When we think about the work of leaders, we rightly have an expectation that they will have a wider, bigger, higher perspective. We imagine that they are so well connected and ‘read in’ to the major factors that may affect the well-being of the organisation that they are able to see new pathways that we...
Competence can be a blessing and, if not exactly a curse, a hole we, as leaders, can easily fall into. How lucky we may count ourselves if all our team are highly competent. People who need little guidance to do their thing with excellence. We may feel it frees us to contribute at a higher...
As a leader, how often do you stop and think about the quality of the field you are creating in your team, project, organisation? We define leadership in many ways and at the core of it lies our ability to engage the will, heart and qualities of all those participating in the collective endeavour. Of...
Most of us are guilty at one time or another of prioritising action over interaction. At times, usually in crisis, that may be needed. Mostly it’s not. We might notice excellence in the work of one of our colleagues yet fail to recognise it with them in the moment as the task list beckons us...
If we want to thrive in today’s more volatile and dynamic world, we may wish to consider how we continue the journey to incorporate more feminine qualities within our leadership practise. Of course it’s very easy to become caught up in the polarities when speaking about a more feminine style of leadership. The temptation to...
It can be very easy as a business to wax lyrical about customer service and the importance of customers within the psyche of the organisation. At the same time, as customers we all have endless anecdotes and stories about very poor service alongside the occasional great service. Despite the fact that often we see service...
In a working world that is ‘always on’, how comfortable are we in allowing ourselves time out for self-reflection? Though it’s an invaluable investment aren’t we likely to put this on to the ‘get to later’ pile or on the ‘self-indulgent’ (and, therefore, never to be visited) pile. Yet here’s the thing, ‘booking a meeting...
If we look for it, we can find evidence of our deep interconnectedness to all things every single day. Whether it be as old friends and contacts pop back into our lives and we realise they were ‘always there really’ or when we take a business decision thinking we’ve fully considered its range of outcomes...
In the week since my friend and colleague @LorraineFlower and I published our second book – Heartful Business: leading with the world in mind – we’ve been on the receiving end of others’ generosity in supporting its first steps out into the world for which we are immensely grateful. This well of support got me...
In order to place our trust in another one of the things we tend to do is weigh up the level of integrity we perceive. It’s a fascinating word, ‘integrity’, in that two definitions are offered by dictionaries – the first being wholeness and consistency and the second, as morally strong and honest. We might...