Skilful communication is one of the pre-requisites of leadership yet a few conversations in the past week have come as a reminder of how hard we can find it to get this right and how often neglected it is in race to deliver targets. Perhaps the problem is that we see it as a given....
Mostly our world seems geared to receive mode. The amount of information we’re deluged with daily is testament to how little we have to do to get information. Or is it? We face a number of challenges here. With so much data coming at us we may become a little lazier, try less to access...
We could be forgiven for thinking big talk describes the kind of boastful and often unsubstantiated, self-aggrandising, other-blaming claims broadcast by leaders in the public eye. Let’s face it there’s a lot of this about and a particularly consistent example across the Pond. However, big talk is about something much deeper and higher and a...
The latest edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer shows yet another drop in the trust vested in business leaders. According to the 2024 report 61% of respondents (32,000 people globally) worry that business leaders are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations (a 2% rise in the...
Most people don’t tend to think about shapes or geometry in relation to leadership. And yet if you think about it we have many linear, square and oblong shapes that pervade our organisational spaces especially in business. The boardroom table, the office desk, the rows of desks. Perhaps it’s driven by space efficiency but I...
Leading by example is one of the oft quoted qualities needed of effective leaders but isn’t it missing something…the word good as in leading by good example? Leadership is a 24/7 commitment, a way of being as well as doing. Everything we do and say, the attitudes we hold, our presence, are being experienced and...
Challenging times bring a different energy into our environment – certainly more febrile and tense, and possibly hot-headed. As the pressure increases so does the tension in the air. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our language. Hyperbole infects the things we say and how we say them – often louder and terser. By...
We can go on holiday. We can’t go on holiday. We can travel to green list countries but they might be on the watch list so they might have gone amber before the plane wheels touch the tarmac. We can mix with others…well as long as they are in our bubble, or they are six...
One of the things I’ve noticed as restrictions on our day-to-day lives begin to ease is how noisy the world has become, or at least my sensitivity is heightened. Whichever, it’s had me thinking about noise at a number of levels…the noise, for example, the media created around our PM’s wedding – where it might...