Derren Brown on Leadership Development

The TV star and illusionist has been back on our screens with an extravagant two part show entitled Apocalypse. 

In the show Derren takes a young man who apparently doesn’t appreciate his life and family and attempts to teach him a lesson.  Brown’s goal is to get Stephen Brosnan to take responsibility for his life and to see how he handles himself under pressure and when put into a position of leadership….

10 Styles of Leadership – Part 3

In Leadership Styles Parts 1 and 2 we looked at how great leaders differ In their style, and how it’s important to match leaders with the tasks and conditions they are best suited to.  In this final part of the series we look at the strengths and limitations of the four remaining leadership styles.

Directing Leader
Once the vision is established and the strategy agreed, it will be the directional leader who takes key decisions with confidence and certainty, guiding the team day to day and keeping them on track.  …

Learning Through Play – Could bad management be the result of too little play?

This Christmas children will be pleading for the latest toy and many families will dust off their Monopoly sets and rediscover the simple joy of playing a game together. But should we limit our game playing to childhood and holidays, or can play help us in our work, our thinking and our leadership?  

Attitudes to play are changing and the once ridiculed video game industry is now recognised as a valuable contributor to the economy and culture. …

The Perks don’t Work! 5 Steps to Better Management

Subsidised restaurants, table football games and fashionable work wear are a few examples of initiatives employers adopt in the hope of creating a great workplace.

Whilst it’s true that some of the best places to work do have games in their office, great food and contemporary dress codes, it’s not these initiatives that make them great workplaces.  It’s the people, in particular the managers….

10 Styles of Leadership – Part 2

In Leadership Styles Part 1 we looked at how both Ghandi and Churchill employed very different leadership styles to achieve success.  Moving on from servant and visionary leaders, here we explore three more contrasting approaches to leadership.

Strategic Leader

Strategic leaders instinctively present a challenging vision in achievable steps, enabling the organisation to move forward with minimal disruption.

Whilst visions will compel action, unless people see progress toward the fulfilment of that vision they become disenchanted.  The strategic leader forms a game plan everyone can understand and participate in, one that will eventually lead to the achievement of the vision.  The strategic leader challenges the organisation to work to the plan, ignore distractions and do what needs to be done to achieve the next step, and then the next.  The strategic leader coordinates the various departments of an organisation so that the entire community is focused on the prize….

How innocent’s Richard Reed Leads his People

Starting on September 12th, Richard Reed the founder of innocent smoothies will front a new business show on BBC Three called “Be Your Own Boss”.

Richard knows a thing or two about growing a business – innocent went from an idea to a £100 million business in just eight years, and we took a film crew behind the scenes to see how they did it.  Alongside great products, quirky marketing and a steely commercial edge, innocent’s success is largely down to the way they hire and lead their teams.

They recruit and manage against five critical behaviours no matter what the role:…

Peak Performance Tuesdays

A poll carried out among British workers suggested that we are at our best at precisely 11.33am on a Tuesday.

Mondays are spent recovering from the weekend and coping with the realisation that there is a full working week ahead, but by Tuesday morning most of us are into our stride and raring to go.

This can-do attitude reaches its peak at around 11.30am on Tuesday, by which time we’re enthusiastic, organised and feeling in control. Unfortunately this positive performance peak only lasts a day – come Wednesday afternoon the motivational heights have been scaled and we’re on the downward slope to the weekend with most of us easing off on the productivity and intensity of work so that by Friday, we’re ready for the weekend again.

If this sounds familiar, or explains working patterns in your own team throughout the week, there are two ways of dealing with it:…

It’s not Where or Who it’s How

Historically managers have segmented teams, clients and business units based on hard quantifiable factors such as industry sector and geography.  Having served us well for many years this practice may soon become outdated.

It’s common to meet a sales person whose role is defined by a very specific market sector, say hospital based healthcare in a geographical territory such as North West England.  Yet isn’t it more important that the salesperson can effectively communicate with the client?  …

Leading Academics say Tea Breaks make better Teams

There may be no ‘I’ in team but there is ‘tea’ and it turns out that tea (or coffee) could be the key to unlocking the potential of teams, with one US bank anticipating a staggering $15 million productivity increase as a result.

Back in 2004 the Oxford think tank Career Innovation published a paper entitled The Conversation Gap. The basis of their findings was that 4 out of every 10 high performers in several leading companies reported that they have an issue that they want to raise but feel unable to do so – the Conversation Gap of the title. Additionally the increase in electronic communication continues to rise. Average emails received and sent rose by over 30% from 2010 to 2011 despite spam dropping from 19% to 16% in the same period. One of the consequences of this increase is that those spontaneous conversations by the water cooler have reduced. Therefore employees feel less informed and there’s less likelihood that new ideas and opportunities will be discussed unless a formal meeting is convened.

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A Recipe for Successful Teams

Great chefs know that alongside the core ingredients it’s the careful use of seasoning that turns a mediocre meal into a something scrumptious.

Here we offer some tips to help team leaders make their team rise:…