(TIP: This is all the CC blogs, except those in the category CC-TTEF-Hand-Sort, in descending date order and paginated. This is only visible if you’re logged in.)
Four Leadership Lessons on Trust from the Panama Papers Leak
April 6, 2016
‘After all this country has been through, how can he possibly pretend to lead Iceland’s resurrection from the financial crisis? He should go’. Such were the words of one of the 10,000 or so protestors who gathered outside the parliament building in Reykjavik this week to demand the resignation of Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, Iceland’s embattled prime minister. Their words were echoed by others who said, ‘These people, they say they’ve learned the lessons from what happened to us in 2008, but they’re still just hiding our money’, and another who said, ‘People just feel humiliated and very, very angry. After what happened to this country in 2008 we needed honesty, transparency and integrity from our leaders’. As the fallout from the Panama Papers leak continue to gather pace, what do these events tell us about the current status of trust in leadership?
Read more ›Why kindness is both essential and irrelevant to modern leadership?
January 23, 2016Some weeks ago there was a lively debate on the Harvard Business Review LinkedIn group as to whether people felt kindness was an important attribute of leadership. The debate drew some varied reactions, including the following comments:-
Read more ›Leadership Lessons from Volkswagen: The Journey from Warrior to King
September 24, 2015Inspired by its use in my Vistage CEO advisory board, I have recently been working with the four leadership archetypes detailed in Robert Moore and Doug Gillette’s book, ‘King, Warrior, Magician, Lover’. In particular, as a group, we have been reflecting upon the transition from the warrior to the King archetype. The obsessive warrior is that part of the leadership psyche that works all hours, aggressively confronts every problem, loses sight of the bigger picture vision and looks to win every battle at any cost to themselves or those around them. Meanwhile, the King leadership archetype is that part of the leadership psyche that lets go of the immediate battle in order to focus upon winning the war, establishes a calm order throughout the kingdom and rules with a confident authority grounded on a clear sense of mission.
Read more ›Optimism is True Moral Courage: How do you make it catchy?
March 5, 2015I am working with a client whose optimism both terrifies and inspires me. They are surrounded on all sides by difficult circumstances, challenging prospects and dubious possibilities. Yet at each coaching session they show up with excitement, conviction and enthusiasm. How do they do this? Why don’t they fall over in a heap like the rest of us? What is the ‘x’ factor that allows them to keep choosing optimism over ‘giving up’ or ‘getting frustrated’ or ‘blaming everyone else’?
Read more ›The Red Pill: How much truth can a leader take?
January 9, 2015‘This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.’ Such are the words of Morpheus in the cult film ‘The Matrix’. Morpheus offers our hero, Neo, a stark choice. Those of you who have watched the film know that Neo took the red pill. Neo chose to face the facts. But what choice do we make in our coaching and leadership? How much truth can we take?
Read more ›Trust has Become the Agenda
June 5, 2014‘Trust has become the agenda’. These were the most telling words spoken by Justin King, the outgoing CEO of Sainsbury’s, at a recent leadership event I attended. Justin bemoaned the loss of trust in the UK supermarket sector following the horse meat scandal of 2013. He also chided his CEO colleagues for not identifying the small number of ‘rotten apples’ in the CEO community and urged them to get on the front foot to communicate the positive value that business brings to society as a whole.
Read more ›Leader as Coach or Coach as Leader ?
March 24, 2014When I resigned from my last corporate role as international managing director in Logica in 2004, I thought that I was giving up a career in leadership to pursue a career in coaching. Yet the more that I research leadership I am realising that I gave up a career in heroic leadership to pursue a career in post-heroic leadership. I am also realising that, as well as running training courses for traditional heroic leaders to become coaches, we need more courses to train experienced coaches to become post-heroic leaders.
Read more ›Simon Sinek : Start with Why
November 29, 2013I first came across Simon Sinek’s work when training as a Vistage Chair in San Diego earlier this year. Sinek has a simple yet powerful message which he captures in his book ‘Start with Why’. And the message is this – people do not buy what you do or even how you do it, they buy why you do what you do. Most of us in describing ourselves, or our businesses, start with explaining what we do and then how we do it. Simon Sinek challenges us to start our conversations with why we do what we do for then we will attract people who believe what we believe rather than people who want what we have.
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