Leadership

Join me as we explore my latest coaching insights.

09 Nov

Posted at 15:49h in Executive presence, Influencing others, Leadership by
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Own the room explores why and how commanding a strong leadership presence is critical in navigating career transitions effectively. Career progression is always associated with changes in your key audiences. And so success in a new role is heavily dependent on influencing how you are perceived by these audiences. The phrase owning the room was first used over a century ago to describe someone who drew positive attention to herself socially because of her manner speech and body language. Amy Jen Su’s and Muriel Wilkins’ Own the Room is a first-class book; I have used the title and some of their ideas in this post.

29 Jun

Posted at 18:50h in EQ, Leadership, Leading self by
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Controlling your emotions is a critical skill for leaders. How well you control your emotions influences your effectiveness as a leader, your personal wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. This ability is a function of your emotional intelligence (EQ). This post is about how you manage two of the components of EQ: Awareness of your emotions and How you react to and manage these emotions [1]. Awareness always comes first – you can’t control your emotions if you’re not aware of them.

28 Feb

Posted at 07:58h in Leadership, Peak performance by
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While working with an executive coaching client facing a tricky change management situation, I came across Stop Overdoing Your Strengths, a telling HBR article by Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser. Kaplan’s and Kaiser’s messages about the dangers of over-doing your strengths as a leader are enduring, powerful truths. And their practical application helped my client see that the more forceful she became with her team, the less she succeeded in getting the results expected by the executive committee.

28 May

Posted at 11:50h in Leadership, Page: Transformation Coaching by
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The topic of becoming a strategic leader arises with more than a few of my clients who have been advised in performance discussions that they need to become ‘more strategic’ in their style of leadership. Typically, they’re in senior functional or operational roles and are being considered for enterprise-level positions. To respond, they need to understand how strategic and operational thinking and action differ.

30 Jan

Posted at 10:51h in Leadership, Leading self by
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In blogging about your leadership purpose, I declare I am a fan of Bill George’s well-known book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, first published in 2007 (pictured). While I agree with George that strong values, personal integrity and a strong sense of self are fundamental to effective leadership. In my view, these traits are necessary, but not sufficient, for you to be a truly great leader. While thinking about individual leadership on behalf of some of my high-performing clients, I came across ‘From Purpose To Impact’ a Harvard Business Review article by Nick Craig and Scott Snook. ‘From Purpose to Impact’ extends ‘True North’ by adding the notion that having a clear personal purpose is the key to exceptional performance and well-being as a leader.

28 Feb

Posted at 15:37h in Leadership, Leading self by
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The November 2015 Mindfulness Leadership Summit explained mindful leadership as “an alternative to just leading from the top down, mindful leadership is leading from the inside out”. To understand how becoming a mindful leader will benefit you, those who follow you, and your organisation, let’s start with a recap of what it means to be mindful. With its origins in Theravada Buddhism, mindfulness is the ability to be aware of the moment. You are totally present in the now, not the past, or the future. Now, the present.

12 Feb

Posted at 11:33h in Leadership by
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My January 2014 post is about how to become an authentic leader. Authentic leadership is about your self-concept and the relationship between your self-concept and your actions as a leader. So I was delighted when one of my regular readers was inspired to send me this piece of wisdom from best-selling author and spiritual guide Deepak Chopra in The Soul-Leadership: Unlocking Your Potential for Greatness: ‘Leaders and followers co-create each other. They form an invisible spiritual bond. Leaders exist to embody the values that followers hunger for, while followers fuel the leader’s vision from inside themselves.’

27 Jan

Posted at 12:12h in Leadership by
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In December last year my post ‘To be an authentic leader, first be true to yourself’ caused many to write and call. How to become an authentic leader was a common theme in these conversations. This post, Construct your life story and develop as an authentic leader, shows how by constructing your life story you can develop as an authentic leader. Let me explain.