Name: John Oxley

Title: CEO, Board Advisor, Non-Exec Director, Exec Leadership Coach

Organisation: Life Leisure, ActiveXchange, Longevity Network

I’ve amassed over 35 years’ experience in the leisure management sector having served my ‘apprenticeship’ as a Lifeguard! After that I enjoyed some senior c-suite leadership roles as Commercial Director and Group Operations Director for SLM, Managing Director for mission-led charity Active Nation and Chief Operating Officer for Places Leisure.

More recently I've been Managing Director of Rubicon Leisure and I am currently CEO at Life Leisure, based in Stockport, Greater Manchester, as well as a Non-Exec Director at ActiveXchange.

I've created and deliver the only sector-specific leadership programme in the UK (and available elsewhere!) designed to transform leadership capacity and capability in sports and physical activity.

I believe in a customer-centric approach and that results are achieved by people through people

I’ve been a Director and Board member at ukactive, a sector award winner and speaker at industry events.

I’m passionate about sport and physical activity and I’ve a thirst for being even better tomorrow than I was today. I’ve developed my own style of leadership over the years and people have been kind enough to tell me its inspirational.

In a nutshell, I’m persuasive and challenging of convention and always with a dollop of good humour.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope John's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

The nature of leadership is that it is ever-changing and business is often affected by things out of our control. There are two elements that are always challenging. Firstly, leadership always as to have context and so ensuring that your team and the organisation have an appreciation of that context is critical. Unfortunately, we often work in environments where there is naturally occurring ambiguity and that can be terrifically challenging to articulate where your organisation yearns clarity.

Secondly, managing the 'pace' within an organisation I always find challenging. I have come to appreciate that managing the needs of organisational change and the capacity of a team to accommodate the pace with which change is required, is notably tricky.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

I don't think that I ever consciously became a leader, but I assumed leadership positions from an early age at school - sports captain and the like. Leadership never really left me from those early years, and I guess I simply absorbed and gathered multiple experiences and perspectives along the way that became leadership style behaviours. I have always had an innate desire to see things improve, to win, and to value others, and so those very raw traits emerged and over time matured and were augmented with other beliefs and values.

Professionally, I often refer to it as getting on the treadmill and just not being able to get off. I was successful as a facility manager early on in my career, read, listened, learned and greater responsibility followed.

In many respects becoming leader was when work became a passion and not a job.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

Great question! I'm not a great one for structure until I'm starting to miss things and then I have to discipline myself!

I tend to have a fairly decent sense of where the organisation needs to be in the medium to long-term, and that shapes the annual objectives. I then find 100 day plans useful and each day then takes care of itself!

I always know what I want to complete each day, and I always leave time for some spontaneity. I find too much structure and control doesn't get the best out of me.

I wake early and will check e mails and respond to everything for which I've got the information or is needed, there and then. I make time for exercise five days a week. If I'm not physically active, then mentally I'm not as effective.

I have a fairly short attention span, so I'll intersperse things that need my attention with stuff that I can move on quickly and essential conversations with the team.

I'll deal with work things throughout the time I'm awake and on holiday - I guess I'm not a great example to follow in that respect, but it allows me to control all of my time and allows me to build in sufficient downtime when it suits me. I guess it works for me.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

I've spent some time over the last couple of years understanding systems thinking and systems leadership. I work in the world of physical activity for the purpose of healthy local communities. I've learned (its obvious really) that population health is affected by lots of things, and therefore to improve population health we have to collaborate, find common purpose with other sectors and agencies and be prepared to broaden perspectives and understand the perspectives of others. The notions of learning, listening, collaboration, and influence have been critical lessons of re-enforcement.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

Well, I find that no-one can stray very far from Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; that's almost embed. Jim Collins' From Good to Great was also influential, as was Tom Peters Re-Imagine. In fact, Tom Peters Re-Imagine was strongly influential in encouraging me to challenge convention and I'm sure out of that emerged a mantra that is probably my favourite; it's not necessary to know all the answers but essential to be asking the right questions. I think the desire to be curious and to strive to be different in the interests of being better is the most profound thing that has influenced me.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

Oh, just one is much too difficult, but I'd say this. Leadership is exclusively about your ability to bring out the best in others. So, I'd encourage every young leader to get a really deep understanding of themselves and develop the emotional intelligence to understand how to create the right environment for everyone else to fulfil their potential.

I couldn't stress enough the importance of emotional intelligence and emotional resilience and their importance within the most effective leaders.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

I took on the leadership of a charitable organisation in 2008 as the financial crisis began to bite. It was loss making and had significant debt.

Whilst others were battening down the hatches and cutting costs, we took the opportunity to re-invent the organisation, gave it a new identity, new purpose, values, everything. It was an organisation that had lost it's belief and whilst trading was tough, we gave it purpose and therefore we gave our people belief.

We did courageous things like change our language, and stop doing things that had been expected of us, but that weren't aligned to our charitable objectives. It was brave and when we launched we hadn't got everything clear in our minds or had lots of things formed, but I reckon we had 75% of it there and we figured the rest would emerge if we just went for it.

I had a really special colleague who both influenced and challenged my thinking. They also enabled me to have the courage of my convictions and we were able to articulate things in such a way that it became an adventurous thing for our people to be part of.

Leadership can be lonely, but the re-invention of that organisation and the co-creation of so many initiatives made it the most fulfilling period of my career.

I passed the baton on eight years ago but many of the founding principles remain steadfast, and it makes me very grateful for that time.