leadership

The leadership gap

When I started my blog in 2017, I tried to interview the author of “The Leadership Gap”, Lolly Daskal. Lolly is coach, consultant, and leadership expert. I think there are sheep and shepherds, and there are also wolves. Wise leaders must understand some wolves are so clever, even though they are dressed up like sheep. Part of leadership skills are awareness, sensitivity and understanding - knowing the scenario and being alert for the inevitable.

 

Research shows that if you give people agency to “do their thing” in the decisions they make, they are more likely to make better decisions and morally follow-up and follow through on the decisions they make and achieve their goals.

“Management is about persuading people to do things they don’t want to do. Leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could do and end up doing it.”
— Lolly Daskal

Keep an open mind

I think one of the most important roles of the leader is to immediately intervene and remove the obstacles so that the team can advance towards the corporate goals.

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person was of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
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— John Stuart Mill

Let your values be your compass

I think the hardest part of leadership is knowing yourself and I truly believe that leadership exists in each of us. To be a great leader one must know who you are, and what's most important to you. We must acknowledge who we are both our successes and our shadows. We must resist the urge to ”cancel” people and celebrate those who persevere; those who remain calm in a storm and embrace their shadows.

 

Leaders are not born; they are made through values, virtues, principles, and character.The most common way we give away our power is thinking we don't have any. Lead from within in order to empower others to stand in their truth and to speak in their power. All you need is a heart full of grace, and a soul generated by love.

Unfit to lead

Yesterday, John Amaechi OBE said, “The passing of a leader who failed to live up to their promises is nothing more than an opportunity. An opportunity for the successor to prove every day and with every interaction that now - finally - integrity will be an unbreakable principle of their leadership.”

I really hope that the next leader will have better awareness, sensitivity and understanding of leadership skills required. Sometimes we forget that not everyone is cut out to hold a leadership role. So, we must ask the candidates what motivates them to want to lead other people. And if they don't emphasise the importance of helping others grow, succeed, and thrive, we should look at other applicants.

Don't blow your own trumpet

There’s no greater human experience than the experience of being understood. The final deliverable of a strategy is not a document as people don’t follow documents, they follow leaders and ideas. I think great leadership is always about a powerful narrative and the bigger the change, the more important the story becomes. Good stories engage people emotionally through vivid metaphors, examples, and images. Stories create meaning and people are in the search for meaning in their lives and in their workplace.

“The task of a leader is to be the trumpet that sounds the clear sound.”
— Peter Drucker

To serve as a leader

c/o Dallas Cowboys archive

A leadership vision statement is a declaration of a leader's values, beliefs and purpose, as it defines how they lead and who they are. I think a powerful leadership vision can help motivate employees' performance. According to the legendary coach, Tom Landry, an heroic leader is someone… “who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.”

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Plan your project

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Whether you are a multinational organisation or a smaller business, the way we are working is changing. As strategy shifts in many industries to being more experiment centric, projects are going to become more and more critical for achieving excellence in execution. Many things in life are projects, therefore, I think project management skills touch every part of our lives and as a result, project managers will need a new approach and mindset. Contact me via e-mail for workshops and roadmaps on how to navigate a successful project and the common pitfalls to avoid.

Leadership thoughts

c/o Getty Images

Do you remember the first time you were seen as a leader?
I think that maybe I had some natural leadership skills as I was chosen as the Form Captain in my first week at secondary school. I’ve always been looking at problems and finding solutions.

How has your perspective on leadership changed over time?
I see my role as providing continuous support and vision to the team, but I don’t think that I need to be involved in everything.

 

What have you enjoyed most about leadership?

For me, it’s not about power! It’s about the working process and making sure the wheels are smoothly turning around. I have been described as a decisive leader, very good at making strategic decisions and at the same time I’m very good at getting things executed and building the right team.

“To whom much is given, much will be required.”
— Bible (Luke 12:48)
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Self reflection

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According to Indeed business leadership refers to how individuals make decisions, set goals, and provide direction in a professional environment. Business leadership can take many different forms, but usually involves a CEO or higher-level employees guiding and inspiring the rest of the team. I have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the core elements of business leadership and I think the essential business management skills should include:

  • Critical and strategic thinking

  • Communication

  • Problem-solving

  • Organisation

  • Presenting

  • Reporting

  • Leadership

  • Project management

The pursuit of perfection

In today’s world, technology makes geography and size almost irrelevant, therefore, this gives us this unique opportunity to assert strong strategic leadership. Content marketing is not about choosing a keyword and writing an article to rank for it, it’s about having a deep understanding of your target audience and the information they’re looking for and being a credible and trustworthy source for that information. How do you know that is true?

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is art.”
— Peter Drucker

Tell the truth

c/o Apple TV

Many of you have heard about the Apple TV series, “Ted Lasso”, perhaps you have seen it. It’s about an American football coach Ted Lasso who is hired by a wealthy divorcée to coach the English football (soccer)team AFC Richmond. Here’s 10 leadership lessons from Ted Lasso:
1. Believe in believe
2. Live in the moment 
3. Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing
4. All people are different people
5. Optimism is a superpower
6. Be kind
7. Tell the truth 
8. Happiness is a choice
9. Forgive first
10. See the good in others

Many of you may also have heard the English phrase, “Many a true word is spoken in jest.” Watching “Ted Lasso” may not make you a better sales leader. What’s wrong with sales leadership today and how I can fix it? Contact me via e-mail if you are interested in hearing more.

More feedback required

How do you start a feedback loop?
- Plan (choose an action)
- Execute (perform the action)
- Monitor (observe the reaction)
- Analyse (measure the reaction)


Touch points are interactions between businesses and customers that occur during the customer’s journey. These moments significantly influence customer experience as well as brand perception. A good customer journey is when we include everyone who’s involved in a touch point - customers, the people who influence them and those they influence. In order to start a feedback loop, you will need to add another layer to the journey - who, on our brand’s side, holds responsibility for each step and what constitutes a handoff to the next group. These teams need to provide feedback at each step so everyone along the customer journey understands the bigger impact of their work.

Remote working

In the current remote working world, managers and leaders must promote ownership and accountability to help their employees to connect to the organisations mission. Do you have a clear picture about your team members?

-       Who are they as a person?
-       What skills can be improved?
-       How can you help them to thrive?

 

Leaders who want to maximise self-motivation for each member of their team would have given them a clear definition of their purpose and role in the organisation as they began working from home. And this should be connected to the organisations overall purpose (or why). Purpose may include a desire to make an impact by contributing to something larger than themselves or challenging themselves to grow and learn new skills. Overcoming challenges and acquiring mastery is one of the most satisfying parts of the human experience, regardless of whether it is work related or not. How well do you understand your employees’ current skills, aptitude, and potential?

Working from home

Working from home is not a new phenomenon but due to the Covid-19 pandemic it has become the new normal for most employees. It’s more than likely that many of you have been or will be working remotely for the foreseeable future, so it’s imperative to distinguish between private and professional life at home. As employees are the key drivers for all businesses, companies, and organisations, hopefully your boss sent you home with more than just your laptop. 

 

In a remote working model, autonomy, mastery and purpose will help leaders to replace control with empowered self-control. Leaders and managers should focus on empowering and motivating their teams by establishing clear goals and boundaries for each member of their team and allow them freedom to operate within these boundaries. I think leaders and managers should concede control and enhance motivation by trusting employees to work in ways that suits them best.

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The outsider’s perspective

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I think that before you begin to communicate with anyone you have to know who you are communicating with and what’s important to them - always start with the other person in mind. As it’s the season of goodwill, here’s a few questions to consider in terms of communication:

-       Who is this for?
-       What’s in it for them?
-       How much do you know about them?
-       Can you meet them where they are?

Being an effective communicator is an invaluable leadership skill that goes far beyond having an even temper or providing concise directives. It relies on a thoughtful combination of empathy, accessibility, approachability and a genuine level of care and compassion for your team. Take your team on a short journey and land them in a better place than where they started. In essence, a strong communicator is a conscious communicator, and a conscious communicator is well on their way to becoming an incredible leader.

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Wisdom on Wednesday

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Nowadays we have very few guidelines and an awful lot of options, and all these options are giving us quite a bit of uncertainty and self-doubt. We need leaders that can create big promises to customers, and help their organisations deliver on those promises. Leaders who master both strategy and execution start by building a bold but executable strategy. Next, they ensure that the company is investing behind the change. And last, they make sure the entire organisation is motivated to go the journey.

 

There are 4 parts of emotional intelligence (EQ):

1.         Self-awareness
2.         Self-management
3.         Empathising
4.         Social skills




Within each and every one of these domains are there specific learned and learnable abilities that will make sales executives outstanding performers. Within the self-management cluster there’s not only better managing of negative emotions, there’s also adaptability. Maintaining a positive outlook, no matter what happens in your life, keeping an eye on that long-term goal despite setbacks, obstacles, and distractions. Mindfulness doesn’t help you directly with any of these but if you want to look at all the EQ attributes and competencies then I’ll be willing to guide you through the process of additional learning. Contact me via e-mail for 1-on-1 executive coaching.

Risk versus yield

When leaders choose a strategy they are guiding your attention towards specific actions. An organisation’s strategy represents the desired pattern of organisational attention, in other words, what every business department should focus on, each in its particular way. A given strategy makes choices about what to ignore and what matters, for example, which metric should you focus on, market share or profit?

Leaders need three kinds of focus to be effective, self (inner), people (other), and system (outer) awareness. Inner focus attunes you to your emotions and intuitions, guiding values and better decisions. Other focus smoothes your connections to the people in your lives, and lets you navigate the larger world. I think the key is finding the balance and knowing when to use the right kind of focus at the right time. Contact me via e-mail for training and workshops.