Mick Herron’s literary creation of the Jackson Lamb character – so brilliantly played by Gary Oldman in the Slow Horses TV series – is one of my absolute all-time favourites. In my list of all-time literary characters, he’s up there with Le Carre’s George Smiley, Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and Vic Wilcox from David Lodge’s novel, Nice Work.
Herron introduces Lamb in the original Slow Horses novel as “Timothy Spall gone to seed.” An overweight, balding but greasy-haired, unshaven, dirty raincoat-wearing MI5 officer, Lamb oversees an office of spies who’ve all screwed up and been sent to the agency’s dumping ground, which is called Slough House.
Lamb runs Slough House with an iron fist. I think most management consultants, were they ever able to visit this small, run-down office building in central London, would conclude that Slough House demonstrates clear evidence of a toxic culture. As Lamb explains, his approach is carrot and stick, not carrot or stick: “I use the stick to ram the carrot up their arses – that generally gets results!”
And yet Lamb’s team, reluctantly perhaps, respect and even love him. Despite the way he treats them and talks to them, they know that he’s an expert in what he does, is willing to get in the trenches with them to get things done and will always have their back, no matter how much they screw up – which tends to be quite a lot!
I think that having your team’s back is one of the most under-rated leadership qualities. Consistent underperformance must be addressed, but everybody cocks-up from time to time. Knowing that you’re not going to be immediately sent to the wolves after making a mistake, builds trust and creates stronger, more productive team relationships.
As Lamb might put it, “They’re all losers, but they’re my losers.”
Off The Record: Strange Game by Mick Jagger (the theme song to Slow Horses)
Surrounded by losers, misfits and boozers,
Hanging by your fingernails,
You made one mistake,
You got burned at the stake,
You’re finished, you’re foolish, you failed!