I came across this saying recently and it made me smile: “Before I was married I had six theories about raising children. Now I have six children and no theories.” What’s true of parenting is also frequently true of leadership. Human psychology is too vast, too subtle and too complex for the rational mind to […]
Read More… from Leadership Lessons: From Theories to Kindness in Practice
A note to young leaders. If you do your job right, you will be discussed behind your back. As Oscar Wilde once quipped: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about.” But what should you do if you are asked to share your views […]
Read More… from How to Talk About Others When They’re Not in the Room
A note to young leaders. Everyone you lead is a volunteer. People never give of their best because they are compelled to, or even because they are paid to. People give of their best because they are inspired to. Your team can do just enough to keep their job, or they can give their all. […]
Read More… from A Note to Young Leaders: Inspire Like You Lead Volunteers
Billy Hughes was Australia’s seventh prime minister, best known for his dry wit and for leading our country through World War 1. He holds the record as the longest serving federal member of Parliament (51- years) and is the only Prime Minister to have served on both the Labor and conservative sides of politics. At […]
Read More… from Billy Hughes: A Portrait of Mercy Over Justice
Leadership is the art of inspiring others to realise their highest potential in the pursuit of a common goal. That’s it – nothing more, nothing less. Most companies however persist in promoting people to positions of leadership because they exhibit one or more of the following traits: Financial acumen: they’ve recently made the company a […]
The Apostle Paul was a leader par excellence. More than any other individual, Paul is responsible for Christianity becoming the world’s most populous religion with over 2.3 billion adherents. But the survival of the early churches was far from assured. Christianity faced state persecution, doctrinal disputes and internal conflicts. Paul himself was personally under attack. […]
Read More… from Paul’s Leadership: Choosing Unity Over Conflict
Although we are told it is the province of the few – we are all in fact called to live large, bold, inspiring lives. And while this may at first seem a daunting task, it is only because we needlessly complicate things. Each day is a microcosm of your life, ending in the “little death” […]
Lessons from my father. In my mid-twenties, I once sat down with my father to discuss a dispute that had arisen between him and his partners in the course of a property development. In the re-telling, Dad was careful to point out the merits and perspectives of both sides. At the end of it, I […]
Pride is a weed – weed it out, first in yourself and then from your team. Intelligent, honest, driven people often disagree about the best course of action for an organisation – sometimes passionately. This type of debate is normal and indeed healthy. So, what’s the difference between a debate and an argument? Pride. Arguments […]