Most organisations talk about leadership constantly. Few of them do it well.
They promote people based on seniority. They confuse being in charge with being a good leader. And they build cultures where capable people don’t feel able to speak up or take action.
This session looks at leadership through a different lens.
The military has spent decades solving problems that most businesses are still struggling with.
How do you build trust quickly?
How do you give people enough clarity to act independently?
How do you create cultures where leadership comes from whoever is best placed to lead, rather than whoever has the biggest job title?
We’re bringing together three experts with direct experience of both military and civilian leadership to explore what businesses could actually learn and what most of them are currently getting wrong.
What we’ll cover:
– What mission command is and why civilian organisations have never heard of it
– Why the military starts from trust and most workplaces don’t
– What happens to veterans when they enter civilian organisations, and what that reveals about how those organisations are built
– How to create conditions where leadership emerges naturally, rather than sitting in a job title
– What direct, clear communication actually looks like and what gets lost when everything gets softened
Our expert panel:
Danny Wareham
Danny has spent nearly three decades helping some of the world’s best known organisations build cultures that actually perform. His book Constellation, shortlisted for Leadership Book of the Year 2026, challenges one of the most basic assumptions in business: that every team needs a leader at the top. It turns out, they might not.
Major General (Ret) Matt Smith
Matt commanded thousands of people across some of the most complex and high-stakes operations the US Army has run in the last 30 years. He’s also an MBA, a former Morgan Stanley stockbroker, and now leads Emory University’s Master in Business for Veterans programme, helping senior military leaders transition into business careers. He’s seen both worlds from the inside, at the highest level.
James Hardie
James flew helicopters for the RAF, spent over 20 years in the aviation industry, and then went back to university to study why so many veterans struggle when they enter civilian organisations. His Master’s dissertation at Birkbeck answered a question most businesses haven’t thought to ask: is the problem the veteran, or the organisation they’re walking into?
LinkedIn Live
Tuesday 5 May 2026
1:30pm GMT / 9:30am EDT
