Whenever a discussion about personal power comes up in a coaching session it can trigger many different questions. What defines my power? To what extent does my power affect someone else’s power? Is it a zero-sum game? What is ‘power’ anyway in leadership? Typically, in exploring power we enter the territory of respect, expertise, charisma,...
“Where people of goodwill get together and transcend their differences for the common good, peaceful and just solutions can be found even for those problems which seem most intractable.“ — Nelson Mandela The common good emphasises collective well-being, shared responsibility, and the ethical pursuit of societal benefit over individual gain. Leading in support of the...
“We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.” Plato I’m returning to the topic of ethics with a deep sense of curiosity about what it means to discuss ‘how we ought to live’. Many of us will baulk at the idea of the word ‘ought’ in that it immediately curtails, or...
Wisdom in leadership is vital, and elephants are famed for being wise. Packing your Exec group with wise leaders is likely to bring huge rewards because wisdom isn’t just a factor of experience, though of course that helps, wisdom is an expression of consciousness. And by that, I mean a deep sense of knowing and...
What does that word mean to you? For me it’s in part about the values we hold and our ability to live in alignment with them. It’s about our wholeness, our moral compass and our reliability. It is a vital foundation of leadership. It conveys an insight to who we really are as a person...
For many people, the word leadership brings up resistance or even rebellion. Too often, what we see publicly is leadership driven by ego, control, narcissism, and hunger for power. Who can blame anyone for becoming disillusioned? These are the beastly models on display. But leadership is more than the person temporarily holding authority. It is...
Dashing heroes and defenders of the good are a thing of fairy tales, legends and of Marvel comics! Epitomising the upholding of good over evil, moral standing and care for the underdog they give a powerful insight to an aspect of leadership that is (very often) all too absent in our public leaders. In the...
With the increased talk about war, I was reflecting on the role of business leaders and business in general to play a role in establishing peace. We are so used to delegating the responsibility for peace to world leaders and politicians. Or the United Nations. Or NGOs. But don’t we all have a part to...
You are doing battle every day. Sometimes it can feel like a constructive use of energy. Sometimes it can feel hopeless. How often do we stop to really ask ourselves just what we are battling for? Heroes, knights and mercenaries all had/have their reasons for their battles. As leaders we are more than mindless cogs...
Too often optics drive the narrative. We’re seeing this daily from global leadership and in the micro in our own organisations and teams. Performance trumping substance, truth and trust. And trust is surely the thing here. Much of social media is eroding the ability to discern truth from fake content. The growing capability of AI...