I’ve read people claiming leadership is now dead, and it’s the time of the team. They then go on to promote their expertise in team building. I say “What a load of bull - - it!” At worst, formal leadership may be absent in team, unsatisfactorily replaced by haphazard informal leadership and group-think. Teams need […]
George (name changed), the CEO of one of our clients, rang me and said “David, we’ve got a problem”. Turns out that two of five direct reports to George were proving to be the wrong fit. They were causing disengagement of talent in their teams and weren’t collaborating with the other three peers, an essential […]
That you will never stop developing yourself, for we need you at your ever developing best. That you will always model and champion our highest values. That you will gather those around you who are even smarter and more capable than you, for you need us to achieve the vision and you don’t know everything. […]
There are many talented leaders out there who are severely limited by their unhealthy ego. Here are the top three causes of that unhealthy ego: Fear They fear being wrong; being ‘found out’; losing their illusion of control; losing their position. They often disguise it with expressions like ‘I’m concerned’; ‘I don’t like’; ‘not right […]
With too few exceptions, the effective leadership deficit is rampant in all sectors of the global community, in politics, commerce, community and family. Exacerbated by the fourth industrial revolution – artificial intelligence and robotics; by value chain disruption and the failure of traditional political and business models, there has never been a time when effective […]
Do you ever get frustrated by some of the behaviours of your leaders? Here are some of the worst: Insisting on telling. The aim is to save time, though that doesn’t work, does it? Pretend listening. Punctuated by them interrupting the very explanation they might have asked of you. You can see them pretending to […]
There are a multitude of leadership models, all aimed at producing the best way forward for improving leadership. Why? Because it is proven that effective leadership is the single most important factor in organisational success. So how could we cut through all the models and theory and look at what might matter the most, and […]
Just because most leaders also have management functions, and similarly most managers also have leadership functions, doesn’t mean that leadership and management are the same thing. Speaking of management when you mean leadership and vice versa is a part of why we have a leadership deficit. When I hear someone say “I’m a people manager” […]
Let’s call it SLDS for simplicity. What is SLDS? It’s when the senior leader is so disconnected from the coalface, where most outcomes occur, that the senior leader becomes ineffectual and the culture, engagement and productivity drift downward. It’s not the senior leaders’ fault. It’s the fault of the system and the lack of investment […]
As a newly commissioned officer in the ADF, I was full of untested confidence. Quickly I realised that I had begun a life long journey to become a leader that others would want to follow. I have never stopped learning and studying the demanding and sometimes torturous path of improving my leadership skills. There are […]
