Action Centred Leadership is both a philosophy and a practical basis for leadership development
What is Action Centred Leadership?
Action Centred Leadership is an immensely flexible framework for leadership and leadership development. It rests upon the evidence that all modern organisations - whatever their purposes - need ‘good leaders and leaders for good’ at three broad levels:
Team Leader level
Entry level leadership where leaders are responsible for managing a small group.
Operational / Senior Leader level
Key leaders who are overseeing more than one team and managing team leaders.
Strategic Leader level
Strategic leaders are those providing direction and leading the whole organisation.
Wise organisations now know that they need excellence at all three levels and teamwork between them to deliver sustained success.
Action Centred Leadership is about creating opportunities at all three levels for learning how to be a ‘a good leader’, namely an effective leader who enables the group or organisation to work together to:
achieve the task
build and maintain the team
meet and develop the needs of individual members
What are the origins of Action Centred Leadership?
The origins of ACL lie in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the 1960s when John Adair, then a young Lecturer in Military History, developed and introduced a new two-day course based upon his Three Circles Model and supplemented by follow-up leadership training in the field.
It did not replace the traditional Qualities approach but complemented it. So what you needed to be and what you needed to know was supplemented what you need to do in order to become an effective leader. So successful was Functional Leadership, as it was then known, that the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Marines soon adopted it, closely followed by the Australian and New Zealand Defence Forces.
It was not long before Industry and Commerce also showed an interest on the new approach. In 1968, while on sabbatical leave from Sandhurst as the first Director of Studies at St, George’s House in Windsor Castle, John tested the programme on first-line managers in the construction, retail and finance sectors.
In 1969, John accepted an invitation from The Industrial Society to establish a Leadership Department so that the Society’s 200 staff of advisers would be equipped to run the course - now renamed Action Centred Leadership (ACL) across Industry, Commerce and the Public Services, both in the UK and overseas in many Commonwealth nations.
During the next 25 years well over two million managers took part in public and in-company ACL courses. John’s book Action Centred Leadership (McGraw-Hill ,1974) was based upon a large Industrial survey of its use by over 150 organisations.
In 1982, John Harvey- Jones became Chairman of the loss-making giant ICI company. John Adair became his mentor and all nine divisions of the company embraced Action Centred Leadership at every level. Just 30 months later ICI became the first British company to make a billion pound profit in a year.
After The Industrial Society ceased to exist in 2001, John continued the Society’s programme of accrediting ACL trainers, who operate throughout the world.
The definitive characteristics of Action Centred Leadership
SIMPLE
The ACL three-circle model is clear and concise, but it is not simplistic or superficial. It has depth.
PRACTICAL
The approach is intensely practical. It is learning by doing - and observing what others do.
RELEVANT
All the sessions relate directly to the generic role of leader and their individual circumstances.
PARTICIPATIVE
The group creates their own exercises and then learns from them under the guidance of their trainer.
Over a million managers worldwide have taken part in the Action Centred Leadership programmes John Adair pioneered, and he advised countless organisations in business, government, education, health as well as the voluntary sector.
John Adair - 18/05/1934 - 01/11/2025
Following degrees in history and theology at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, John undertook national service as a platoon commander in the Scots Guards and adjutant of a Bedouin regiment in the Arab Legion, cementing his interest in leadership. Whilst working as a senior lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, John developed the framework of Action Centred Leadership. This model was then adopted as the leadership framework for all three armed services and is still in use today.
As an Associate Director at the Industrial Society, John further developed the framework and tested it in industry, notably at ICI with Sir John Harvey Jones. Alongside his role overseeing Adair Leadership, John was a Fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust, and served for a period of time as Chair of Leadership at the United Nations Systems Staff College in Turin, Italy.
John was the author of over 60 books which have been translated into 18 languages.
Read more about John’s life and work here: www.johnadair.co.uk
