Blogs
Making decisions – make the ‘right’ decision
In a recent leadership workshop I watched in wonder at the power of strong advocacy when sitting around the decision making table with colleagues. A group of participants were tasked in the workshop with making a decision during an experiential activity. Earlier in...
There’s a fine line between Passion and Ego
There's a very fine line between passion and ego. When hanging onto a view, advocating a view, persuading others to follow - is it passion or ego? Differentiating these can be tricky and only YOU know the truth. Are you doing it to win; to feed your ego; to prove you...
Just Believe
Courageous leaders believe in what they aspire to achieve, how they want to do it and who they want to take with them. Building this level of confidence and conviction is not for the feint hearted and sadly too many of our leaders opt for the safe option - following...
Young people are being educated to challenge the status quo
Recently attending a "parent" evening at Sydney University, I was thrilled to learn more about the underpinning philosophy for education at this elite institution. I say elite because I know how hard our daughter worked to gain admittance! I learned these amazing...
Memories or Regrets
I had the pleasure of "revisiting" my past - facilitating a conference for an accounting firm and many people with whom I worked with nearly 20 years ago were participating. During the course of the conference we came to talk about our careers and one of the...
Self Belief
As a leader of self, others and a business - self belief in the kind of leader you want to be is so important. Yet too many current business leaders invest far too much energy into either fitting in or looking good. It takes courage, discipline and consciousness to...
Don’t Live with Baggage
Recently I heard many highly experienced existing leaders talking about "the baggage" brought along from the history of the business. This baggage continues to enter conversations, decisions, attitudes and judgements because it hasn't been aired, resolved and...
The Gift of Mindful Listening
Mindful listening is a gift to you as the listener and to the person you "really" listen to - with the intent of understanding them. I am reading a book recommended by a dear client - "The Zen of Listening" and it is reframing my thinking from listening as a skill to...
Transitioning to Leadership
Transitioning to leadership - moving from doing to managing - is not as easy as it sounds. There can be many pitfalls along the way as one navigates their way from being managed to managing others. Here are seven things to reflect on that will assist with...
Disrupt the Status Quo
Many leadership teams are deciding that a need to disrupt the status quo is what is needed to create continued business success. However in my experience they use the phrase 'disrupt the status quo' with an external use context. In other words, the way their business...
Encourage the next generation to overtake
It is no longer good enough for existing leaders to be the brains trust of the organisation - controlling the important business knowledge and acquiring the critical business experience. Peter Senge talks about the 'hero leaders' and our propensity in the Western...
People Skills Bring Accountability for Task Performance
Task performance is paramount to the success of every manager - particularly in the short term. Don't achieve and your future may come under question. Too few managers make the direct link between people skills ( which they often deem the warm fuzzy stuff) and...
Don’t Take Things Personally
As I was clearing my email I found this interesting article from one of my favourite people - The Purpose Fairy - and she opened her blog with this wonderful quote: "Don't take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a...
Go along to get along
Alarmingly too many organisational cultures support this mantra of 'go along to get along'. Too many people 'go along' because they fear being perceived as 'rocking the boat'. You hear far too many senior leaders talking about the importance of 'picking your battles'...
Interrupting
We recently posted an article on interrupting on my LinkedIn Profile and it created some interest and sparked further thinking for me too. Got me thinking about this phenomenon - many leaders do it without any consciousness, others do it to protect and enhance their...
Lead Change Effectively
Revisiting the competency and approach needed to lead change effectively had me exploring the difference between change and transition. I regularly refer to the work of William Bridges in my leadership programs, where he differentiates change from transition - stating...
Your orientation when making decisions
Exploring processes for making decisions in business has me reflecting on the importance of investigating the context, the frame or the orientation. I have been referring participants in our leadership development program to the OODA Loop as a highly practical and...
Fill up your Energy Reservoir
Demand for what we and others want from ourselves is increasing at a dramatic rate. For most of us the demands are exceeding our capacity - choices are required! For many people the solution and default position to date has been to throw more time at these demands. If...
The Power of Trust
I am enjoying the work of Dr Jenny Brockis and wanted to share something further I read on her BLOG: “An example of just how powerful trust is in building collaboration, contribution and connection, was shared by Holly Delaney from Zappos at the Global Trust...