Pnewsology

The week’s news with a dash of psychology!

Jane Ogden (Professor in Health Psychology, Emeritus; email janeogden509@gmail.com; based on a conversation with James Cannon at Radio Surrey; 8.40 am 14/11/25)

Week ending 14/11/25

We often talk about why people become leaders, what makes a good one and when it’s time for them to go.  This week’s news saw the Director General and News COE of the BBC stand down following the editing of Trump’s speech for a Panarama documentary.  We heard about a possible challenge to Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party with conversations about whether Wes Streeting wants this role and would be better at it than Keir, and, yet again, many universities went back on strike to protest against job losses and cuts in degree programmes, in part due to inefficient leadership.  These are the formal leaders of our world who run organisations and call themselves ‘Leaders’ although we used to call them managers (when we were being polite!).

We have also seen other more lowly mortals show leadership this week in less formal ways.  We have watched as many celebrities and ‘normal’ people have completed fabulous challenges for Children in Need.  Last night a young boy called Richard from Esher who has suffered from a rare cancer came out as England’s mascot for their football match against Serbia and locally in Guildford groups of creatives are pitching to relaunch our Electric Theatre and run it for the local community. 

So why do people want to be a leader and what makes a good one? The point of a leader is surely to make those around them work better, to help any organisation fulfil its purpose, to be an inspiration and to bring out the best in people.  And ideally those in any leadership role use basic psychology through focusing on the positives, being a good role model, leading by example not just words, and have risen through the ranks so they understand the day job. Parachuting someone in from outside may seem like having a fresh pair of eyes but can create resentment and irritation if they don’t actually know what the jobs other people are doing entail.

And a good leader also needs to be liked.  They should have some degree of warmth and humour, be relatable whilst also having a degree of gravitas to gain trust and get the job done.  And all this whilst being authentic! Pretending to be fun is just annoying and faking knowledge from a position of ignorance has us all pressing our ‘B***S***’ buttons pretty quickly. (Although I’ve always thought that deeply unpleasant people should try to hide who they really are for the benefit of everyone – authenticity can back fire!).

But unfortunately, not all leaders are driven a sense a common purpose.  Many have their own agendas to fulfil, are compensating for bad childhoods and deeply held inadequacies and some are simply bonkers!

All opinions are those of Jane Ogden