In the past month I have spent time driving on French motorways and travelling on Swiss and Italian trains - they were all impeccable, well kept, on-time, with an obvious investment in technology (and in removing potholes!).  Getting back to the UK has made me realise how poor and uncompetitive we are when it comes to infrastructure.  A lack of power grid capacity is holding back our growth and jeopardising plans for decarbonisation, a process that is expected to double electricity consumption by 2050.

We are not a poor nation, so where has this gone wrong?  You can only conclude that it is down to a lack of leadership.  Yet we do not lack leaders, our government is arguably less chaotic than that of Italy.  Where are our leaders putting their focus?

Infrastructure investment is a complex challenge that requires balancing the short-term constraints with long-term benefits.  It needs vision and strategic planning.  

Take this down to the level of individual companies who all have infrastructure challenges and it needs leaders whose focus is on tomorrow not today.  Their mindset has to be one of long term planning, of collaboration and of investment.  To achieve this they must be able to create a vision of the future that appeals to investors, to customers, to suppliers and employees.  This is not an easy task but without it companies and investors are always focused on the short term, and the problem with the short term is that it tends not to have a future.

The job of a leader is to balance the needs of the present with the more important but less apparently urgent needs of the future.  It is a hard job but no one said leadership was easy!

If you are a leader then you need to be spending at least half your time on the future rather than the present.  That means reorganising the way you work so that you have time to think, time to act, and to be able to act knowing that the day to day running of the business is in the hands of a competent team.