The Five Main Drivers for Improvement Within Any...

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin
Whatever got you where you are today will not be sufficient to keep you there. A rapidly changing environment is the regular background against which organizations must develop.
Change is continuous and will become more rapid as we move forward over time. Senior management must be capable of reacting to those changes and be prepared to take advantage of them and yet stay within the overall framework and agreed strategy.
The role of strategy is fundamental if the people within an organization are to be enabled to make the level of contribution of which they are capable. Strategy, based on a good grasp of the core… continue reading

Moving the Focus Away From the Leaders to the

Some researchers prefer to move the focus away from the leader altogether and to examine instead what makes others prepared to follow these individuals.
In 1988, an important article published in the Harvard Business Review, entitled “In Praise of Followers” began to shift attention away from the machismo of leadership to the less glamorous side of the same equation – the role of ‘followership’.
What the advocates of followership recognized was that to become an effective leader, most people first had to learn how to be good followers.
With few exceptions, this is as true of the corporate world as it is of military and political leaders. Aristotle noted “He who has never learnt to obey cannot be a good commander.”
More than ever, today business executives have to operate… continue reading

The Secrets Of Inspired & Inspiring Leadership...

An inspired and motivated workforce is essential for any business that hopes to stay ahead of the competition. But just how do you motivate people? What kind of leadership do people respond to? And how can you improve the quality of leadership in your business?
The Inspiration Gap
In a survey of more than one and a half thousand managers, people were asked what they would most like to see in their leaders. The most popular answer, mentioned by 55% of people, was ‘inspiration’
When asked if they would describe their current leader as ‘inspiring’ only 11% said ‘yes’
The two attributes that people actually mentioned most often, when describing their leaders, were ‘knowledgeable’ and ‘ambitious’
As well as this thirst for inspiring leadership, there’s also evidence to support the… continue reading

Generating Trust Is an Essential Leadership...

 
A very good friend and ex-client of mine runs a highly successful information technology service in the South of England and his private-sector customers include many Times Top 100 companies.
We often exchange opinions and I recently asked his views on leadership, because I have always been impressed with his commitment to “people development”
He believes leadership is all about bringing out the best in the firm’s 1800 employees. “We have a very informal, non-hierarchical structure,” he says. “The task of our leaders is not simply to issue orders but to act as role models in providing our customers with what they want in terms of teamwork, friendliness, delivery and, in general, supplying a top-class service.” Many of those who join the company are former customers. “We first of… continue reading

Are We Witnessing the Dawn of a New Type of Leader?

 
Old ways of doing business no longer work: the increasingly intense competitive challenges of the world economy challenge everyone, everywhere, to adapt in order to prosper under new rules.
In the old economy, hierarchies pitted labour against management, with workers paid wages depending on their skills, but that is eroding as the rate of change accelerates.
Hierarchies are being replaced by networks; labour and management are uniting into teams; wages are coming in new mixtures of options, incentives and ownership; fixed jobs melt into fluid careers.
As business changes, so do the traits needed to survive, let alone excel. All these transitions put increased value on emotional intelligence. Competitive pressures put a new value on people who are self-motivated, show initiative, have the inner drive for outdoing themselves, and… continue reading

Leadership: The 2012 Model – Do You Still Report to...

 
Leadership was once about hard skills such as planning, finance and business analysis. When command and control ruled the corporate world, the leaders were heroic rationalists who moved people around like pawns and fought like stags. When they spoke, the company employees jumped.
Now, if the gurus and experts are right, leadership is increasingly concerned with soft skills – teamwork, communication and motivation. The trouble is that for many executives, the soft skills remain the hardest to understand, let alone master. After all, hard skills have traditionally been the ones which enabled you to climb to the top of the corporate ladder, aren’t they?
The entire career system in some organizations is based on using hard functional skills to progress. But when executives reach the top of the organization,… continue reading