For 25 years or more I personally have sought to better understand this wake-up call. Can you hear it? Or are you hitting the snooze button? Anyone who considers themselves to be a leader is being asked, called, prompted, cajoled, maybe even forced into living up to that function from a higher vantage point. Who...
Driving in Sicily recently I was struck by the seemingly infinite tolerance that was present on the, to me, deeply chaotic roads and how the drivers didn’t seem to flinch when someone pulled out in front of them unexpectedly and without warning. They certainly rarely used the car horn or rude gestures at the other...
Anyone who has reflected on leadership, done a business degree, attended leadership development programmes or read books about leadership will see, that whilst there are hundreds of qualities associated with leadership and a plethora of models it’s hard to identify anything new as such…we all pretty much ‘know’ everything about the theory of leadership…or do...
We are surrounded by crises big and small and the inclination to see them as something to be afraid of is strong – after all we have inbuilt fight and flight mechanisms for a reason and when we see the danger posed by many of the crises why wouldn’t we allow ourselves to feel fearful....
Taking a proportional response to something could feel very boring – as though we are devoid of strong opinion or clarity of thinking. It could seem like holding a balanced perspective means that nothing clear emerges. Many people see navigating an ‘and/and’ approach as a compromise, as an inability to step up and be counted...
When things go wrong it is, perhaps, human nature to seek the source of the fault, to lay blame, to want to know why it happened and who or what was responsible. It’s an all too easy road in organisational life, especially with the pressure to deliver results. Yet, it’s a road that can make...
When things go wrong we can often get caught up in ‘panic mode’ For example, losing a credit card. Clearly a big issue if indeed it has been lost because of all the subsequent implications and risks. The question though is how does panicking help the situation. It clouds clear thinking. It creates stress which,...
Taking things for granted is a very human thing. It happens for many reasons including feeling comfortable in our current place/mind-set, being too busy to stop and notice things around us or maybe because we are too self-absorbed or arrogant to open to something different. There can be opportunities to get the wake-up call, shift...
Growth and performance are staples of the business lexicon – goals to be pursued. Yet how thoughtful are we when we talk about growth, how considered are the thoughtforms that drive our actions? Often it can be about squeezing more from the existing structure in its current state. And that path may be costly –...
If we are honest with ourselves, each of us have aspects of our personality that we’d like to ‘soften’, aspects which we know can sometimes bring unhelpful impacts to ourselves and others. One of mine is impatience. This can take many forms from the mundane impatience with inefficiency and ineffectiveness, to the loftier and even...