Can Bad Managers be Good Leaders?

Many have argued that leadership and management are different disciplines.  Management is about the day to day monitoring of people and systems, whereas leadership is focused on a longer term destination and the strategy that will get the organisation there.

Do you need to be a good manager, in order to be a good leader?

Henry Mintzberg challenges this by asking, ‘would you like to be led by someone who can’t manage?’ and ‘would you like to be managed by someone who can’t lead?’…

How Leaders should deal with Health and Safety at work?

The construction industry has transformed attitudes to safety. Turning it from the elephant in the room into the lead agenda item.

Why are your best people leaving your business?

As the economy recovers there’s been a significant increase in the mobility of smart people wanting to progress their careers.

Nurturing your organisation’s most valuable resource

During such times as a pandemic, and indeed during any crisis, it is vital for organisations to optimise their resources. And surely any organisation’s most valuable resource is its staff?

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5 Ways to Resurrect your 2020 Conference

Is there a nagging feeling in your gut that this year, more than any other it’s important to get staff and leaders together?

Do you feel it is time to share the strategy which has changed so much? Is there a need to generate a sense of one organisation, separated by distance but united in purpose? Do your people deserve to be recognised for going the extra mile whilst stuck at home?

Some have simply cancelled their plans but in doing so will fail to give their business the shot in the arm it so desperately needs. Braver leaders are taking a bolder route, exploring new ways of communicating the mission and preparing now for the approaching moment when we can meet face to face. Here are five ways to reengage a large cohort without compromising health.

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Why Great Leaders Say No

We seem to be living through a time when elected leaders at least, have succeeded by telling people what they want to hear.

Is this really leadership? We’d say it’s not. True leadership requires the courage and wisdom to say out loud, the truths that people don’t want to hear. It’s not fun, it upsets people and makes the leader unpopular. In the short term for sure and often, for much longer.

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Dare to be Fair – The Secret to Awesome Leadership?

Whilst at the helm of GE, Jack Welch would famously slice the bottom 10% of managers each year. Apple openly charge consumers high prices, generating enormous margins. In most organisations men are paid more than women for equivalent work. Surely the key to success in business is profit, but it seems that profit comes from treating some people unfairly?

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Why People Don’t Follow Smart Leaders

Numerous studies and anecdotal experience would support the view that we are unlikely to respect and be loyal to leaders who lack competence. Some organisations take this to extremes by selecting leaders based purely on quite narrow measurements of intelligence. However, new research suggests that IQ alone does not a good leader make.

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Sleep Coaching

Coaching is now embraced by most leaders as a strategy for raising performance, largely thanks to the likes of Sir John Whitmore who adapted sports coaching to business leadership.
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Pros and Cons of One-on-Ones

Feedback is essential in flourishing teams. Yet the drain on our time and emotional reserves as managers can cause us to neglect our duty to regularly check in with individual team members.
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