TIP: This is all the JB blogs, except those in the category JB-TTEF-Hand-Sort, in descending date order and paginated. (This is only visible if you’re logged in.)
Leadership Lessons from Volkswagen: The Journey from Warrior to King
September 24, 2015
Inspired 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 ›5 Facts All Leaders Need to Know About Trust
August 14, 2015Earlier this year, Jack Welch, ex-CEO of General Motors, was asked in an interview ‘What is leadership all about?’ He replied, ‘Leadership is about two words; truth and trust’. But what is trust? How does trust work? Why bother building trust? These questions were the focus of my recent workshop at the 10 year anniversary conference of ‘Coaching at Work’. Reflecting on the session, I have captured below the five facts I believe all leaders need to know about trust.
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 ›Creating a sense of purpose through the triple bottom-line
May 1, 2014According to Nick Craig and Scott Snook in their recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) article ‘From Purpose to Impact’, fewer than 20% of leaders have a strong sense of their individual purpose and even fewer can distill their purpose into a concrete statement. As of Monday, the members of my Vistage advisory board are not guilty of these particular leadership sins. Indeed, they have gone one step further than writing down their courageous goals by sharing them with each other and challenging themselves to take the first step towards their achievement.
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.
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