Not long ago I visited family in Kolkata, India. A family friend had just been appointed CEO of a software company in Kidderpore, a port district in Kolkata and he proudly took me to his office. We parked in his designated parking spot, the closest bay to the building entrance and went into his very […]
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 […]
We live in times of uncertainty, volatility, ambiguity, even chaos. Disruptive change is upon us all. We are emerging from leading and managing focussed only on spreadsheets and fiscal data. That’s because it’s not delivering the results we seek. We must embrace an additional formula not used by accountants and economists. Not their fault. We […]
I am dismayed and frustrated at the prevalence of leadership cowardice and ignorance, and its resulting high cost. As an executive coach I find that most of the cases I undertake, whilst warranted, are exacerbated by a more senior leader failing to be clear, decisive and timely in bringing the critical issues to the attention […]
Without followers a leader serves no purpose. Without fellowship there is no team. Without the team nothing happens. Leadership development is a well covered high profile topic. We are not talking about management here, just leadership. Anyone can manage, all they need do is learn how to run, monitor and adjust processes and systems – […]
BlessingWhite recently posted an excellent article on why coaching (by workplace leaders and managers) doesn’t work. The article focussed on the five main causes of failed internal coaching and a general direction for the remedy for each cause. This post covers the fifth and final cause where I’m giving you specific and actionable solutions for […]
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 […]
Employee engagement is high on the business agenda these days as we seek to overcome the challenges of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Every week we see brilliant tips to improve employee engagement. When we look closely at them all we see they resemble Frederick Herzberg’s Dual Theory of 1959, sometimes called the Two-Factor Theory. […]
I recently saw a client’s 360 degree review compiled by direct reports, peers and seniors. Because my client is a leader the focus of the review was obviously leadership. There were 60 questions split amongst the components of leadership. It took the people providing the feedback about 90 minutes to complete the questionnaire. The nature […]
