You can be a leader at any stage in your life

Lynda Gratton, a British organizational theorist, consultant, and Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and the founder of the Hot Spots Movement, talks about her experiences, her latest book and more
You have been teaching for many years now and written many books. What have been your key learnings over the decades across the different areas that you have explored?
I’d say the most significant thing I’ve learnt is that people are basically cooperative, but organizations need to invest in good management and a collaborative working environment in order to benefit from that.
A lot of my early academic research looked at how people make a difference to a company. In fact, that was the basis of my first book, ‘Living Strategy’ which focused on how you build a company that aligns with people and their needs. I also looked specifically at cooperation and the role it plays within an organization. What’s interesting is that between that first book and the two boo