5 Steps to Help you Declutter your Mind
Decluttering is big right now. Almost everyone I know has heard of Marie Kondo and her brilliant methods for claiming back some of your physical space in your home. And…
Habits are the key to great leadership
One of the books I frequently recommend to my executive coaching clients is Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s as relevant now as it was on publication…
5 Reasons Why Happiness Matters in Leadership
Happiness matters. While it might sometimes be dismissed as a ‘fluffy’ concept that has little to do with productivity and success, happiness is actually an important factor in leadership. Your…
How to Be a Great Leader
Richard Branson, Lord Sugar, Carolyn McCall. All great leaders, and people that you might consider as leadership role models. But what is it that makes someone a great leader? And…
A Time for Reflection
As 2019 comes to a close, it’s that time where we begin to reflect on the past year and our achievements. In between the many Christmas lunches and parties, that…
How to Develop a Growth Mindset
Having the right mindset can help you make leaps and bounds in both your leadership career and your personal life. You’ve probably heard that having a growth mindset is crucial…
Leaders: Stop labelling and start communicating
Labelling others. We do it all the time. Labels make life easy for us. In the supermarket, labels make it easy to identify and pick up the exact items we…
Feeling undervalued saps your confidence as a leader
In a previous role, I lost my confidence. I remember how good it felt to get a new job – how great I felt to make my way through the…
Doubting yourself as a leader? Replace your affirmations with facts
I’ve been working with a leader recently who is going through the recruitment process. He has completed his application form and has been invited to an interview. It’s the job…
If you’re not listening, your meetings are a waste of everyone’s time
Before my mum passed away, she used to phone me every evening at 6pm to have a quick chat. This started back in the days when it was cheaper to…
If you keep hearing ‘no’, try a different approach
When negotiating or entering discussions in the workplace, it’s easy to talk about what energises and excites you rather than trying to frame the discussion from another’s point of view….
When a team member’s not performing, have you asked what’s getting in the way?
Recently, I’ve been working with a senior leader who was slowly losing patience with a team member. My client noticed the team member was struggling to complete his work, which…
A simple reflective practice for busy leaders
With the high pressures of modern leadership, it’s easy to believe there’s no time to reflect on your practice, even though great leaders know it helps them improve. During my…
How reacting to others can be seen as aggressive
How do you feel when you hear negative feedback about your behaviour? Especially when the complaint comes from the person you feel is at fault? As a leader, you are…
How connected are your external outcomes to your internal ‘stuff’?
Something I’ve noticed when working with leaders in coaching or facilitated sessions is our natural tendency to focus outside ourselves. We spend all our time concentrating on the things that…
You’re developing as a leader, so why aren’t your team engaged?
Have you ever tried to introduce a new way of working, only to experience a strong resistance from your team? During the last few leadership development programmes I’ve facilitated, this…
If your meetings aren’t working, are you asking the wrong questions?
Recently, I was working with a group of senior leaders who all expressed their frustration about the lack of engagement with staff. This was particularly noticeable during meetings, where the…