Articles

Be a better leader. You know when someone says to you: “don’t think about a polar bear”? Of course, all you can think about is a polar bear. Or you buy a red car. And all of a sudden there are red cars everywhere? Well I recently learned something new. It’s FONT. Fear. Of. Not. Trying. (As opposed to FOMO – fear of missing out). I’ve been hearing FONT a lot lately in relation to leadership. From people who want to be a better leader and have a better career. As best they can. But there’s one problem. At least for the people I’ve been speaking to. They don’t know their best next steps. They don’t have a plan or strategy. You know what the Cheshire Cat says to that! If you don’t know where you want to go, It doesn’t matter which road you take. I’ve done that before. Wandered around. No career plan or strategy. Everything might be great for a while…until it isn’t. If you’re anything like I was, then you’re miserable. It’s worse if the work is relatively easy for you. You’re paid well. You like the people you work with. And yet you know. Slowly

For many employees, the workplace is a place of silent suffering.

We’ve all heard the stories.

So, what can you do to become a great leader?

The truth is, leadership can be lonely.
Leaders can suffer silently as well.

We need a space to reflect and learn impactful strategies to improve our leadership…to make a positive difference to the people we work with, the organization we work for and our own career.

The Easter bunny is nice. Yet they say sugar is more addictive than cocaine and heroin. Maybe not so nice. This Easter weekend I thought I was being nice. It was on the tennis court. I accidentally hit the ball from my partner’s fault towards the feet of the server on the next court. I was worried she’d trip and hurt herself, so I started to walk off our court to retrieve it. I quickly learned that’s not so nice. It was akin to abandoning my team and then digging a deeper hole by interfering with another group. I quickly learned it wasn’t tennis etiquette. Have you ever done that at work? Without thinking, you consider someone else only to discover that you’ve made it worse for yourself and others too? It’s people pleasing at its worst. The idea is to be assertive without being inconsiderate or deferential. On the court it could have been me shouting out “ball” towards the people on the next court (and not walking off my own). They have eyes too. They’d have seen it. At work, it could be many different things. Here’s a few that come to mind: getting clear on what you

We met in the Fish Bowl. The internal, open plan area for the more junior consultants at Ernst & Young. It was way back in the early 1990s. He’d affectionately tease me for my non-corporate style – the big frizz of hair (that is more under control these days) and my favourite belt buckle back then – a telephone that you could actually dial (don’t ask, it was fashionable at the time). We’ve been friends ever since. 27 years of true friendship. Do you have an old colleague now friend like that? According to Matthew Lieberman, author of Wired to Connect, in 1985 most people said they had 3 close friends. In 2004 it was zero. So last week was extra special. I went to Sydney and got to stay with my old true friend from the Fish Bowl. He moved there 10 years ago for work. During the day, I spent time with my newer mastermind buddies and coach. [Yes, I practice what I preach. I coach and have a coach. I lead a mastermind and participate in one too.] The bonus was going home at night to the comfort of an old friendship. But work relationships don’t always

It used to be that I’d get sick right after exams, when the holidays began. Now I seem to get sick right after I get back, when the holidays end! It’s just a cold. A cold that demands a lot more sleep than normal. Not too bad, but definitely annoying. There’s the inbox to deal with, all that work I thought I’d dive right into when I return. I’m making attempts between sleeping, but progress is at a snail’s pace. And then I got to thinking about how I do this all the time. I plan to do something virtuous in the future, like get up an hour earlier and exercise. But in the morning I want to sleep more than exercise, roll over and tell myself I’ll do it tomorrow. You don’t need a small setback like a cold to stop you! What do you have planned for your virtuous future self? Losing weight? Staying tidy? Saving money? Whatever it is, seems most of us will let our selves down. But why? There’s been some interesting research from addiction studies to explain this. It’s not ego-depletion as we have been assuming for a long time. It’s about trusting your

Last week I was talking to my client Betty (not her real name), She’s very successful in a highly competitive creative industry here in Australia. Lamenting, she says: “This is the first time in 10 years that I’ve gone off-grid for a full 2 weeks. I knew I was tired, I didn’t realise how tired!” It’s only when you stop that you discover how tired you really are. Are you like Betty, finding it hard to take big chunks of time off? Betty’s current solution is to take every second Friday off. I’m going to be holding her accountable. It’s too important. Potentially, she’s at risk of being like John… Burnt out and broken down. That’s how John (not his real name either) was when I met him. The CEO and owner of an 8-figure business. He’s had to redesign his business, actually redesign his life now he’s stepped down from his CEO role. He says he wished he’d contacted me years earlier. Now he does holidays like no-one else I know…three booked this year alone! From the outside it looks glamorous, but I doubt you’d trade it for what he’s been through. He says he’s a shadow of his

My Mum used to say “positive, positive, negative, positive”. It’s a variant of the once popular feedback sandwich – with its simpler “positive, negative, positive” formula. Of course my Mum also taught me the avoid saying anything approach: “if you don’t have a kind word to say, don’t say it”. All designed to not hurt anyone’s feelings. But what’s a boss to do? If someone isn’t measuring up, he/she needs to know about it. It’s not a matter of not hurting someone’s feelings. Pragmatism and the bottom line win. This is business and the job needs to be done. Is there a way you can deliver the not so positive feedback and reduce the emotional consequences and relational risks? First it helps to understand why the feedback sandwich is not so tasty. It’s not such a neat trick now everyone knows about it. You tend to know when you’re being softened up with a positive before the negative. It feels disingenuous. Or you might be so pleased with the positives, that the negative barely registers. Here’s a better way to go (and what I promised to share last post): I stumbled upon this one by accident – I heard it