John was educated at St. Paul’s School; he won an open scholarship to Cambridge. Before university he served as a platoon commander in the Scots Guards in Egypt, and then became the only national serviceman to serve in the Arab Legion, where he became captain and adjutant of a Bedouin regiment and was briefly in command of the garrison of Jerusalem in the front line.

After national service he went immediately to Hull where he qualified as a deckhand and worked on arctic trawlers in Icelandic waters. He also worked as an orderly in a NHS hospital theatre.

After Cambridge he became a Senior Lecturer in Military History at the Royal Military Academy and subsequently Adviser in Leadership Training. He was the first Director of Studies at St. George’s House, Windsor Castle in 1968, and then introduced leadership training into industry, commerce and the public services as associate Director of The Industrial Society. Over a million managers worldwide took part in the Action-Centred Leadership programmes he pioneered.

In 1979 John was appointed the world’s first Professor of Leadership Studies – a phrase he coined - at the University of Surrey. In 1991 he initiated the world’s first post graduate course in Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter, acting as Visiting Professor there for nine years. There he played a key part in the establishment of Europe’s first Centre for Leadership Studies.

Between 1981 and 1986 John worked with Sir John Harvey-Jones at ICI, introducing a leadership development strategy, which helped to change the loss-making, bureaucratic giant into the first British company to make a billion pounds profit. He has spoken to and advised many leading companies and organisations in twenty-five different countries, such as Exxon Chemicals in America, Mitsubishi in Europe and BAE Systems in the UK. He is widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on leadership and leadership development. He has been a Fellow of The Windsor Leadership Trust since 2001.

John’s forty books, translated into eighteen languages, include most recently: Effective Strategic Leadership (2002); Inspiring Leadership (revised edition of Great Leaders); and The Inspirational Leader (2003). For further information visit Professor Adair's website.

John has been a Fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust since 1996. He became a Honorary Fellow in February 2006.