Category: Leadership

Learning Leadership Lessons

At our recent Engaging for Growth conference, we asked everyone to get together in small groups and discuss what had emerged from the day. A few nuggets of useful learning and thinking were gathered together.

Ideas like: Make sure we check and test that what we believe is happening, is happening. Ask people is it working? What’s going on? The more leaders listen, the more people engage. Ideas like: Proceed until apprehended! Start with your own team, then the next group, then the directorate, the division, the company.

Here is the collective out put for you to download, read and act on. Brought to you from some of the most engaged minds in some of the most engaged companies I’ve come across for a while. Companies like o2, The Affinity Trust, Cheltenham & Gloucester, RBS, Bracknell Forest Homes, Recrion, AXA, Linklaters, Virgin Atlantic, Hertz, and Guide Dogs for the Blind, to name but a few. Phew!

What lessons can you add so that we might make this work even stronger?

Leadership. Are You Really There?

Peacock Butterfly - Inachis io
Peacock Butterfly – Inachis io

I’ve been enjoying some fine weather and sitting in the garden. Usually when I’m in the garden I’m distracted by something. Maybe I’m writing, playing, cooking, or even occasionally, gardening. But this weekend, I’ve spent some time sitting there. Really being there. As a result I began to notice things, see thing a little differently. I made three new friends.

Inachis io, aka Peacock
Celastrina argiolus, aka Holly Blue
Anthocharis cardamines, aka Orange Tip

Two of these butterflies, the Holly Blue and Orange Tip are tiny. I wouldn’t normally spot them, let alone take the time to identify and photograph them. I’m glad I did. My heightened awareness over just a brief period has increased my enjoyment of the garden and what it has to offer. I’m glad I spent time, just being there.

Too often I see people in meetings, in conversation, or listening. But they’re not really there. Their mind is on where they are going next, what they are going to say next. They are not in the moment. And it shows. You know when you’ve spent time with someone who is only there in body, and it’s not very engaging. It’s not good leadership. Two of the useful leadership qualities observed by Jonathan Wilson are:

Leaders learn to listen extraordinarily well with genuine interest and respect.
Leaders engender a sustained sense of enthusiasm and make people feel they are very important.

You can only practice these qualities, by being there. Your presence isn’t enough. Be there. Be aware.

Holly Blue - Celastrina argiolus
Holly Blue – Celastrina argiolus
Orange Tip - Anthocharis cardamines
Orange Tip – Anthocharis cardamines

Leadership – Think Small

Here’s a question for you. “What’s the least I can do today to make a positive impact?”

I ask this question a lot. Not to encourage folk towards laziness, but rather, to help understand the impact of the little things we can do. How do people answer? Smile, say thank you, acknowledge someone. Small, important things.

Yes strategy, vision, big ideas, they all have their place.

And often it’s the small things that connect us, that differentiate us, that people remember.

Think small.