An American friend reckons the whole of Australia goes on holidays from Melbourne Cup Day until after Australia Day! While I know that’s not true, there is a little bit of truth in it, and we need to be careful that this time of year and the way we feel doesn’t lead us to waste the first …
In his New York Times best selling book ‘Outliers’ Malcolm Gladwell talks about the factors that contribute to high levels of success. He refers to the ‘10,000 hour rule’ claiming that one of the keys to achieving world class expertise in any area is practice – for a total of 10,000 hours. I have been …
The world needs better leadership. Australia needs better leadership. Our institutions like the banking industry and the Catholic Church need better leadership. Our organisations needs better leadership. I reckon it’s a safe bet that you wish you had better leadership at your work. Am I right? Most people I know want to be better leaders, …
I was talking to a client group recently about the importance of being authentic in our leadership. An important component of authenticity is reliability, or in other words, doing what you say you will do, following through and delivering on your promises. It’s important because reliability build trust and trust builds relationships. In my book …
As leaders, many of us have power. Power to make decisions, power to make things happen, power to give people feedback. In most cases, having power is not a bad thing, as long as we use it for good and not evil. With power comes responsibility. An important consideration when using power is thinking about how …
Not to put too fine a point on it, but could you be a Crap Boss (CB)? 1. A CB is unclear what they want from their people. They are ambiguous about their expectations. It is likely that they are not sure what they want from their people but they still expect them to know what to …
As the leader, are you owning the result? I like keeping things simple. Look at the results you are getting as the leader. They could be operational issues like productivity or safety, they may be financial like gross profit or net profit, or they may be people measures like absenteeism or levels of engagement. …
I reckon most people want to better at leadership, but don’t know where to start. That’s why I wrote my book, Road Rules for Leadership. It’s a simple, practical guide to effective leadership. Since launching it a couple of years ago I’ve shared the content with thousands of people, giving them the guidance and confidence …
I’m not big on fads and buzz words and I’m sick of hearing that we should all be disrupting. The truth is, striving to improve and looking for better ways to do things is anything but new. Decades ago when the desire for better quality and continuous improvement came to the fore, some basic principles …
Now is a great time to get your ducks in a row for the next financial year, but many organisations don’t. Why? In my experience … ‘Too busy to plan’ (believe it or not, this is what I sometimes get told) ‘We are surviving, so we must be doing something right’ ‘We don’t know where …