The Footdown group I spoke to represented an incredible range of leadership experiences and challenges. Every member understood the potential value of better managing their energy and all were receptive to my suggestions on how they could improve their leadership performance.

For more than ten years Dr Alan Watkins has been teaching senior executives in FTSE 100 companies how to manage their single most important asset – their own energy - in a way that reduces the cost of leadership to both them and their organisations. He also shows leaders how to be exceptional, on-demand, day in day out by helping them to understand how the human system works and what really drives their performance.

It is vital that leaders learn to manage their own energy, since most leaders have no specific leadership training and rely, instead, on the general experience and the technical skills they have acquired over the years. Without proper conditioning, leadership can exact a heavy price from leaders which may be their health, their energy and vitality, or their family life. For some leaders the leadership price is paid by the organisation itself in terms of poor decisions and failed strategies.

Dr Watkins’ bases his training methods upon numerous recent advances in human performance research, integrated with detailed insights from neuroscience, cardiology, medical technology and systems theory. He combines this theoretical base with his many years’ experience of teaching and coaching senior executives.

Dr Alan Watkins is a Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Psychological Medicine at Imperial College London and a recognised international expert on the biological basis of exceptional performance. He has personally coached and trained over 10,000 people at all levels of organisations in over 20 countries. He has a first class degree in Psychology, and a PhD in immunology, in addition to his medical degree. He has published a wide variety of scientific papers on perceptions, emotions and health and his first book on Mind Body Medicine was published in 1997 with his second book due for publication in 2007.