When I ask executives “what’s your company’s greatest unmet challenge?” they most often go silent, contemplating whether to articulate what they know, or which one to articulate. What I’ve discovered is that the unmet challenge is most often the ‘elephant in the room’ and closely associated with a ‘sacred cow’ or two. The ‘elephant’ is […]
I recently wrote about the sad situation of disconnected directors. Too many leaders, directors executives or supervisors, are disconnected from the current reality and their people. The reasons are straightforward: In the case of directors, they have become more focussed on compliance and governance and the fear associated with directors’ liability. Consequently they can overlook […]
Most people behave acceptably at work, despite too high a level of employee disengagement across the entire workforce. However there is a minority of people who behave unacceptably and are definitely disengaged. These people cause the greatest problems and weaken the enterprise culture dramatically. This is where I get most requests for help, when the […]
So much is expected of leaders. After all they have accepted the role and the rewards of stewardship of the values, the vision, the people and the results. With such high stakes the effective leader must have a variety of traits to handle the complexities and uncertainties of the territory. Yet there is one trait […]
In helping my senior leader clients master their role, I ask them to consider developing a pentagonal mindset. The foundational element is values. Values are the rules of the game, why and how we think and behave. To break them is to be in dishonour. A dishonourable leader has no future. The next element is […]
How come we call people skills ‘soft skills’ when they appear to be the most challenging, difficult and needed skills in commerce and government, requiring courage, authenticity and practice? I wonder if they were named by a boss who was scared to be seen as both caring and competent and wanted to be seen as […]
Business, whether to consumers or other businesses, can no longer afford to operate under a competitive model or mindset. Large dinosaurs (remember Kodak) that move slowly, with shareholder value top of mind, may continue to seek dominance. But they’ll be gone before they know it. Being competitive in business now when information and choice is […]
Fear is the greatest common motivator. Its only antidote is courage. We have been bombarded with messages of fear from all those seeking control. Those seeking control range from extreme dogma, unethical government, criminals, unethical marketers and their intentional or unintentional messengers. None of them offer compelling values, vision or goals. They flog fear instead. […]
The HR Manager told me that we couldn’t call the leadership development project “coaching” because the CEO doesn’t believe in coaching for leaders. The CEO has stated that leaders should be developed enough to not need coaching; that they wouldn’t have made it thus far if they were deficient. That CEO and his Chief Operating […]
People and organisations usually include trust and respect in their list of important values. They go hand in hand. Earning trust and respect is a key requirement of leaders, isn’t it? Yet so often people complain that those values are breached or missing. We cannot expect that trust and respect is granted automatically because of […]
