Bob Geldof's speech to NCSL's New Heads conference

Geldof argues that we need new models of leadership in the early 21st century, especially as we face up to our first crisis of globalisation. He claims that the quality of leadership developed by New Heads is vital to the very future of our society.

Geldof was "extremely lucky" to have gone to a good school. Something he never took advantage of. "I didn't give a toss." Geldof's mother died when he was 5 or 6. His father travelled the country selling towels and he and his sisters were left to look after themselves. There was no TV in the house. But there was a radio, over which the voices of intelligent, articulate young men playing rock and roll "became the voices of possibilities".

Geldof claims that without his parents, he developed no trust in any authority. "I became a low grade pain in the ass." Seeing everything in black and white. Always butting up against authority. He cites the key influence of three English teachers and their love of poetry, and the experience of setting up an Anti-Aparheid group, as setting him up to learn some of his key lessons in life.

Geldof left school with no qualifications, picking up odd jobs, "incapable of getting on with people". He ends up in Canada working on a gold mine and then in an abattoir as an illegal immigrant. He got a job for a local underground paper as a music journalist and then as the circulation manager. "So, I slowly began to understand that there is a possibility of creating your own world."

Geldof goes on to offer thoughts about the nature of modern leadership. It has to be spread out. It has to be shared and horizontal. The signature technology of our time is the web and it will define how we run our world.

The core philosophy of the web is co-operation and unlimited access to information. Think Wikipedia. Communities can be formed around interests quickly and dramatically and powerfully. We've just seen that with Obama. The first truly 21st century leader who harnessed the power of the social web to advance his cause.

We're in an incredible period of flux between an old world and a new world and that's the context New Heads are becoming leaders within. Great social and technological and moral changes. Our new version of globalisation, to replace the globalisation that has signally failed, has to be a globalisation that encourages inclusion and equality and tolerance. And crucially, to include the current poor as much as possible in the new economy, we need to prepare all of our children for the knowledge economy. An economy based on co-operation not raw competition. England can be set fair to define the culture and values of the coming ages if we make sure that our education is as inclusive and forward thinking as possible, making it possible for all our children to be prepared for this new economy.

Geldof finishes arguing that co-operation is key to our very survival globally. A value we need to learn and live at every level. A value that was crucial to Live Aid. A value that is vital to what so many charities are about. And if enough people live it and show it, policy changes.

Your job, Geldof argues, is turning on the thinking that makes it possible for our children to come out of school understanding the knowledge economy, understanding that it is energy and ideas and co-operation will be our mainstays.

Geldof ends with a quotation from W.H Murray that has stayed with him for years:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it! "