Learn to Lead

By |2020-04-22T10:51:01+10:00July 28th, 2017|Leadership development|

Learn to Lead Just like any other professional practice, leadership is both an art and a science. The science part is knowing the theory and principles of leadership and the art is how we apply them to our own situations.  Just like any other profession (engineering, medicine, accountancy), leaders need to be continually enhancing [...]

Unlock the potential

By |2020-04-22T10:51:01+10:00June 22nd, 2017|Leadership development|

Unlock the potential Do you see the potential in your people?  Or are you spending all your time on worrying about what they cannot do while losing focus on the potential they have?  A recent article by Mary Jo Asmus, A brimming bundle of potential, got me thinking about how leaders bring out the potential [...]

Nurturing Creativity

By |2020-04-22T10:51:01+10:00June 15th, 2017|Leadership development|

Nurturing Creativity Creativity is certainly a vital skill that successful leaders need to have. The question is, how do we cultivate creativity while still achieving productivity?  As a leader, it is important to create an environment within your team that allows for critical thinking and creative ideas to flow. How to nourish your team’s [...]

Radical Candor

By |2020-04-22T10:51:02+10:00May 23rd, 2017|Leadership development|

Radical Candor Radical Candor, Manipulative Insecurity, Ruinous Empathy and Obnoxious Aggression – four terms that you’ve probably never heard of! I came across these interesting terms in Kim Scott’s book Radical Candor.  While they might not become part of your everyday vocabulary, it is certainly worth the time to understand the concepts and consider [...]

Committed Leadership

By |2020-04-22T10:51:02+10:00May 18th, 2017|Leadership development|

Committed Leadership This one is for all of the aspiring leaders out there – official or unofficial. What makes someone a leader? My definition is simple – it’s helping your team achieve higher degrees of success.  A leader is not someone who has been granted a position or job title; they might be the [...]

Focus on focusing

By |2020-04-22T10:51:03+10:00May 4th, 2017|Leadership development|

Focus on focusing Mindfulness has become quite the buzzword around the photocopier.  Large organisations like Intel, McKinsey, Apple and Google, all famous for their innovative leadership practices, are embracing Mindfulness as a core concept of their operating rhythm. Even I wrote an article not too long ago on ‘centredness’, a concept closely aligned to [...]

Leading from the start

By |2020-04-22T10:51:16+10:00April 24th, 2017|Leadership development|

Leading from the start Unless you’ve been completely isolated from society for the last couple of weeks, you have probably heard about the incident on United Express Flight 3411. But if you somehow did manage to miss this one, let me briefly recap: As is the usual practice United Airlines had overbooked Flight 3411.  [...]

Trust in the brain

By |2020-04-22T10:51:17+10:00March 23rd, 2017|Leadership development|

Trust in the brain Last week I wrote about the science behind emotional influence, and how our brains are built to react to certain triggers. Frequent readers will know that I’ve also discussed science in some other posts, for example in ‘The science of opinions’, so this post will hopefully come as no surprise! [...]

Constructive Feedback and Destructive Criticism

By |2020-04-22T10:51:17+10:00March 6th, 2017|Leadership development|

Constructive Feedback and Destructive Criticism Feedback – a reaction or response to a particular behaviour, process or activity (constructive). Criticism – the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything (destructive). Feedback is a gift – a gift that we can give to our people every day. In fact, it is our responsibility to provide our people with feedback at every [...]

Showing appreciation

By |2020-04-22T10:51:17+10:00February 9th, 2017|Leadership development|

Showing appreciation About two years ago a report by The Australia Institute suggested that Australians were ‘donating’ more than $110 billion in unpaid overtime each year. This is a staggering amount of money, which translates to a staggering amount of unpaid extra hours worked. And if this work were reallocated to the unemployed, it [...]

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