Leadership (Page 10)

In: Leadership

Synopsis of an article from Chief Executive By Alain Hunkins, Published June 19, 2020 Alain uses situational leadership learnings from multi-billion dollar fitness brand CrossFit and the resignation of its CEO (and founder) Greg Glassman after he failed to act in an appropriate way in responding to racism and the black lives matter protests that followed the death of George Floyd. How bad did it get? Well Glassman had made some tweets and discussed the issue on a Zoom call with affiliate gym owners and the executive leadership team. The content may be considered by many as not racist of massively offensive, however it clearly lacked any empathy and it showed he was way out of touch with his sponsors, partners, customers, and staff. Shortly before he resigned the companies biggest sponsor (Reebok) cancelled their support and hundreds of affiliate gyms announced they would no longer be working with CrossFit.Continue Reading

Manage Anxiety

In: Leadership, Resilience

A Synopsis of an article by Lolly Daskal taken from her book The Leadership Gap. Many leaders suffer from anxiety to some degree and its important to recognise that and consider appropriate tools that can help to manage it. Lolly suggests techniques to help manage anxiety as a leader: Acknowledge your anxiety without denying itseek to understand why its come up and enable yourself to better address and manage it. Accept your anxiety without attachmentThe best way to deal with it is to accept it, don’t try to fight or control it, instead accept it and you are already making progress in moving through it. Surf the wave without getting swallowed up by the currentRecognise that you might not be in top form until things settle down. The goal is to learn to surf the waves and harness their power without being overwhelmed. Watch for patterns and label your feelings“ItContinue Reading

Secret of Smart Leadership

In: Human Capital, Leadership

Synopsis from an article ‘Is this the Secret of Smart Leadership’ from BBC Worklife by David Robson, Published 1st June 2020 In this article David Robson argues that humility is the greatest of all virtues and that recent research identified that people with greater humility are often better learners, decision makers and problem solvers. “The latest findings suggest that the trait is especially important for leaders, with evidence that displays of humility can improve strategic thinking and boost the performance of colleagues across an organisation.“ You need confidence to be humblea study by Organisational Psychologist Bradley Owens identified that intellectual humility can boost learning and many other measures of successful thinking. The ability for greater reflection tends to lead to being less susceptible to cognitive bias and misinformation, which suggests that humility could influence and have a positive effect on decision making. Avoiding Group ThinkThe research shows that “a leadersContinue Reading

Goleman - Emotional Intelligence

In: Emotional Intelligence, Leadership

Synopsis of an article from Inc. by Marcel Schwantes Published 13th June 2020 Daniel Goleman is a Harvard Researcher and defined our understanding of emotional intelligence, he wrote his first best selling book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ in 1995. This article links to new work by Goleman on key traits found in each of the four EQ domains. In Goleman’s EQ framework, once you land a job in your field of expertise and start considering things like increasing your role, getting promoted, leading others, and navigating political landscapes, IQ will be begging for EQ to show up and take over. Traits Related to Self AwarenessThe capacity to tune in to your own emotions, understanding of your own strengths and limitations and conscious of the events and situations within your life. When dealing with frustration, you are able to pinpoint the root and cause of your frustration. Traits Related to Self ManagementEmotional self control, remainingContinue Reading

Smart People Get Fired

In: Change, Culture, Human Capital

Synopsis of article from Forbes by Tony Ewing Published 14th June 2020 Tony explores personal experience of people he knows who were recently fired, he reflected that these people are some of his smartest friends and they were working for businesses that had plenty of funding (in fact many also had government bailouts). So why were they targeted? In this article he explores five possible reasons using behavioural science. “Barring a complete corporate collapse, smart and competent people should never get fired.“ Some bosses mass fire out of fearwhen the going gets tough it is very easy to get caught up in a negative bias that anchors them to the worst outcome. In this scenario preparing for the worst actually creates tunnel vision and paralysis. Some bosses become slave to the CFO’s budget and many CFO’s hold the mindset that cutting heads is the most effective way to cut costs.Continue Reading

Master Change

In: Change, Resilience

Synopsis of an article in Psychology Today by Bruce Feller, Published 23rd April 2020 Bruce Feller is author of six consecutive New York Times best sellers, his latest book is Life in Transitions: Master Change at Any Age. The article published in Psychology Today is an abbreviation from the book. Bruce identified three takeways about life. “First, the linear life is dead. The once-routine idea that our lives pass through a uniform set of stages, phases, or “passages,” with predictable crises on birthdays that end in zero, is hopelessly outdated. The notion that we’ll have only one job, one relationship, one sexuality, one spirituality is dead. Second, today we live nonlinear lives. My data show that each of us will experience three dozen disruptors in our lives—one every 12 to 18 months. Most of these we get through with relative ease, but one in 10—or three to five in our adult life—become majorContinue Reading

Tough Leadership

In: Change, Culture, Effective Communication, Resilience, Virtual Teams, Working From Home

Synopsis of an article from McKinsey By Homayoun Hatami, Pal Erik Sjatil, and Kevin Sneader Published 28th May 2020 CEOs (and all leaders) need to take care of themselvesWith so much to focus on right now, focusing on yourself might not be top of mind, but if you are tired you lose your ability to be effective, you stop processing information as well and your moods may suffer. The authors suggest tips on ways to avoid burnout and tap into new sources of energy. – Call a friend or colleague you like for an early afternoon chat– Take a walk outside, exercise is a tested way to restore energy– Stop Friday afternoon meetings– Consider getting an early night on Thursday to go into the weekend fresh Break out of your isolationGetting unfiltered information and contradictory viewpoints requires finding sources of objective, trustworthy and quality information. Making contact directly with individuals and teams toContinue Reading

Change

In: Change, Culture, Leadership

Article from SmartBrief by Dana Theus, Published 9th June 2020 Dana explores the Change Leadership lessons that are coming from COVID19 and the Black Lives Matter protests. Its clear that there are no simple answers but she suggests two leadership truths to help guide through the crisis. Stories, Facts and BeliefsFacts do not lead to beliefs and facts could not guide us even if we knew them. Our unconscious bias will always be the ‘invisible hand’ that sets how we think, assess and respond. “The truth is that when we become aware of how our beliefs and biases contribute to how we see facts, we gain control over the stories and beliefs that guide us and those we tell to others to guide them. Whether in a company, nonprofit or a public institution, great leaders do not confuse facts, beliefs and stories; they understand and accept their role in creatingContinue Reading

In: Change, Culture

Synopsis of an article from HBR, by Robert H. Schaffer, Published 26th October 2017 This article provides an important context for management, that in effect to seperate out change from day to day management is actually removing the central aspect of the role. Rather than making change a specialty role, it is central to the accountability of the leader. He suggests there are ways to empower leaders and staff with tools to focus on continuous change and continuous improvement. Schaffer states “The job of management always involves defining what changes need to be made and seeing that those changes take place. Even when the overall aim is stability, often there are still change goals: to reduce variability, cut costs, reduce the time required, or reduce turnover, for example. Once every job in a company is defined in terms of the changes to be made (both large and small), constant improvementContinue Reading

In: Culture, Human Capital, Time Management

Synopsis of an Article from HBR by Maura Thomas, Published 14th May 2020 Maura Thomas is an award-winning international speaker and trainer on individual and corporate productivity, attention management and work-life balance. Synopsis: Remote work in the current world (affected by the COVID-19 pandemic) naturally leads to flexi time. Different employees will get work done at different hours, some will need to work around having children at home others will work longer hours. The downside of the ‘always-on’ environment is that it drives burn out and once this way of working is established in company culture its very difficult to change and reset later on. This article goes on to explain that you should ‘address the problem head-on’ make it clear on the workday expectations of employees and what is definitely not expected. Further provide clear guidelines about which communication channels to be used for which situations. Email should neverContinue Reading