Tag: leadership

CUTTING BACK ON BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOALS

<1211 words> Ambition Many years ago, when I was working with my first ever coaching client, I saw in real life the power of sensible vs. audacious goal setting.   The client was the plant manager in a manufacturing concern, part of a global conglomerate.  He was thrilled at his recent promotion – a skilled and experienced […]

PADDLING YOUR OWN CANOE

<1412 words> My summers in Nova Scotia are defined by the number of kayaking adventures I can pack into a week.  Sometimes I go out alone – for quite long trips – ‘quite long’ in my books usually means several hours, not several days or weeks.  Most often I am joined by friends or family […]

PERSONAL SAFETY IN THE FACE OF GLOBAL TERRORISM

The recent spate of fundamentalist terrorist attacks across the globe had triggered exactly the weapon it was intended to unleash: fear expressed as anger, causing confusion, separating us rather than bringing us together. It is a time when we may be so exhausted by confusion and fear that we readily sacrifice the rights and freedoms that are so hugely important to us. We’re at risk of running backwards. I’m not prepare to do that.

5 Leadership Outcomes offered by the Trudeau Leadership School (TLS)

The Trudeau Leadership School offers an innovative child-transportation method that builds leadership in the next generation, as can be seen in the featured photograph. 1. Close physical contact with Dad without being mushy or coddled. 2. Eyes forward to take it all in. 3. Build responsibility for keeping self in balance with just enough support to make […]

Courage, Confidence and Determination

I wonder about the way in which great medical mysteries have been brought into common parlance, and think about the risks those curious surgeons of old took in digging up graves in order to explore human anatomy. I can’t help but wonder what these folk would think of someone upturning some of the gravestones in one of the little cemeteries on this road, taking a crowbar to the coffin, and carefully collecting the bones to be re-assembled in some dark cellar some place, studying the system of levers and pulleys that make up the human skeleton.

Oven cleaning as a leadership story

Cleaning an oven takes vision, initiative, planning, determination, resilience, some level of physical ability and skill, plus the right tools and time. These are also the typical leadership requisites described in textbooks and expounded upon by consultants and leadership gurus.

Yet, do we ever ask our students in our leadership programmes how they approach oven cleaning, or whether they have ever cleaned an oven? Maybe some leaders would say “I don’t do ovens”; “my people clean my ovens”; or some other high level response.

Retrofitting Relationships at Work

It has become a fundamental principle (a principle from which other truths can be derived) that engaged employees do take care of your customers, bring in hard cash, and uphold the highest quality standards you can afford. There is a great deal of overlap in what are deemed to be the best questions to get the best answers, but it has not made much of a difference: the number of ‘engaged employees’ seems to stick at 30% according to various studies spanning at least a decade.

We are overthinking the issues of leadership and employee engagement.

Being a Leader is Hard, so WHAT (are we going to do about it)?

The corner has been turned on the complexity of leadership. The true skill is in achieving simplicity: Simplicity with the clarity that can come only from a depth of curiosity and reflection. It is true that it is harder to be simple with clarity. It requires regular and full attention. Being a leader surely requires constant and deep reflection to develop and maintain clarity of vision and purpose. It is hard to do that alone.
That is why leadership coaching has become such a precious and sought-after service.

Nelson Mandela and Omar Mukhtar: Reflections on Leadership, vision and passion.

<1242 words>

He was as human as the rest of us – discarded his first wife, made many decisions and actions
that he no doubt regretted, was deeply disappointed in many things and people, but was a man of incredible strength and charisma. I loved how charmed he was by young women when he came out of prison,
an old man – with dignity and affection. I met him shortly after he came out of prison – the company I worked for at the time, in Johannesburg, had worked very actively to support the campaign to
legalise the ANC and for the release of Mandela and the other political prisoners, and he came to our head office to show his respects. I shook his hand – a very soft hand, to the touch. We had a
crisis behind the scenes – a white young woman – seriously right-winger, had brought a hand gun to work – she was isolated and immobilised very quickly. She could have become a Wilkes-Booth, Oswald
or a Nathuram Godse.   
And I remember how the black women on staff all danced, ululated and clapped their hands – I don’t know how to ululate, but I danced and sang with them – what a magical time it was!