously as we take surgery or aviation — as a discipline that demands rigour, reflection, and responsibility.

Here is the Eclectic Leadership Mantra — the bones of this creed:

• Assess over advise

• Ask over answer

• System over status updates

• Frameworks over work frames

• Perspectives over potential

• Potential over performance

• Performance over position

Each principle challenges how we normally think about leadership. Taken together, they form a manifesto for the kind of leadership we urgently need.

1. Assess over Advise

The temptation for leaders is always to advise. People come to you with problems, and you’re expected to provide quick solutions. But constant advising creates dependency, reinforces hierarchy, and often skips over nuance.

Assessment, by contrast, is the discipline of leadership. It requires patience, context, and a willingness to see beyond the surface. Leaders who assess before advising uncover root causes, spot hidden dynamics, and create space for better long-term decisions.

In business, this means resisting the urge to throw quick fixes at struggling teams and instead diagnosing structural issues. In politics, it means evaluating policy impact beyond immediate headlines.

Assessment isn’t indecision; it’s wisdom in motion.

2. Ask over Answer

We tend to measure leaders by the answers they give. But the best leaders are those who ask the questions that unlock collective intelligence.

Asking keeps dialogue alive. Answering too quickly can close it down.

When leaders privilege asking, they invite curiosity and collaboration. A leader who asks, “What am I missing?” empowers others to bring their insights forward.

In business, this creates cultures of innovation. In politics, it builds democratic dialogue rather than top-down speeches.

No one person can hold all the answers in a complex world. But the right questions can open pathways no answer alone could.

3. System over Status Updates

Organisations often confuse activity with progress. Meetings become dominated by status updates, but little attention is paid to the deeper systems in which those updates exist.

Eclectic Leadership calls us to system-thinking. Leaders must see the patterns, interconnections, and feedback loops shaping outcomes.

A business obsessed with quarterly numbers may miss the cultural issues driving burnout. A political party that touts small wins may miss the systemic erosion of public trust.

Status updates are snapshots. Systems are the whole picture. Leadership demands the latter.

4. Frameworks over Work Frames

“Work frames” are the narrow containers of tasks, deliverables, and firefighting. They keep people busy but often disconnected.

Frameworks, by contrast, give meaning and alignment. They offer teams a shared language for navigating complexity.

An eclectic leader doesn’t just manage tasks; they establish frameworks for sense-making. In business, this might mean adopting agile principles as a way to structure focus. In politics, it could mean designing participatory frameworks that allow citizens to co-create policy, rather than treating them as passive recipients of decisions.

Frameworks liberate; work frames constrain.

5. Perspectives over Potential

We glorify “unlocking potential,” but potential is hypothetical. Perspective is real. It reshapes the present.

Eclectic Leadership values perspectives over potential. A diversity of perspectives often achieves more progress today than speculative potential might tomorrow.

In business, this means valuing the fresh insight of a junior employee as much as the experience of a senior manager. In politics, it means listening to marginalised voices, which often reveal blind spots others ignore.

Potential is what might happen. Perspective reshapes what is happening now.

6. Potential over Performance

That said, potential cannot be ignored. Eclectic Leadership ranks it above performance. Why?

Because performance measures the past; potential guides the future.

Too many organisations recycle the same leaders because of proven performance, while overlooking those capable of transformation. In business, this stagnates innovation. In politics, it entrenches dynasties.

Prioritising potential ensures renewal and creativity. Performance keeps the system running; potential keeps it evolving.

7. Performance over Position

Finally, Eclectic Leadership rejects the fetishisation of titles. Performance matters more than position.

We all know managers in high positions who contribute little, while individuals without authority drive genuine change. In politics too, many transformative leaders emerge outside formal office, shaping public discourse and policy through movements.

Eclectic Leadership insists we look not at the chair someone sits in, but at the change they generate.

Why Eclectic Leadership Creed Matters

Would you ever accept an untrained pilot or an uncertified surgeon in charge of lives? If not, why do we so casually accept untested, unprepared leaders in charge of companies, communities, and countries?

That is the challenge the Eclectic Leadership Creed poses. It asks us to stop treating leadership as something anyone can stumble into, and instead treat it as a discipline — one that demands rigour, reflection, and readiness.

These seven principles are not quick tips or motivational slogans. They are commitments:

• To assess before advising.

• To ask before answering.

• To focus on systems, not snapshots.

• To create frameworks, not just task lists.

• To value perspectives, then nurture potential.

• To reward performance, not positions.

In business, this creed equips leaders to navigate disruption with resilience and imagination. In politics, it reintroduces humility, inclusiveness, and long-term thinking into systems too often dominated by ego and expedience.

The Eclectic Leadership Creed is not just another leadership model. It is a manifesto. A declaration that leadership, like surgery or aviation, must be treated with the seriousness it deserves.

And so the question I leave with you is this:

If leadership is not just a model but a creed, what proof should we demand before entrusting someone with the power to lead?

Shehzaad Shams

20 August 2025, London