Julia Middleton was born in London in 1958 and received her education at French Lycées all around the world, exposing her to diverse cultures and perspectives. After earning an economics degree from the London School of Economics, Julia worked for the Industrial Society, where she found herself in the midst of mining strikes of northern England: “We were doing trainings for the supervisors while everything was closed, so I did a lot of industrial relations work and began to see the result of poor leadership, and the result was tragedy in a lot of people’s lives”, Julia remembers.
Driven by a vision to transform leadership, Julia is a serial societal entrepreneur, and established her first NGO, Common Purpose, in 1989. She was inspired by American community leadership programs, and aimed to reshape the model for the UK, uniting leaders across sectors and backgrounds to enhance civic leadership. Common Purpose grew to be one of the world’s largest leadership development organizations. Julia is passionate about helping people from all backgrounds to develop their leading capabilities and societal impact. She led Common Purpose for three decades, and during that time, published several books on leadership and cultural intelligence. Shortly after stepping down as CEO of Common Purpose, Julia founded Women Emerging, going back “to her first love, which is women in leadership”, she explains. With a family of five children and four grandchildren, Julia’s commitments also extend to humanitarian projects, such as Alfanar, a delivering venture philanthropy in the Arab world, or the Aurora Forum, where she acts as a Goodwill Ambassador. It was through her societal work that she met Pierre Gurdjian and Laurent Coulie, who participated in a program organized by Julia. A new friendship developed and in 2020, when Belgium’s 40 under 40 was launched, Laurent and Pierre eagerly introduced the concept to Julia.
Julia Middleton is an inspiring figure in leadership development and Belgium’s 40 under 40 is honored to welcome her in Belgium. During the first day of the seminar, Julia shared stories about her life, her work, and her perspective on leadership. She entered into an inspiring discussion with Pierre about societal transformation and the need for collaboration, openness, and collective intelligence. The group engaged in collective conversations about leadership and the role of young leaders in (re)shaping society. The first day was filled with insightful conversations, stories, laughter, and new connections, further enriched by an evening dinner. The next day gave the participants a chance to dive deeper into Julia’s insights on personal development, exploring her Core and Flex framework. The seminar concluded with collective reflections on key takeaways and new insights.
In the wake of the enriching seminar, Belgium’s 40 under 40 engaged in an interview with Julia, where she reflects on her introduction to Belgium’s 40 under 40 and shares profound thoughts on leadership and the transformative impact of the initiative.
I met Pierre and Laurent a long time ago and when they mentioned their new project, Belgium’s 40 under 40, it was obvious that I wished to help them as much as I possibly could. The concept of course rang a bell because it falls into the area of what I do, so I felt like I had something to contribute. I offered them my opinions and my criticism, and they welcomed it, and this is something I love about them. All the founders of Belgium’s 40 under 40 are good listeners, they listen and then they do something different as a result. Another reason for my immediate support was that their commitment seemed to be long term. Most things worth doing take time, it is often a long stretch. When introducing the idea of 40u40, they seemed committed to the concept and that was very compelling to me.
Belgium’s 40 under 40 also introduced a range of mentoring possibilities I also have not seen to that degree before. I think this is something very powerful. In addition, Belgium is a country of diversity and division, Brussels, like all global cities, is divided, there are different heritages, cultures, and languages. In a setting like this, you can either make this diversity your strength, or you accept it as your weakness. And Belgium’s 40 under 40 seemed to me as a foundation with a potential to make diversity its strengths. All these components made the initiative interesting to me and it was obvious to me that I would support them.
Belgium’s 40 under 40 helps to create this energy by getting you out of your own bubble, by having you talking to people, and recognizing the different types and levels of energies needed for different moments. 40u40 puts its Fellows in a place where they are outside of their own comfort zone and confronted with new individuals and perspectives. By merely pulling them out, Belgium’s 40 under 40 has an enormous impact. The Fellows meet people, start working with people, they would normally never know. The conversations and learnings emerging from different perspectives help create energy. In addition, a good leader is someone who goes outside their own bubble and learns to generate energy not just in his or her familiar, own context, but also in a new one, a broader one.
The 40u40 program takes people out of their bubble and at the same time it forces people to go inside their own bubble and to look at themselves, to think about themselves and to think about what shapes them and what forms them. Leading is generating energy, and this energy inside you is shaped by your own essence: your values, a bond with nature, motherness, a connection to your body and soul, all those influence how you generate energy. Belgium’s 40 under 40 helps finding out what shapes your energy. The Fellows learn how to go inside and there, they will find things that need dusting down and shaking up. For example, the imposter syndrome: with 40u40, you can find it, shake it out and rethink it. Belgium’s 40 under 40 pushes people out and pushes people in, allowing them to grow as leaders in a multifaceted way.
There is very little you can do on your own. It is not only a professional network that you need, as that can be quite shallow; it is relationships. You need relationships to make anything important happen because many problems are messy and cross boundaries. People must cross those boundaries as well and form new relations. Additionally, as a leader, you need a network of people who will love and support you when you are miserable. But you also need people who will confront and challenge you. I call it the turbulence network—people who will call you out and see things differently from you, and these are the people you will meet at 40u40.
Moreover, you need relationships to innovate. My generation, if they came up with a cool idea, kept it to themselves. The 40u40 generation, when they come up with a good idea, socialize and throw it out to their peers, improving their ideas. There is a collective sense of innovation and impact, and I think that is needed. Leaders need to develop friendships and relationships so that they can throw their crazy ideas out in the open. I do that with Pierre: I try my ideas with him, we discuss it, and it is useful for me to see all the snags before I even start off.
Belgium’s 40 under 40 also includes mentors, and the mentorship program is another part of the community. Mentoring is just another relationship that can be helpful. It is also important that emerging leader’s mentor their existing senior leaders. Mentoring should go both ways, allowing participants to learn from each other as part of a community. This is another crucial aspect of the program.
Find out more about Women Emerging & the podcast
In addition, Julia has published two bestselling books called Beyond Authority and Cultural Intelligence. In October 2023, she published her newest edition: If That’s Leading, I’m In: Women Redefining Leadership.