A note to young leaders. What do Madonna, Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift all have in common? They all knew at a very early age what they wanted to dedicate their life to. Taylor Swift: “I think I first realised I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. […]
A note to young leaders. When it comes to business skills, there are none greater than the art of persuasion. If you can persuade people of your point of view, you can raise more money, do more deals, attract better talent – and do it all on better and friendlier terms. So how do you […]
Read More… from Mastering Persuasion: Lessons for Young Leaders
Is your team “doing its best” (whatever that means) or “doing whatever it takes”? The difference between a good team and a great team is very often a “sense of urgency”. And how can you tell which type of team you are? Deadlines. Good teams set deadlines. Great teams meet them. Great teams love deadlines. […]
Read More… from Deadline-Driven: Building Teams That Do Whatever It Takes
The first commandment of any leader is to: “Make yourself happy”. An unhappy leader may still be effective but their impact on others is less than ideal. It’s impossible for them to lead with humour, enthusiasm or optimism. Note, I’m not asking you to “be happy”, I’m calling on you to “make yourself happy”. Happiness […]
Read More… from Lead Happy: The First Commandment for Leaders
A leader’s role is to gently stir the pot when too many morsels have settled at the bottom. In other words, leaders need to disturb the comfortable. The comfortable soon become complacent – and complacency is but an earlier death when it comes to a high-performing business. This is why – after being an early […]
Read More… from Stir the Pot: Leading Beyond Comfort to Drive Elite Performance
Having endured the Covid pandemic in 2020-2022 and the interest rate hikes and geopolitical conflicts of 2023, are you and your team feeling a little frustrated and effete? Join the club. You’re in good company – so is everyone else. Here’s the bad news. Calendar year 2024 will be yet another trying year. Many businesses […]
Bold visions are rarely the stuff of committees. Committees are creatures of consensus, they are good at avoiding mistakes. The larger they get, the more conservative they become. Bold visions spring from the inspirations of an individual mind. Dr Martin Luther King did not say: “We have a dream”. That would be a group hallucination. […]
What’s the first thing you can bank on when you articulate a clear, bold, optimistic vision? Controversy and opposition. Most people fear and resent change. Just ask Gustave Eiffel. Before it became a much-beloved international icon and the definitive architectural masterpiece of the 19th Century, the Eiffel Tower was fiercely opposed. It was variously called […]
The first duty of a leader is to cast a compelling vision. The objective of a vision is to raise and unify the energy of the team and to galvanise it into action. A vision should be bold. As the visionary American property developer, James Rouse, once said: “People will rise to the bold and […]