Blogs
Just how challenging can we be?
I facilitated a session recently on engaging in challenging conversations constructively and it was inspiring to hear everyone walk away willing to adopt the mantle of courageous leader and actively unleash the courage to have more of these conversations. We explored...
Becoming your Ideal Self
I coached a young man who was finding the process of identifying his character and personality preferences, and integrating this with the behaviours (capabilities) he was choosing each day at work far too abstract. In an effort to make it concrete I related it back to...
Finding your sweetspot
The work of Martin Seligman and his colleague Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi have helped us to create a frame for finding your sweetspot. We acknowledge most of you have invested a significant amount of time developing capability – mostly intellectual skills – and you do not...
Don’t let ‘stuff’ get in the way of a very real conversation
Relationships get bogged down in stuff and the stuff becomes more important than the relationship. A recent experience with a member of our Courageous Leaders Community highlighted this perfectly. Once we reaffirmed with each other that our relationship was strong,...
Inspiring Courageous Leaders Book – First copies published and distributed – now come feelings of vulnerability!
Well here is another BLOG on my experience of writing a book and publishing it. We have started to distribute our first 100 copies of the book with another 5,000 copies arriving at the end of May and the feelings of vulnerability are pretty intense: * what if no one...
Avoiding mediocrity with courage
This short video from Jared Leto got me thinking about how easily we fall into the path of least resistance, forego our dreams and end up living the mediocre life we told ourselves we never would... It takes COURAGE, as Jared says, to follow our dreams, to do what we...
Courageous leaders value trust
As we draw close to the International Day of Trust, I’m inspired to revisit and expand one of the essential aspects of being a Courageous Leader: Courageous leaders are deeply aware of the value of trust – in themselves, in the processes they set up and in the people...
Influencing decisions
When facilitating a workshop where we explored how middle managers could start influencing more decisions, it was rewarding to watch how people recognized what they could start doing differently. It is far too easy to blame the senior leaders for not inviting us to...
Making time to replenish your energy reserves
The more courageous you become the more essential it is to make time to replenish your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energy. To be courageous uses enormous amounts of energy and as I have experienced over the last week it is critical to make the time to...
Learn to lead
Over the last few weeks several incidents have occurred and caused me to reflect on the pain of learning. I believe this is why so many people do not truly embrace the desire to LEARN to lead. It requires conscious thought and effort each day and with this greater...
Using your power for good, not evil
Facilitating a MasterClass the other day opened up an important thought - we can use each of our powers for evil - even our personal power. We have access to five sources of power - positional, expert, opportunity, referent and personal. We explored how you use each...
Inspiring Courageous Leaders – the book edit process
I feared the edit process and was not feeling great about having someone challenge the way I had written my book - and after all it was MY book! So I came to the process not truly a willing participant - in my heart. Yet I knew from my head - the logic - that it was...
Busy lifestyle syndrome
Reading the Sunday papers I loved reading Wendy Harmer's column called "The Future Looks Stupid" where she explores the new syndrome identified by researchers in Scotland - "Busy Lifestyle Syndrome". This syndrome is caused by our busy lifestyles where we are...
Breaking through gravity, Part 2
Experiences have shown me how easy it is to give up on breaking through gravity and just stick with our conditioning. I invest significant time and energy into relationships and still find myself deeply disappointed when hit by behaviour from the "old" way - driven by...
Breaking through gravity
"A human being trying to catalyse the emergence of a higher level of consciousness is like a rocket ship trying to break through the gravity of the Earth's atmosphere. The gravity that we are endeavouring to release ourselves from is the historical weight of our...
ROI on Training and Development
ROI has been a big catch-cry for businesses large and small during the noughties and particularly post the GFC. What happens when you try to wrap the concept of ROI around Training and Development programs? At Courageous Leaders we’ve noticed a few articles and...
Fear of Change
So many things inspire us here at Courageous Leaders, and this manifesto, Practically Radical, about leading change and making a difference is right up there. Leaders, now more than ever, face ever-increasing tension as they strive to absorb information, lead...
The control of anger
While meeting with a newly promoted existing leader we got talking about the changes he wants to make within his leadership team and within the Organisation as a whole. He explained how he has "set the marker" for no more anger within his team. He passionately...
The changing face of leadership models
After reading this article on Google’s innovative management structure, I started thinking about additional ways a bi-generational leadership team could help businesses to grow. Underlying much of what we do at Courageous Leaders are such things as looking at the...