Continuous Learning & Leadership

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.

Rosalynn Carter

Our life is a learning process. Learning does not come to an abrupt halt after the completion of school or college, but it continues throughout our lives.  Leadership should provide everybody the scope to learn. Most of the time, staff are worried to reinvent or innovate themselves as they are afraid of the fact that they might make mistakes in the process and it will not be appreciated by their leaders.  The leaders on the other hand, should not criticize the workers for their mistakes but use this person’s willingness to continuously improve.  Constructive feedback done well points out the areas where further improvement can be made but doesn’t have any negative impact on the morale of the worker.

A good leader is conscious about all the quintessential ingredients which make a great leader.  This means they invest not only in the development of their staff but also themselves.  This allows the leader to provide proper guidance at every stage to all employees so that they do not lose their focus or direction.  Leadership isn’t just about striving for the growth of the organization but it also exerts equal preference for the growth of people.  It doesn’t have to be training courses, in somecases an active mentoring or coaching role (yes they are different) can provide the framework for the growth and development required.

If your staff are not asking for development then look to the culture of your organisation.  Is continous learning and improvement important?  Perhaps it’s important to the product or service you provide but you’ve never made the link to staff development explicit.  Where do you and your employees need to be in order for your business to grow and thrive?  And if growth is a stretch then where do you need to be in order to handle the uncertain business market?

Business Growth – Employee Engagement

In times of economic uncertainty, recession and tough markets, business growth is even more challenging. Here is the last of 3 videos in which Ruth Sanderson explains critical components that enable business growth. The final part dicusses the importance of staff engagement.

Business Growth – Values

In times of economic uncertainty, recession and tough markets, business growth is even more challenging.  Here is the second of 3 videos in which Ruth Sanderson explains critical components that enable business growth.  The second component are the company’s values.  Although equally important are the leaders values too.

Business Growth – Vision

In times of economic uncertainty, recession and tough markets, business growth is even more challenging.  Here is the first of 3 videos in which Ruth Sanderson explains critical components that enable business growth.  The first is Vision, which is key for business stability too.

Often in the overwhelm of staying a float and finding new business leaders can overlook the importance of communicating the vision.

Good Business Leaders Take Responsibility And Thrive

I’m amazed at the number of small business owners who are striving for increased business performance and yet haven’t linked their leadership as a critical factor in making this happen.  One of the factors that’s often overlooked is responsibility.  As the business owner you have the absolute authority to steer your staff to success.  Yes too many give this away to their staff and no I’m not talking about getting all authoritarian and dictator here.

The power to guide your people towards achieving your vision for the business includes responsibilities like making sure they’re on the right direction, being mindful of each and everyone’s tasks and mistakes, and putting them back on the right track when they get lost.  Nobody said leadership was easy or intuitive.  In fact as a small business owner you can be fulfilling so many roles it can become overwhelming.  It’s like juggling plates, but if you’ve got an IKEA plate, a denby plate and a ming plate (OK not sure ming made plates, it might just have been vases), which one do you let drop.  Your leadership of the business is the ming.  Let that one go and you’ve let your business go – well the results that were possible for you anyway.

Business leadership is one responsibility after another – the buck really does stop with us.  There are times where occasionally it makes us feel better to blame someone or something else when things goes wrong, but this shouldn’t be a habit.  It should be the rare slip up.

Instead of blame and excuses good leaders accept that something went wrong, and look for the learning instead.  As the leader of the business or team what can they personally learn as well helping the individual who made the mistake find their learnings.

You may not have full control over other people and aren’t expected to have full control over their actions, but you have total control of your own reactions.  Understanding what to do over sudden and unpredictable circumstances will make you responsible, give you greater flexibility and ironically give you a greater sense of control.

Collaborative leadership, the rise of the wiki leader

The world’s economic structures and information systems have changed phenomenally over the years and it’s had an impact on leadership.  First there was the world wide web, then came google domination, now it’s twitter, linkedin and facebook.  Where we used to expect the leader to have all the answers and equally all the power, there is now emerging a more dynamic situation. 

Gone are the industrial days of autocratic decision making and dutiful employees seeking rewards and promotions up a linear ladder.  The information days have seen a open access to information, take wikipedia and open source programming as two examples.  Perhaps now we’re seeing the rise of wiki leadership, this dynamic, collaborative style where the leader knows they don’t have the answer to everything, yet they’re confident that someone somewhere will.  Where ideas can flow freely up and down the organisation, which now means they flow freely around the organisation.  Where the leader has the confidence to ask questions out beyond the company walls, take LinkedIn groups as an example. 

Wiki leadership, now there’s a thought.  How much of your leadership style and approach is to solve, answer and provide some form of parental role and how much of your style is dynamic, open and receptive.

Are you resisting the hero’s journey?

Our life is one huge journey, made up of a series of smaller journeys.  The choice for all of us is whether we see ourselves as the hero or the observer.  The role we choose to take determines our success in life, and by success I mean our ability to handle life and come out on top.

The hero’s journey is a map that can guide us as we negotiate our way through life and all it’s challenges and opportunities for growth.  It is the universal story of human development and if it didn’t work so well, we wouldn’t have a film industry, tv or best selling books.  What’s more for many of us that’s the only medium through which we learn about the hero’s journey, as a passive construct, rather than understanding it in a practical and personal context.

I’ve been working with and teaching the hero’s journey for many years now and I’ve been persuaded (ok it didn’t take much), by Chris Cooper of Be More Achieve More to share more of what I know with his clients on a teleseminar on the 27th July.  So you’re also invited too.  

During the call I’ll be answering questions like:-

- What is the Heroes Journey?

- How can it help us in a personal and a business context?

- What are the signs we’re resisting taking the journey and what are the implications?

 - What resources do we have access to that can help us through our journey?

 Plus there will be time for you to ask me your questions.

I’m currently teaching several coaches to use this in their work, here’s what one of them recently sent to me after her last coaching session “Just wanted to say a huge thank you , you are simply amazing and I can’t thank you enough for the insight you have given me.” 

 I do know what a difference understanding the hero’s journey has on life and so I hope you’ll join Chris and I on the 27th July at 8pm.  To register fill in the form below

Should Character or Policies Lead in the General Election

2 days to go and it’s the general election here in the UK.  This time around the character of the leaders seems to have raised prominence compared to previous years.  Now that could just be my memory; and from conversations over the last few weeks some people seem to be at odds with the fact that character leadership is playing a role as opposed to the focus being about policies.

So why is the character of the party leaders so prevalent and been commented on so much?  I think the answer can be summed up by the word Trust.

Trust – We trust people who are authentic or genuine and have the skills to do what they say they’re going to do.  In other words it’s a combination of character and competence.

Competence – The skills to carry out the task required.  Each of us will be looking at the parties and their leaders and making an assessment, do we think the leader is competent to do the job.

Gordon Brown has had a chance to demonstrate his leadership skills as a prime minister, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have both yet to prove themselves.

Which leaves us with character.  This is the personality of the leader, but it’s also their values and beliefs.  What does this person stand for?  We don’t have to like them, this isn’t about looking for a new friend.  Rather it’s whether or not I believe that this person’s values, beliefs and traits are the right ones to lead and represent our country’s needs in conversations with other PM’s and Presidents.  The final check is and do I believe they will walk this talk, be authentic and act with integrity in the face of danger and war.  Or are they going to have a personality transplant depending on who they’re with and what’s going on, and whether they’re miked up, or not.

Each party has had the traditional marketing campaign:-

-         Why you should choose me to represent you for the next 4 years.

-         Why I’m trustworthy enough to be responsible for something as immense as a country.

-         What improvements do we commit to make over those 4 years.

-         How do we plan do make these improvements happen.

And depending on what you’re looking for you’ll get to decide just how credible they’ve been in getting this message across.

This year I suspect that rather than the nuances of who’s committing to do exactly what with the NHS, National debt, etc.  it’s going to be about who do we trust to do the right thing.  We live in ever increasing change,  they could promise one thing today and then something happens the other side of the world and it’s all change.  We wouldn’t expect them to keep going with a promise if it was now the clear path to fiscal suicide (or what ever).  We’re looking for the leader with the character to be fearlessly authentic and lead with integrity.  Why is this so important, because we’ve witnessed several experiences where the values of a leader have been at odds with how they were portrayed or what we expected, and we as a nation have paid a price.  The banks, and the Iraq war are two significant experiences.  As an aside, recently in the sporting arena we have Tiger Woods and John Terry.  The backlash isn’t so much about their infidelity rather these people were seen as role models.  Being the captain of the England squad is a high profile and responsible position, it isn’t just about football, the football is the competence aspect of the trust equation, it’s also about their character.   Of course there also still ripples from various ministers and their expense claims.

We could ignore the past, we could ignore the impact of character, but I think that would be to the detriment of our country.  So then who do you think is the UK’s equivalent of Obama, our hope for the future of the UK?

Building Trust in the Workplace – Authentic Leadership Master Class

Trust is a critical component to the success and performance of leaders and of a business.

There is a very simple equation:-

High Trust = High Speed + Low Cost

Low Trust = Slow Speed + High Costs

Look at the performance of your business, team, a specific relationship. Do things happen quickly or is everyone second guessing, double checking, re-doing and in the worst case preparing to cover and protect themselves should something go wrong?

Trust is a multiplier effect.  High trust people get the significant projects; you wouldn’t leave your child with someone you didn’t trust and a business makes no different decisions.

• High trust people get promoted and receive more of the company’s resources.
• Collaboration, engagement, innovation, job fulfilment all increase when there is trust.
• The ability to attract and retain talent increases where there is trust.
• Revenue, customer loyalty and referrals also increase if there is trust.

In fact research shows that high trust organisations out perform low trust ones by 278%

On April 15th at 4pm I’ll be interviewing Sue Swanborough, HR Director at General Mills UK, a company that yearly features in the Fortune Top 100 companies to work for.  Sue is an expert in trust and its impact and application throughout the business, from board level to shop floor.  The results of this have been evident in the business results achieved.

In the past Sue, a science graduate has worked in a number of fmcg businesses including Boots, Mars and most recently General Mills. She has moved cross functionally through R&D, supply chain, logistics and manufacturing before joining HR. She has held a number of generalist and specialist roles covering the full spectrum of HR. Her passion and expertise lies in cultural and leadership development through building trust to deliver excellent business results.

On this 75 minute tele conference call we’ll be discussing:-

• The impact trust has on the performance of a business
• What leaders need to pay attention to
• The top 3 mistakes leaders make and how this endangers the levels of trust they have
• Key strategies to build trust – whatever the size of your business
• Plus we’ll open the lines so you can ask your questions direct, as well as giving you the opportunity to send in your questions beforehand.

To secure your place and get a hard copy of the call, including transcript, follow this link – building trust

Are you a Bat Leader or a Frog Leader

To cope and thrive in today’s business environment are you resilient enough.  Here’s Ruth giving us a quick introduction to resilience and whether your leadership is helping you or hindering you.

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