Leadership

Humans eh?  You think we’d have cracked this giving feedback thing by now.  We start with the best intentions – give it often, be open to getting it back a bit too – yet when the pressure is on, we forget to make it a priority and fall back on pointing out the flaws in a rush and staying quiet…

At a recent away day, a team were trying to get a date in the diary for a meeting. Everyone kept saying “I can’t do that date, I’m working.” We were going around in circles until the team’s leader said “We need to rethink our attitude to meetings – when we have a meeting, that IS work!”

During a recent coaching session, a senior manager, newly appointed as leader to the team they used to manage, asked for help on building credibility.  They had no issue with team members in non-technical roles.

The year is flying by, isn’t it?  Someone stole January, February disappeared in a cloud of smoke and next week will see the start of April. Organisations like yours are juggling a busy workload with all the fun and games of adapting to new ways of working, mainly where we all work post-pandemic. Hybrid working trials have taken place and now…

Imagine you are driving a car with a passenger beside you. In the back are a bunch of people laughing, mucking about and munching on snacks. In the front, your face is grim. You can see the road ahead and it doesn't look good.

During a recent coaching session, a CEO admitted that when he headed up an Engineering firm he was a great engineer, but as a leader he was a pain in the neck.  Too much nit picking and not enough enabling.  He just couldn’t resist getting stuck into the work of others and what was intended to be helpful was received…

When we ask a group of leaders about the best leader they ever had, they tell us about the one who supported, stretched and believed in them. It is never a leader who gave great speeches, spun awful news, or kept them in the dark.

"Several times lately, I have finished my work, closed the laptop and sat staring out of the window of my spare room office worrying that I don't have the answers. That my team are looking to me for guidance about the future…and I simply don't know." A genuine, honest reflection from one of our clients. He is an impressive and…