Articles

Successes. They serve to remind you that you’ve got what it takes. Remember them while you’re running your own race this week.

One of the best compliments I ever received was from a very challenging staff member. At least she was very challenging at first. I’d keep hearing on the grapevine what a bad boss I was and how horrible I was to work with! I didn’t like it. Then I started to wonder about it. I got curious. I realised it would happen every time I’d give her a stretch assignment. Aha! She was scared she wouldn’t be able to step up. So she acted out by spreading the bad word. As her “good” boss I had no choice. I stepped up and had one of those difficult conversations. The kind you need to have if you’re going to help your staff develop. Lesson 1: Look after your boss. I told her what I knew. She turned beetroot and apologised. She learned that’s not smart to do. Admittedly, she didn’t know how good my network was in that organisation. But you always want your boss on side. Lesson 2: Develop your self-awareness. I told her it seems to happen every time I give her a stretch assignment and I think she gets scared that she won’t measure up. Once she was aware of what she was

The first time it happened I was only 10. I was swinging from one of those rope swings under the tree in the back yard when all of a sudden a Magpie swooped, landed on my head and started to scratch. I screamed. It flew off and I ran inside. As my Mum consoled me I cried: “I’m not a bird’s nest”.  Well, you can only imagine how much teasing fun my siblings had with that! Again, just recently, I was sitting outside at the local market having a coffee and I could feel something on my head. It was a windy day and I thought it must have been a leaf. So I brushed my head only to discover that a Sparrow had landed. What? Twice? Somehow a second bird had mistaken my hair for a nest! The people at the table next to me saw what happened. We just looked at each other, a bit in shock. After all, it’s not something you see every day. Then we all started to laugh. It reminded me of Melanie Griffith playing Tess in the movie Working Girl. She plays a working-class Staten Island woman with ambitions to move up from

How to retire well. She knows about positive psychology without knowing a thing about it. She does what makes her feel good and is meaningful to her. She’s engaged. She’s connected. She keeps learning (croquet is still quite new). Active mind. Active heart. Active body.

Boundaries at work matter now, like they never did before: Since the rise of knowledge work. Since the connected, global, 24-hour economy. Since COVID-19 when most of us had to work from home   It’s not just physical wellbeing Before the rise of knowledge work, we used to negotiate for boundaries that looked after our physical wellbeing—work hours, rest breaks, safety, and wages. These boundaries used to be standardised and regulated. We joined the union and they acted on our behalf for better collective conditions.   There’s psychological wellbeing too Today, as knowledge workers, we also negotiate for our psychological wellbeing—to protect our mental health, maintain work-life balance, and ensure sustainable productivity. Psychological wellbeing wasn’t on the agenda before. But we’ve gone from everyone talking about stress to languishing to burnout in recent years. It is now. And not only as a private matter. As a workplace one too.   You’re responsible for your boundaries Still, the psychological boundaries are more subjective. That’s why there’s more responsibility on you to negotiate for yourself. What’s stressful for Johnny may be motivating for Sally. You’ll do a better job of negotiating for yourself when you know what you need and what you

Most leaders believe they’re good listeners. They make time, ask questions, and respond thoughtfully. Yet people still leave conversations feeling unheard. The gap isn’t usually about effort. It’s about what happens to listening under pressure; when stakes are high, disagreement surfaces or consequences feel immediate. This is often where leaders turn to executive coaching, not to learn techniques, but to understand what’s actually breaking down and why. Why listening changes under pressure Under pressure, attention narrows without us noticing. We start listening for what matters to us—risk, what needs deciding, what confirms our view—rather than what the other person is actually saying. Part of our focus shifts to managing the situation rather than understanding it. We track implications, prepare responses, or look for reassurance that we can move forward. Defensiveness doesn’t always feel like defensiveness. It can look like efficiency, clarity, or just getting things done. Most leaders don’t catch this in the moment. They only see it later, when the same conversations repeat, decisions don’t land or people stop raising issues altogether. When these patterns keep surfacing, a Senior Leader Assessment can help identify what’s being missed or misread, especially in high-stakes or recurring situations.   What good listening actually