Leadership, clarity and a very thick skin

If you get up early enough you might spy the solid frame of Allan Leighton running round one of the London parks before he pays a surprise visit to a Royal Mail delivery office. The reaction of the postmen and women is usually the same. ‘They always say, “Oh s***, it’s the chairman”,’ Leighton laughs. He then gathers them round and asks them how it’s going and how they feel. ‘Those visits at half past five in the morning are the most important part of a recovery like this,’ he says firmly. ‘Going to the board meetings is the least important part.’

Tony Blair asked him in 2002 to become chairman of the delivery and Post Office counters business which was then called, absurdly, Consignia; he swiftly dumped the name and set to work with chief executive Adam Crozier to transform the group’s fortunes. ‘We have taken a business that was not really a business, losing £1.5