Earlier this week, a close colleague and I were engaged in an enthralling conversation around feedback that some Managers choose to provide their people. During the conversation, the topic of presenting came up, and we both shared stories of sitting in presentations where the presenter was horrible – they could not clearly articulate their message,they spent the majority of their time looking at, and reading from the PowerPoint slide deck on the screen rather than engaging their audience and they presented with little or no energy. And in terms of feedback, their Manager shared with them that they thought they had done a great job! This feedback was based more on what the Manager thought the presenter wanted to hear, rather than providing feedback that the presenter needed to hear in order to grow and develop. I then shared with my colleague that I have also been guilty of this; of providing feedback that I thought would make me popular and ‘liked’, rather than taking the responsibility to deliver robust and constructive feedback which could make a difference.

This conversation prompted me to take a closer look at the difference between Leaders who focussed on doing what is ‘popular’, and those Leaders who are prepared to do what is ‘unpopular’.

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Over the years, I have had the privilege to work with and for some extraordinary leaders. Leaders who inspire greatness in their people, who have the ability to uplift others, who are prepared to step into the trenches, roll up their sleeves and do some heavy lifting. Leaders who have the incredible gift of being capable of influencing others and creating environments where the focus is on win-win and not win-lose. Leaders who, from the outside at least, appear to have the gift of ‘everything they touch turning to gold’. These leaders set an exceptional standard and benchmark for excellence, a benchmark which I have sought to model my own leadership on.

This was highlighted to me like a massive spotlight just last week – I was working with a leader in a large organisation who was growing more and more frustrated. It appeared that no matter what he did, he just could not achieve the traction and generate the momentum he was looking for. As a result, the morale of the team was dropping, people appeared to be less engaged, their energy was low, not to mention the level of performance of the team. As an exercise I spent some time with one of his direct reports to understand their perspective, and attempt to identify what may have been missing. It was a very interesting discussion. Despite the leaders best intentions, his direct report was confused and really unsure of why he was there and what he was there to achieve. He said ‘sometimes I feel as though I am walking through quicksand in the dead of night, with my hands tied behind my back, a massive load on my shoulders, and not knowing where I am going’. Apart from being impressed with the creative metaphor he used, I reflected on his comments and how he was feeling and realised where the challenge potentially was – his leader had not executed on what I term the True North of Leadership – Clarity. Continue reading →

On the first Sunday of every month, our family goes out for breakfast, before walking around the local Farmer’s Market – a local tradition that we have followed for the last 10 years. Last Sunday as we were eating breakfast, 2 couples were seated on a table next to us, engaged in what many people would consider to be conversation – what was interesting though was that 2 of the people at the table were busy on their smart devices, whilst the other 2 people were speaking. As we were so close to the table, we could not help but overhear the conversation. The 2 people not on their smart devices found themselves repeating their comments a number of times, because the other 2 were so fixated on their devices. And from the tone of the comments, it was noticeable that the levels of frustration amongst the group was increasing quickly. Witnessing this prompted me to ask my wife a question “Is Listening a Dying Art?” Here were 2 couples, out for breakfast on a Sunday morning, an opportunity to have a pleasant and engaging conversation, and yet 2 of them appeared to be more interested in what was appearing on their smart device. Continue reading →