Matt Garman is a leadership speaker who learned early that leadership is rarely found in a job title. He left home at 16, worked on a commercial fishing trawler, built and sold technology businesses, swam the English Channel and later rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic.
Those experiences shape his view that leadership is learned through pressure, not handed down through a job description.
Known as The Corporate Adventurer, Matt now works with business leaders on communication, resilience and team performance, using real stories from business and endurance challenges rather than classroom theory.
In this exclusive interview with the Inspirational Leadership Speakers Agency, Matt Garman explains why organisations should look beyond roles and titles, how clarity keeps teams together under pressure, and why one of a leader’s most important jobs is to help other people step up.
Q1. How have unconventional life experiences shaped your understanding of leadership?
Matt Garman: “Fundamentally, I believe that our most valuable leadership lessons and wisdom come from what I call the unconventional things. The things that life throws at us.
“Sometimes they’re positive. Sometimes they’re not so positive. Sometimes they’re enjoyable. Sometimes they’re downright uncomfortable.
“The ones that stand out the most are generally the ones we tend to lean on when we’re looking for leadership inspiration.
“As a result, they’re the ones that stay in our minds a little bit longer than some of the training or classroom-based activities that we might be presented with.”
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Q2. What do organisations often misunderstand about leadership and potential?
Matt Garman: “I don’t believe leadership can be taught.
“What I believe is that leadership has to be learned, and it can be learned in a number of ways.
“One of the misconceptions is that far too many people and organisations are looking for job roles and descriptions, and they’re not looking deep enough for people and potential.”
Q3. What did rowing across the Atlantic teach you about communication under pressure?
Matt Garman: “I’m going to give an example of when I put together a team to row across the Atlantic Ocean. We were originally going to be a team of four, but one dropped out due to some family and work challenges. We ended up being a team of three.
“As you can imagine, rowing 3,000 miles across an ocean, there are times when it gets a little bit hairy and scary. Typically, they’re when there are big waves bearing down on us.
“One of the things that helps people keep on track is clarity of the outcome. What is it we’re looking to achieve, and how are we going to get there?
“Various things are going to get thrown our way. There were times on the row when we had some quite fraught moments, but they were when there was a 20 or 30-foot swell bearing down on us.
“One of the things I encourage audiences to think about with improved communication is to be clear on what the outcome looks like.
“For us, there were three things. I wanted to get three guys safely across an ocean. I wanted to do it in less than 50 days. The other super important thing was that we wanted to step off the boat as friends, having experienced the adventure of a lifetime.”
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Q4. What do you want audiences to take from your public speeches about leadership?
Matt Garman: “I hope audiences take away from Matt that he’s a down-to-earth kind of guy. Relatable.
“I’ve got a number of stories, from leaving home at 16 and working on a trawler, to growing and selling a couple of my own tech companies, to a number of adventures.
“What I’d like audiences to take away is that leadership isn’t a title.
“It’s not a role. It’s a responsibility, but it’s not about job descriptions and titles. It’s about people. It’s about potential. It’s about enabling and helping other people to get the most out of themselves.
“One of the key roles of a leader is to create more leaders, and I encourage audiences to start thinking a little bit more about those people in their organisations who have got that potential, that little bit of light, or that little bit of spark, where we can help as leaders, or in organisations and adventures, to help those people step up to achieve what they want to achieve.
“That’s the sort of thing that I’d like to encourage organisations and audiences to take on board.”
This exclusive interview with Matt Garman was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.
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