I was coaching a line manager, helping her to better deal with conflict within her team. I raised the issue of under or poor performance and how she dealt with that. She said, “Oh, we don’t deal with that, it has to go to HR, they deal with those issues.” I said, “Really, how does […]
I seek a legacy of elite performance, in an environment of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). I have learnt that the counter to VUCA is Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility. I know that the root human causes of all our challenges are fear, habits and ignorance. I know that their remedies are courage, better […]
Now that the mining boom is over, it’s presently an employers’ market. That means there are many more people looking for work than there are positions available. Whilst that may seem great for employers, it is actually a double-edged sword. With so many more to choose from, how will you know you’ve hired the best? […]
Those of you who know me know that my passion is Attitudinal Competence and Effective Leadership Behaviour. I’ve devoted the last 20 years to helping people master their attitudes so they can live the life they choose; helping leaders master their attitudes and behaviour so they can have trust respect and performance from their people. […]
I’m committed to life-long improvement of my leadership skills. That has me reflecting regularly to examine how I’ve performed and how I can improve. On one early occasion when leading a team of law-enforcement agents at a crime scene, I relieved an officer from duty for consistent poor operational performance. On this occasion he had […]
Senior leaders tend to require their people to be trained without attending themselves. There are various stated reasons for this: They are too busy. They’ve already been trained in those areas (albeit some time ago). They are not the ones who need development. They aren’t sufficiently connected with the people being trained. They don’t want […]
The in-house architect was important to the success of the development project. She was talented, creative yet pragmatic and realistic in her technical design output. The leadership valued her work highly. But she was painful to work with. She was never wrong - in her opinion. She was rude, even brutal in her criticism of […]
I’ve spoken about succession planning and practice awhile ago. Since then I’ve been struck by the number of stories I’ve heard about the difficulty in finding good people, talent and those ready to step up to leadership. Globally it remains a primary challenge. As I look around my client base, a mix of government and […]
The newly appointed executive was invited to lunch with the chair of the board. “Welcome to the rank of servant” said the chair. There was no smile on her face. “What do you mean?” asked the executive. “What do you think I mean?” The executive paused. This is not what he expected. He’d imagined he […]
According to research by the Medibank 24/7 Health Advice Line, Australia is losing billions due to workplace stress. 15% of workers say they take sick days due to stress at least every month, totalling over 20 million sick days per year. That results in a loss of about $14 billion a year. 85% of workers […]
