Leading self

Join me as we explore my latest coaching insights.

14 Aug

Posted at 07:59h in Leading self by
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Dorie Clark’s 2021 HRB article Feeling Stuck or Stymied? is full of insights. It’s also practically helpful if you feel your career is moving too slowly or maybe spluttering to a halt. More often, if you feel like this, it’s a case of not giving yourself enough time and permission to succeed.

If you focus on the under-30s who founded unicorns and the under-40s who lead major listed companies, you risk becoming demoralised because you don’t know what’s a reasonable pace for the great majority of executives. You need a framework to understand what’s acceptable progress and a way to explain why some peers are getting ahead faster than you. You need to cultivate what Dorie Clark calls strategic patience. This does not mean being passively accepting; rather, you need to learn to be proactive and thoughtful. Here’s how.

31 Jan

Posted at 04:35h in Leading self by
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Stop managing the probable. Start leading what’s possible. exhorts my readers to lessen their reliance on a fixed mindset that there’s a standard way of doing things and strengthen their growth mindset that new and different ways can be learned.   Stop managing the probable. Start leading what’s possible. is drawn from the work of McKinsey over recent years. In January 2021 McKinsey wrote ‘Standard problem-solving works well with standard problems, but sometimes – as we have recently learned – we face unexpected and novel ones. Using the standard tool kit to narrow down the ways of addressing them is exactly what we should not do’.

24 Aug

Posted at 01:58h in Leading self by
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In the month since I posted Leading with inner agility on Letting go. Stepping up. leaders have shared with me their experiences of working with the idea of developing their inner agility. Their questions have prompted today’s post in which I delve deeper into practical ways to strengthen your inner agility. As a leader, you have your lens through which you see situations and personal and professional ways of responding that you have learned over many years. 

19 Jul

Posted at 08:03h in Leading self by
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The COVID-19 crisis, accelerating change and the geopolitical tensions of interdependence are amongst the profound, long-term phenomena making organisational agility an urgent global imperative. Witness rampant rethinking of business models, rapid embracing of digitalisation and adoption of radically different workplace practices. These disruptions call for transformational leaders. My post today outlines the challenge these leaders face and what personal practices can help them cope personally and professionally.

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.

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.