A leader who wishes to bypass resistance, prepare hearts and minds and facilitate lasting changes for his or her organisation must understand and be able to use the power of story and metaphor. In a previous post I shared about the construction of metaphors and wanted to expand on this with specific relevance to leadership in today’s challenging environment.
What stories are you telling your people? Do you know what stories are you telling yourself? Continue Reading »
As we watch scenes of wanton distruction and looting in London we must ask ourselves, is there any situation or circumstance that warrants this kind of behaviour? Just before I wrote this blog I was listening to the BBC World Service and heard someone say that we have created a culture of Self and Self-interest and that this was the cause. I don’t subcribe to simplistic cause-effect statements and don’t believe the London riot is the result of one problem or one group of people but I would like to comment on why this kind of selfish behaviour is NOT Self-leadership. Continue Reading »
Whether you are running a small business or leading a multi-national company, building and protecting your reputation is essential. Consider some reputation disasters; Toyota denying their ‘sticky’ break pedals, Pizza Hut employees posting a Youtube video of of unsanitary food practices or United Airlines breaking guitars on the tarmac.
With blogs, YouTube and Facebook pages it is now possible for people to let the world know what they think about you.
Corporate reputation is based on the perceptions of any stakeholder group such as consumers, investors, employees, or key influencers. Charles J. Fombrun has listed six drivers of corporate reputation:
As a leadership consultant and executive coach I am often asked by my clients to help them understand and navigate organisational politics.
Most people I speak to have a negative perspective of politics, they associate it with backstabbing and pushing your own agenda at a cost to others. I have a different perspective; my experience is that business politics is about human nature and to ignore it is to ignore reality. In a perfect world the best workers would be promoted on merit alone and the best ideas would be adopted regardless of personal interest – but we do not live in Utopia we live in the real world. If you want to survive and prosper in the real world you need to combine good work with smart politics.
The term ‘Machiavellian’ is often used to negatively label those who have mastered the Art of Politics in Businesss but this may be paying a disservice to Nicolo Machievelli ( 1469 -1527) who wrote a handbook for politics and human nature called “The Prince”. I read The Prince as a young man but I recommend that my coaching clients read “The New Machievelli” by Alistair McAlpine. Continue Reading »
As well as researching, writing about and coaching about Self-leadership I often give keynote speeches.
Recently I gave a presentation to a company who wanted to inspire their people to live their value ‘Do What’s Right’. You can watch 4 minutes of it right here.
Culminating in last Saturday’s election, Singaporeans from all walks of life, representing the full range of political views and associations, have recently taken part in an unprecedentedly open and passionate debate about who their leaders would be. While the PAP won a clear majority of votes, it’s also clear that many people aren’t happy with the status quo.
In short: Singaporeans may not yet be ready to change their leaders, but they are ready for their leaders to change.
As coaches to corporate executives across Asia, we have seen this played out many times before. Of course, the context is a bit different: employees don’t get to vote for their CEOs. But their voice is still heard, through the strength (or lack) of their commitment to the leadership team’s strategy and vision. In our experience, when employees don’t commit, it’s usually because they lack a strong connection to their leaders – not because they think the strategy is wrong. Continue Reading »
…the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and behaviors to achieve your objective.
Self-leaders have a drive for autonomy, can make decisions, are more creative and persist, even in the face of adversity.
Some of the intentional behaviours that characterise Self-leadership are; self-awareness, self-goal setting, self-motivation, positive self-talk, assertive communication and the ability to receive and act on feedback.
Becoming a Self-leader and maintaining Self-leadership is a self-development activity; but organizations that encourage Self-leadership reap the benefit.
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
A leader who wishes to bypass resistance, prepare hearts and minds and facilitate lasting changes for his or her organisation must understand and be able to use the power of story and metaphor. In a previous post I shared about the construction of metaphors and wanted to expand on this with specific relevance to leadership in today’s challenging environment.
