I am not a successful businessman. This does not mean I am an unsuccessful businessman. I am a company director of my own e-learning business for law and medicine here in London. However, I will be starting a two year MBA (Master of Business Administration) degree at BPP Business School in London in January 2011, as I am genuinely interested in both the theory and practice of business, particularly leadership. My brief interaction with the legal world, which has been through a thus far successful Master of Law at the College of Law of England and Wales, has taught me that the business and legal worlds are incredibly closely-related, but it is important to me the impact of successful team-building as well as leadership; I see corporate law is being built by a plethora of highly effective managers, but with few leaders. The corporate mentality is undeniably potentially stifling unless in the right hands, fostering a rather stifling a suffocating anti-intellectual atmosphere, unless corporate law can encourage equality, diversity and inclusivity with some of the clients it is supposed to represent.

Lecture over. Here is the knub then of the problem faced by Lord Sugar on Sunday, in the final of the BBC series “The Apprentice”. Having blown out Stuart Baggs (the ‘Blagger’), one has to feel some genuine disappointment that Lord Sugar has chucked out Liz Locke through having been innocently taken in by the bullshit of Stuart Baggs. Baggs was outed as a confidence trickster, albeit a very technically-minded one, who would do anything to achieve his aims. I like Gordon the lawyer loathe the fact that he would be allegedly willing to break the law, defamation, in rubbishing a business partner to achieve his own ends. This is both illegal and unethical, and certainly would do not thing for Alan Sugar the Brand, let alone Stuart Baggs the Brand.

Stella English is impressive for very many reasons. She doesn’t do emotion as such professionally, and is meticulous in her organisation and discipline, hard work and genuine commitment. She has taken on board incessant criticisms about being ‘wooden’. She has been incredibly successful in the corporate management environment, and the question now for Lord Sugar is to find a suitable role for her in his organisation. Therefore, if she can pull off an inspiring demonstration on Sunday, that will go a long way. She needs to demonstrate that she is a potential entrepreneurial leader; she can have followers, has a set of responsible ideals, can take risks, can work in teams and demonstrate some emotional intelligence, and of course create a superb business plan. However, Christopher Bates has demonstrated entrepreneurial flair in the past in the course of the series, but his track record in not sticking at a job or a course has to be some cause for concern. It’s no good waiting for the quality of what Chris says if he drones on for hours in a pitch on behalf of Sugar’s organisation to a client, but I have no doubting that his skills are understated. For what it’s worth, I think both Stella and Chris would be a ‘safe pair of hands’ at board level, fulfilling the requirements of the Companies Act (2006) in both letter and spirit; in their duty to promote the success of the company, the duty to avoid conflicts of interest, and, especially given their high degree of sheer competence thus far in the competition, a duty to practise with due skill, care and diligence. The words of Peter Drucker continue to haunt me – leadership is doing the right things, management is about doing things right. Where Alan Sugar is superb is that he does both.

Lord Sugar said he didn’t want a ‘steady Eddie’, but this is ironically exactly what he might need in vast quantities in these turbulent economic times. A fairly close decision, and it could be tipped either way. Jamie’s poor interviewing came as a surprise to me yesterday, and definitely cost him a place in the Final. Sunday’s performance does matter therefore. I feel it go in anyone’s favour.