Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

I have been a Professional Speaker and Executive Coach for over 20 years, but I've never received an introduction like this one from Planful CEO, Grant Halloran.

I am humbled that I have had an impact on Grant's career and also vicariously on all the people that he impacts. The synchronicity that he has recently renamed his company Planful, meaning rich in plans - is not lost on me.

Planning a Legacy

The dictionary tells us that legacy (n) is:

"Something that is a result of events in the past"

But, when I am working with leaders, leadership teams or MBA Students, I tell them that Leadership Legacy (n) is:

"The actions you take NOW that impact the future"

The emphasis is on the now. Legacy happens in the now, we don't have to wait until the future, we create our legacy with the planful intentional behaviors we enact today. Intentional behaviors are at the heart of Self-leadership.

Self-leadership and Legacy

Self-leadership is defined (Bryant & Kazan 2012) as:

"The practice of ...

December 16th, 2019 (with about 4,000 other people in Singapore), I had the pleasure to listen to insights and perspectives from Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States.

I must confess that I am a fan of his humorous oratory style, and it was a pleasure to listen to him ‘riff’ on wide ranging topics with an intoxicating mix of humility and gravitas. So, here are my takeaways:

1)     Anyone in a leadership position needs to build an effective team of people who are smart and have integrity – then get out of their way.

2)     A lot of the problems in the world are caused by old men, who stayed too long and confused their personal interests with that of the nation.

3)     We need more women in National Leadership – imagine if every country in the world was run by women for just 2-years.

4)     We need leaders who understand complexity and don’t just go for the quick easy answer. This requires followers who are also interested and tolerant of that complexity.

5)     Whe...

How to STOP Discounting Yourself

Do you ever underplay or understate your real value?

Do you shy away from praise and recognition and say things like, “it was nothing”, or “It’s just my job”?

Discounting is a common behavior, but one that is more common in women than men.

With confidence and presence being key predictors of success in life and work, discounting is costing you money and your well-being.

So why do we discount?

Usually, because somebody or something (parents, siblings, school, friends, boss, media) has done a number on our self-esteem. Self-esteem literally means self-value and if you fail to value your ‘self’ nobody else will.

When Coaching, I often come across cases of discounting, but the good news is that this can be turned around by applying Self-leadership strategies.

Humility isn't what you think it is

Often discounting is driven by the desire to appear or be ‘humble’. The problem is that the classic definition of humility, “the quality of having a modest ...

Unconscious Bias

You are smart, really smart, your amazing brain can make judgments and decisions in milliseconds – unfortunately, you and the rest of us, are often WRONG!

What’s worse, is we don’t know we are wrong, and if it’s pointed out to us we are quick to ‘justify’ our decisions.

Your ability to achieve ‘lightning-fast’ decisions is achieved by your brain taking shortcuts and using pattern recognition. For our ancestors to survive, in a hostile environment, they needed to make quick judgments about friends or foes, food sources or fatal, predators or pets. They made these judgments using, what Daniel Kahneman, author of the book Thinking Fast and Slow, calls System 1 Thinking. System 1 Thinking is fast, instinctive, and emotional as opposed to System 2 Thinking which is slower, more deliberative, analytical, and more logical.

Our brain has not had a ‘firmware upgrade’ to help it operate in a modern, multicultural, and diverse workplace, and so we regularly see the effects of...

Confidence is 'the' key success factor for modern managers and leaders and yet many lack confidence in the following areas:

1. Managing downward when subordinates have higher qualifications or are qualified in a different discipline
2. Influencing peers when there is no direct authority
3. Managing upward because you need to influence your boss
4. Influencing outward to clients and vendors

With all these scenarios the keys to confidence are, 1) accepting that you are valuable and have contributions to make (Self-esteem), 2) taking ownership of your thought and feelings (Personal Power), and 3) communicating what you want (Executive Presence). In short, the application of Self-leadership.

Confidence for Managers and Leaders

When managing downward, managers need to remember Henry Ford who said, “The generalist will always employ the specialist.” The manager doesn’t need to know everything about everyone’s discipline they need to know how to engage smart people to get the job done. Highly ...

in a previous post, "How to Influence Your Boss", I explored how to influence upwards, but just as important is how to influence laterally.

When I teach programs on influence or influence without authority, I ask participants to create a circle of influence like this diagram:

I then ask them to put ticks or crosses, representing ability or inability to influence, against each circle.  Obviously, some circles will need sub-circles to represent individual key people. This is a useful exercise to map out where you need to develop or strengthen your influence.

Influence in Organizations

In a modern matrix-style organization, your success will be determined not just by what you do, but by what you can influence others to do. The effective manager/leader learns to find out what is important to the people in their circle of influence and communicates to them in terms of what matters to them rather than directly stating their own needs.

The "How to Influence Your Boss" post expands on f...

As a people manager, your most important and impactful activities are the conversations you have with your staff about how they are doing and how they can develop themselves. With this level of importance, it is therefore surprising that so many of these conversations can end up leaving both parties unsatisfied.

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance, is a maxim I’m sure you've heard; well in the case of scheduled performance and development conversations, this is very true. So how and what to plan?

1. Behaviors Matter

When a human mind has a clear goal and feels motivated to achieve that goal, it rewards behaviors that move it towards that goal with little hits of the ‘feel good’ chemical, dopamine. In addition, when behaviors that move us towards a goal are recognized and acknowledged, we feel more motivated and are likely to increase our efforts.

This realization of human psychology means that before a conversation with a staff member, you must be clear about what goal or goal...

Research has shown that the inability to build a successful relationship with the boss is a significant reason for managers failing or not reaching their full potential.

When I approach this topic, I encounter several mindsets that lead to an inability to influence effectively, these include:

• My boss is autocratic
• My boss doesn't listen to me
• I don't want to jeopardize my career
• I have no power in the relationship
• My boss doesn't give me time

Do any of these, sound familiar?

The problem with blaming the boss is that you have created an external locus of control which is the exact opposite of self-leadership. To influence you must ask yourself, “what can I do that will make a difference?” The purpose of this blog is to provide some ideas to get you started:

Influence Your Boss

1. Create an Ally

Allies have open and honest conversations; they may not always agree but they will listen to what each other wants and assertively communicate their own needs. "But my boss doesn...

Executive Coaching has come of age and is now viewed as an effective way of developing leaders. Smart companies are making executive coaching a core element of leadership development; whether that is when grooming a CEO successor or helping managers transition to leaders.

It is therefore not ‘news’ that a recent survey reports 86 percent of US companies hired Executive Coaches to sharpen the skills of individuals who have been identified as future organizational leaders. The numbers are similar in Europe whilst the uptake of executive coaching in Singapore and Asia has been slower but is catching up.

The demand for good Executive Coaches has been driven by organizations' demands for immediate results.  Executive Coaching provides feedback and guidance in real time, and lasting transformations can be observed after 3 to 6 months.

As individuals advance to the executive level, developmental feedback becomes increasingly important. Many executives plateau in critical interpersonal and ...