Norfolk business leaders must be liked – and even loved – by their staff if they are to prove successful in the county’s top jobs.   

That was the message from Greg Dyke, former BBC director-general and one of the British media’s most colourful and charismatic characters.

The keynote speaker at the Shaping Norfolk’s Future 2010 conference, Mr Dyke said that popular leadership was the “single most important thing in making a success of an organisation – in both the private and public sectors”.

Mr Dyke’s sudden departure from the BBC in January 2004, following the controversy over the ‘Iraq Dossier’ and the Hutton Report, prompted waves of protests by sympathetic BBC staff, a union march and thousands of e-mails of support.

Sharing his top tips on leadership, he told the conference: “You have to recognise that leadership is about the stories your staff tell about you – either positive or negative. You will be judged more on them than anything you do or say. If you walk into a building and don’t say hello to the security man or the lady on the reception desk, that’s the story they will tell about you.

“If you want staff to perform you need their trust, support and, I even would go so far as to say, affection. The most effective leaders are literally loved by their staff. As a leader, you have to work at that – it doesn’t come with the job. You have to overcome the wariness and cynicism of your staff. And if you can get them on-side, they will be behind you when the tough times come.”

Mr Dyke has been a key player in the world of business, journalism and entertainment since the late 1970s. Event compere Peter Wilson introduced him as “one of the great men of the British media”.

His high-profile career has included stints at LWT, TV-am, TVS, Pearson Television, Channel 5, GMTV, Channel Four, ITN and BSkyB.

He became director-general of the BBC in 2000 and in his four years at the corporation started four new digital TV channels, five new digital radio channels, opened two new BBC regions, launched the BBC’s interactive television services and helped to create Freeview.

Since leaving the BBC, he has played leading roles at the University of York, TV production company HIT and Brentford Football Club. In 2008 he became chairman of the British Film Institute and last year was appointed chairman of ATG, Britain’s biggest theatre group.

Mr Dyke said he had a great affection for Norfolk, having spent many happy holidays in the area as a child. More recently, he had overseen the relocation of BBC staff into their new headquarters in The Forum, Norwich, which he described as “a fine new building”.

Last year it was announced that Mr Dyke would be leading a review of the UK’s creative sector for the Conservative Party. He told the Shaping Norfolk’s Future conference that he had been surprised by how many people in the creative industries had seen the digital era not as an opportunity but a threat.

Some players in the TV industry, he asserted, had “tried to pretend the digital age was not happening” and that ITV in particular had become a “shadow of its former self”.

Mr Dyke said he had been saddened by the demise of Anglia Television, which had once been “one of the jewels of the ITV system” but had since been reduced to merely a regional news service.

“Everyone should be embracing the digital opportunity but I suspect an awful lot of people will simply hope the situation will go away,” he added. 

Shaping Norfolk’s Future chairman Mark Hodges thanked Mr Dyke for his “very honest, insightful and entertaining” conference speech.