Having worked as an Executive Coach to some very senior men in the public service, in legal firms, in industry associations and in the university sector I know that men feel nervous about speaking up. They worry about changing jobs and how this might affect their family. They worry that they will disappoint their spouse if they lose pay or status. They worry about being good Dads. They worry about being good husbands and the future of their marriage. They worry about trying to find a sliver of time for themselves without feeling guilty.
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Read MoreCrossed arms. Sour faces. Seething silence. You are experiencing a mutiny and this is a defining moment in your leadership journey.
They don’t like the change. They disagree with you. And they aren’t budging.
What do you do?
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Read MoreIt’s easy to feel helpless when we see behemoths spouting hate during the in-your-face political discourse. Pick your country and political system, it matters not. It seems we have a plague of ‘us vs. them’ messages haranguing the hapless and gullible. It is terrifying.
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Read MoreElections highlight the conversation of change. Each candidate wants ‘change’ of some sort. They want to make their mark and make a difference.
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Read MoreTough times need innovation and creativity, not stress and hand-wringing. Worry keeps us cycling in a frenzy of doubt, dread, and desperation. Conviction is what gets us through the tough times.
Worry sows seeds of weeds in your garden of conviction.
This is what Sonya was worried about:
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Read More“We’re stuck with a system where the CEO bulldozes bad decisions that costs us hours to fix up. I have a colleague who spent the best part of year, and about half a million dollars in lost productive time, cleaning up one of these messes that should never have been.”
That’s an enormous productivity loss. Can you spot the friction point?
Say ‘productivity’ and what springs to mind? Calendars? Task lists? Document management systems?
Yes, all these things are important. But so are these things, and they are often neglected:
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Read MoreYou know how it goes. Someone said or did something that has got you annoyed. Or upset. Or angry. Or bitter.
There’s great opportunity here, if we handle the feedback delivery well. The opportunity is to clear frustrations, clarify expectations, or mend relationships.
Many leaders miss the opportunity with the following feedback mistakes.
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Read MoreJohn spent the good part of an hour with me complaining about the lack of support from the marketing department. His project was a strategic initiative of national importance. If it flopped, it would be devastating for the company’s reputation. He needed marketing’s help desperately. His frustration was palpable.
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Read MoreGetting people to do things as a leader is trickier than most of us imagine. It’s not simply a question of telling people what to do and considering it done. The days of one-way leadership are gone in this age of hyper-connectivity. People don’t work for us, they work with us.
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Read MoreLearning to experience and express feelings without being carried away by them is a missing critical leadership skill - the skill of being REAL.
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Read MoreMost leaders reading those statistics think they are the exception. That their team is somehow better than the rest. After all, you’re the leader, you’re smart, and you put a lot of effort in to your work. You and your team are different, and there’s no way you’ll be one of those toxic places.
Here are the top 3 delusions leaders have when it comes to their team:
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Read MoreI have a google alert that notifies me of any news article that mentions ‘speaking up’. I get at least two articles per day that mention the obstacles, consequences, and the outcomes of speaking up. This is usually against an injustice. From afar, we give a head nod to those who put themselves in the crossfire for a higher cause. We deem them noble and brave.
And we like to think we would do the same.
But would we?
Here are some common reasons clients have told me about why they don’t speak up:
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Read MoreThere are some beautiful amazing people on the planet sharing glorious insights that can help us expand as leaders. Here are a few of them:
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Read MoreI’ve worked in three not for profit organisations over the last thirty years. My experience was the same across all of them: there was never enough. Never enough money. Never enough staff. Never enough time.
As I work now with corporate organisations, I’ve found the litany of ‘never enough’ is as pervasive there as in the not for profit sector. The more we have, the more we want, the less we feel capable of delivering.
The practice of Plenty is NOT an exercise in denial. It is the practice of shaping a better reality.
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Read MoreI asked my client what his top three values were. He said: “Work and family.”
Eyebrows raised, I waited for the third. It didn’t come.
He said, “That’s it. That’s my life. Work and family. Right now, in that order. I live in a constant state of guilt. When I’m at work, I feel like I should be at home. When I’m reading my daughter a bed-time story, my mind is on the work piled up that will take me to midnight. I feel like 10% of my life is actually mine.”
Tears welled up.
He was playing a high stakes game. If he didn’t deliver at work, there wouldn’t be a job. No job, no money, and that puts family life at risk. And the more time he spent at work, the less time he spent with family, the more unhappy his wife became. High stakes indeed: job and marriage on the line.
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Read MoreDamn. My mind kept spinning through the task list, conversations with clients, and what I needed to pack for the trip. Some meditation! It was more like a mental washing machine on spin cycle.
But that is the experience of meditation. Show up, do the work, and just be ok with whatever happens. Sometimes its blissful, often times not.
The same is true of leadership. It is a daily practice, not an end goal. When we show up every day in practice, we add depth, breadth, and richness to our work as leaders.
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