Do you recognize your leadership team in one of these three teams? 1. Simon’s Polite Exec When I first met Simon, he was leading an executive team where each exec was very ‘polite’ to one another. Discussions on important issues were usually brief, dissenting views were not surfaced, and ‘consensus’ was reached fairly quickly....
If I were to ask you about your organisation’s values, how would you respond? Can you remember them? Do you endorse them? Do you live them? How well do they align with your own values? Recently a client was talking about the challenge of people ‘weaponising values’. This is not a term I had heard...
Silence is an underrated leadership tool. Of course, I am not talking about the kind of ‘hostile silence’ that intimidates people into saying something! This is a silence that gives people time to think and opens up the conversational space for something richer than top of mind thoughts. Silence can be more challenging for extrovert...
Dr Suess is one of my favourite leadership authors – and one of my favourite authors of children’s books too! ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ is one of his best. The story starts out: “Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Place! You’re off and away!” It tracks the character through highs (“You’ll...
I am excited (and a little nervous because of the personal nature of this) to share with you my latest White Paper: Guerrilla Leadership: 3 valuable lessons from leading on the frontline. Have you ever been so afraid that you lost all sense of time passing? My first night in the jungle was like that…....
Dan Pink’s latest book ‘When: The scientific secrets of perfect timing’ had me enthralled from start to finish. He makes a strong case for thinking carefully about ‘when’ we do things – think, make decisions, exercise, time breaks… We are all governed by ‘circadian rhythms’ – our internal body clock that keeps us functioning. Pink...