Vulnerability-based leadership is what Giles espouses – having the courage to accept your own fallibilities is a prerequisite to showing the necessary humility that a) allows others in and b) enables you to ask for help and value what others bring. Only when we’ve built those respectful, trusting relationships can we truly be said to lead.
What Giles loves about his role is how it promotes the interdependence of the ‘hard’ and the ‘soft’ – good emotional intelligence creates constructive working relationships that produce healthy tangible outcomes. For him, this applies to the leaders and leadership teams of large corporates just as much as to those of small start-ups, or indeed to the socially-excluded youngsters he’s chosen to work with through The Colour Works Foundation.
His profile describes him as both ‘challenging’ and ‘sympathetic’ and it is this combination that he brings to his role as facilitator and coach to his clients, and as Founder to the team at The Colour Works – to not shy from saying the tough stuff but doing so in a constructive and understanding way. If we can’t practise what we preach, we have no right doing what we do.
And he’s perhaps proudest of all to lead a dedicated team of diverse individuals who exude our organisational values – absolute honesty, always questioning, exceptionally driven – consistently
challenging and supporting each other and providing first-class customer service.
Prior to setting up The Colour Works in 2003, Giles was MD of a successful, £8m privately-owned plastic injection moulding and distribution business in Dorset, where he still lives, and before that held management positions in both the public and charity sectors.
