Alistair Mant

Alistair Mant is an international authority on leadership and talent development. He has a global portfolio of executive coaching clients, appears regularly on the conference circuit and is an Adjunct Professor at (the) Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. His grounding in complex systems work came from the Tavistock Institute in London, where he was previously a consultant and Senior Social Scientist.

As an executive coach, he has a special practice in the public/private grey area (values-driven companies and businesslike government). He is often asked to work with people who are “irritatingly clever and quirky.”

“I had a client in manufacturing, a top-level technical expert. He needed to develop his informal influencing skills to have higher profile at the top levels. Now, you can’t change people fundamentally. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got. This executive was not going to respond to schmoozing training or make-over advice.. Redirecting existing strengths in clients is something I like to do. Also, immersing them in a parallel universe where they aggressively pursue something not in their main line of work. My client got involved in various world organisations based on his technical strength and within eighteen months enormously enhanced his confidence and stature via that work. Other executives at the company said ‘What have you done? He’s a different guy! You’re a magician!’ Not at all. All I did was to help him find a way to be himself in a more helpful setting.”

Alistair is Chairman of the UK-based Socio-Technical Strategy Group – a brokerage for carrying out studies of system function and dysfunction; looking for the points where operations and human nature interact and where expensive and embarrassing cock-ups and blunders occur.

He is also the Strategy Advisor to the Employers’ Forum on Disability – the leading European body driving systemic change in the provision of real employment and facilities for disabled people.

“My clients tend to be senior and companies tend to have me work on high-octane projects and with high-octane individuals.”

Alistair was born in Australia and spends a third of each year working with private and public sector clients in Australasia so he also specialises in executives working in Anglo-Australasian organisations.

The author of several books, his most recent is Intelligent Leadership which remains a best-seller. Other books include The Experienced Manager (which won the Institute of Management’s “Bowie Medal”), The Rise & Fall of the British Manager, Bismarck to Bullock – Conversations about Political & Industrial Contrasts in Britain & Germany, The Dynamics of Management Education, and Leaders We Deserve.

“Although I hope I’m sensitive to the person, I’m essentially consulting to the role – the overlap of person and system. Our client is the company. We have to deliver increased performance in return for the company’s investment. Consultancy works on the system, counselling on the person – coaching works on the active role – the way the executive adds value.”