Mac Davis sang, “Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way,” and whilst the song is tongue-in-cheek it speaks to a challenge faced by today’s leaders. To get to the top you have to be very good at what you do and let the right people see and hear about your competency; you have to have healthy self-esteem to handle the knocks and the naysayers and this leads to a healthy dose of self-belief. So by the time you get to a leadership position you view of the world is likely to be that you are better than those who have not yet made it and this is seen as arrogance (an attitude of superiority or an overbearing manner) and arrogance can be the kiss of death for a leader as it generates resentment and enemies.
So how can a leader be humble when he/she has to be so good?
Research (Tangney 2002) identifies a number of key features of humility: Continue Reading »
I just had a conversation with an American who had visited London and he said, “The people there were great”. How often have you heard this or said this about people from somewhere else? Lots of times I think. So why is it so surprising that when we visit somewhere else, a difference country or culture, we discover that the people there are great?
I think it has to do with our tribal mentality, it somehow serves us to think of “The Others” as different and therefore inferior to our tribe. And yet when we meet people one-to-one we discover that, whether they live in a high-rise in Manhattan or a yurt in Outer Mongolia, people are interesting and generous and have a sense of humour. Continue Reading »
I was recently inteviewed about Self-leadership on Singaore’s 938Live radio program. I have saved 3 audio files here so you can listen as a Podcast.
What is Self-leadership?
Self-leadership is about intentionally influencing yourself to achieve your objectives. Self-leaders have the drive for autonomy and so can make thier own descions. Self-leadership Part 1
US President, John F. Kennedy, once said, “Leadership and Learning are indispensible to each other”, which sets a frame that an effective leader does not know it all but is open to new information and perspective. Consider the possibility that everything we know today about our world emerged because people were curious. They formulated a question or series of questions about something that sparked their interest or deeply concerned them, which lead them to learn something new. It is my experience in developing leaders that the best leaders ask the best questions. Continue Reading »
Modern organisations strive to develop their leaders to gain a competitive advantage; and smart companies are changing from the traditional management style of command-and-control to a model of self-leadership and shared-leadership. This is particularly important with knowledge workers in virtual teams or in flatter, matrix organisations.
Self-leaders have a drive for autonomy, are more creative and persist, even in the face of adversity. Shared-leadership allows team members to influence peers, superiors and sub-ordinates with the objective to lead one another to innovation and the achievement of high performance objectives.
In this video, inspirational speaker, Andrew Bryant shares a contingent model for developing leaders with self-leadership.
Self-leadership is grounded in Cognitive Learning Theory (CLT), which states that we influence our world and our world influences us. The amount we influence depends on our perception of our own effectiveness or potential effectiveness; “I can do it” or “I can learn to do it”. CLT is also shows that we learn by observing others and by visualising successful outcomes.
The feed-forward and feed-back loops between our selves and the world explains how we program effective or limiting behaviours. Continue Reading »
This blog is a draft from my new book on self-leadership with Dr. Ana Kazan.
“Why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?”- Plato
Self-leadership begins with self-observation, which means noticing our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Self-observation is like checking the instruments of an airplane to ensure it is flying level and on course. By checking in on ourselves we can make adjustments which allow us to be more purposeful and effective. Continue Reading »
In the late 1960′s and early 70′s a communication model emerged that took a different look at the way we communicate. Not wanting this new model to fit into any existing discipline of psychology or therapy the founders, Richard Bandler and John Grinder called it Neurolinguistic Programming or NLP for short.
NLP is essentially a model of learning and demonstrates that we can model human thinking, behaviour and communication. Continue Reading »
Mentoring is a developmental partnership between a Mentor, a leader with expertise in one or more areas, and a Mentee, an individual seeking learning and growth in these areas.
The ideal Mentee is:
High potential, commmited to their career, hungry to learn and disciplined enough to execute what they have learned.
One good idea well implemented could change your business, your relationships or your life. So why not invest 1-day for you and your team to be inspired, motivated and exposed to some of the best ideas to increase productivity, communication, sales, impact and effectiveness in 2011?
In Singapore, on Feburary 24, 2011 myself and eight of Asia’s top professional speakers will showcase cutting edge ideas and techniques to Raise your Game in 2011. You and hear; Tim Wade on ‘Productivity Mindset’, Tina Altieri on ‘Presenting to Win’, Santhanaram Jayaram on ‘Resistance to Irrisitable’, Tremaine Du Preez on ”Conquering Critical Challenges’, Sharon Connelly on ‘Dressing Like a Leader’, Kenneth Kwan on ‘Master Your Inner Self’ and Bob Mittelsdorf on ‘Managing Global Teams’. I will be sharing my latest research and practical applicatons of self-leadership and the whole action-packed day will be MC’d by the effervescent Shirley Taylor.
As the investment is minimal and a portion of profits go to Project Smile, can you afford to miss out on this unique event?
Mac Davis sang, “Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way,” and whilst the song is tongue-in-cheek it speaks to a challenge faced by today’s leaders. To get to the top you have to be very good at what you do and let the right people see and hear about your competency; you have to have healthy self-esteem to handle the knocks and the naysayers and this leads to a healthy dose of self-belief. So by the time you get to a leadership position you view of the world is likely to be that you are better than those who have not yet made it and this is seen as arrogance (an attitude of superiority or an overbearing manner) and arrogance can be the kiss of death for a leader as it generates resentment and enemies.
