Good Leadership starts with trust
Trust is built when leaders show up with knowledge, action, passion and consistency. The Twelve Characters in The Good Leadership Book give you a fresh, practical framework to become the kind of leader people believe in.
What is Good Leadership?
Good Leadership is leadership that does what is right for yourself, your people and your community, not just what is effective. It combines expert insight, clear communication, bold vision and authentic care.
Leadership is everywhere, but Good Leadership is what truly sparks change. The Good Leadership Book goes beyond the noise of endless theories and shines a light on what really matters: becoming the kind of leader who uplifts teams, empowers communities and makes a real difference. By naming Twelve Characters, each with its own motto and its own job, the Good Leadership Model turns a vague ambition into a set of specific, developable parts.
Take a look inside the book
Inside you will find practical steps, relatable examples and an easy-to-follow framework that makes leadership development tangible, achievable and genuinely enjoyable.
Impressive stuff... at its heart is an idea, and a model, of ingenious simplicity and clarity... it really seems a compelling and coherent model for leadership practice.
Karl French
The concepts and characters are so original - they are brilliant! I've never come across anything like this before. I enjoyed the easily digestible, succinct pace of the book.
Dr Aisha Janjua
See the model come to life
Take a journey around the model. Choose where you want to go after each segment and the video takes you there, exploring the Domains, Dimensions, Characters and Virtue Practitioners in more detail.
The Authors
Aamer Naeem OBE
Aamer has over two decades of senior leadership experience. He has held Directorships and Chief Executive positions of multi-national and multi-million-pound organisations.
Read Aamer’s full biography
A pharmacist by original training, he completed his Master's in Business Administration, with distinction from Nottingham University Business School. He sat as a Fitness to Practice Committee Member of the General Pharmaceutical Council of Great Britain and the General Teaching Council for England. Having trained and coached hundreds of leaders, he has vast experience across private, public and voluntary sectors. His work in building leaders and organisations has allowed him to deliver his Leadership Development Programmes and coaching globally across five continents. In 2019 he was awarded an OBE in the Queen's New Year Honours List and featured in the Green Park BAME 100 Business Leaders Index.
Maria Pattinson
Maria is an Ethical Leadership specialist. She has thirty years of experience coaching individuals and teams to become the best versions of themselves.
Read Maria’s full biography
Maria brings expertise in mental health and wellbeing and has delivered projects to improve mental health outcomes for communities in the UK and internationally. Maria has a first class Master's degree in Ethical Leadership from King's College London. Her research was in evaluating the impact of leadership development programmes in communities across three global regions. Maria's voluntary work is in Tanzania where she trains local people to deliver mental health awareness courses in community contexts. Maria currently coaches a team of African volunteers across three countries in the East Africa region.
Maria is also a Communication Specialist. For more than twenty years, she worked with top leaders in the NHS flagship programmes run by The King's Fund on developing their capacity to communicate authentically and effectively in public. Her coaching and facilitation draws upon an equally long career as a theatre director and producer of new plays in some of England's leading theatre organisations, including Chichester Festival Theatre, Glyndebourne and Hampstead Theatre. Maria has written about the intersection of leadership, the arts and transformation and is trained in Systemic Constellations Coaching and Family Constellations as developed by Bert Hellinger through the Centre For Systemic Constellations and The Whole Partnership.
The Twelve Characters
The Good Leadership Model is shaped by three decades of hands-on leadership, global coaching and real-world results. It arranges leadership across three Domains, Self, Others and Context, and four Dimensions, Understanding, Ethics, Purpose and Communication. Together they give the Twelve Characters.
Each Character is a part of you that can be recognised, developed and called on deliberately. Choose one to begin with, or explore the full model.
Inner Master
'I know who I am'
Inner Referee
'This is my truth'
Inner Visionary
'I know what I want'
Inner Advisor
'I can help'
Empath
'I understand you'
Mentor
'Be good'
Navigator
'I Will help you achieve'
Storyteller
'I will help you understand'
Oracle
'That Makes Sense'
Custodian
'Let's Leave a Positive Legacy'
Architect
'The future is bright, let's make it happen'
Conductor
'Let's spread the word'
Which Characters are strongest in you?
The free Good Leadership Assessment shows you where your leadership is already strong and which Characters are worth developing next.
The Six Leadership Virtues
Develop the three Characters within one Dimension and you become a Specialist in it. Combine two Specialisms and a Leadership Virtue emerges.
Trees for Life Grove
We feel it is important to put back and give back to our planet, and what better than planting much needed trees. Read more about The Good Leadership Book Grove and contribute towards the cause.
Talk to us
For speaking, leadership development and bulk orders, email contact@goodleadership.org.