The Senior Leadership Challenge has become more Horizontal than Vertical

April 26, 2019

“The leadership challenge now is not the people that report to you—but all the others you need to get on side”. The main outcome of effective leadership, is influence. Relatively easy to influence your team, as they report to you, but harder to influence those in another part of the business where you have no […]

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How to give feedback (or write a thank-you note)

April 12, 2019

Part of being a leader is being a coach. Part of being a coach is giving feedback. Part of giving feedback is commenting on behaviours that you see as being effective and useful that you have observed in the other, whether a peer, direct, skip level or your boss. I thought this short article did […]

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Stress made me do it

March 29, 2019

True autonomy and choice comes when we are free of our own automatic responses.—Krishnamurti (an Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher) It is when we are under stress that we are most likely to lose control of our emotions and release an automatic behavioural response that we immediately regret. This is when those responses own you, […]

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Take your foot off the brake

March 15, 2019

As I said in the last leadership tip, change comes less from putting your foot on the gas with new behaviours, skills, etc. and more from seeing how you have one hidden (to you!) foot firmly planted on the brake. This is easier said than done. Those old habits are deeply embedded in us and […]

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Organizations don’t change, people do

March 1, 2019

We talk about how it is important to change the organizational culture. But culture change is an outcome of individual behaviour change that grows. To focus on culture change is kind of a cop-out. We all need to look in the mirror and ask and commit to what is it that I need to do […]

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We are all in over our heads

February 15, 2019

“We are all in over our heads”. –Robert Kegan, Harvard developmental psychologist. What does this mean? Dr. Kegan’s observation is that the complexity of life and speed of change has far outstripped most of our individual capacities to deal with it. Therefore as individuals on our own, we will likely drown from the Tsunami of […]

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Designing the Rest of Your Life

February 20, 2018

THE CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY The concept of “retirement” doesn’t make sense for many of today’s senior executives or business owners transitioning into another phase of their lives. These individuals are often between 55 and 65 years of age, healthy and financially secure, with another 10-20 productive years in front of them. This is a new […]

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Leading into and through Disruption

February 5, 2018

The pace of change is accelerating, and Digital Transformation (big data, internet of things, AI, etc.) is the primary engine accelerating this pace in businesses and organizations. More and more of us are becoming, or are already overwhelmed by a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) reality and finding it increasingly difficult or impossible to […]

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Executive Development: Wasted Potential in the Boardroom

October 16, 2017

Working with senior executive teams, I rarely hear complaints about the technical and business talent level of the individual members in the room. However, asking about the effectiveness of the team as a collective leadership body, to lead the implementation of strategy and change…that is a different story. Most of these executives will report that […]

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Coaching for Integration

May 9, 2017

Most of us have an innate drive toward health.  My doctor friends would tell me that the mind/body moves toward healing on its own, regardless of the interventions we engage in.  Effective interventions for promoting physical and mental health are the ones that unblock or pave the pathway for the natural healing process to occur.  […]

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