Remember to Fly The Airplane – 5 Principles for Leading in a Crisis

Much of what we face as organisational leaders during the coronavirus pandemic is out of our control. Yet we can prioritise the key issues we need to tackle, and the see the job through to completion.

9 Frequently Asked L&D Questions about Creating Learning Journeys

Blanchard solutions architect Britney Cole, in an online session shared three keys to learning journey success. At the end of Cole’s presentation, she held a Q&A session with the L&D professionals in attendance. 

Nine Lies About Work with Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham believes some basic assumptions about work are simply no longer true in today’s business environment. He shares his insights in his latest book.

Leading in the New Normal

Change is an inescapable fact of life. We can choose to ignore the change, lament the way things used to be, or deal with the new reality, find some firm ground, and move forward.

7 Steps to Virtual Training Success

Venturing into virtual territory without a road map for success can lead to a bumpy and uncertain journey. Although virtual delivery differs from classroom delivery, there are similarities. 

Engaging Your People Through Virtual Learning

Studies show virtual learning can also reduce instruction time, save energy, and increase the learners’ retention of the content.

7 Common Reactions to Change and how to Respond to Them

Many of us have a lot of emotions and assumed constraints around change. In this article we have a  change exercise. 

Managing a Multicultural Team. It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it!

Did you know that research shows that organisational culture is actually a much stronger driver of leadership behaviours than is country or regional culture.

Improving Leadership One Conversation at a Time

Do you have bad communication habits that prevent you from having the types of conversations that bring out the best in your people? 

Is a Hyper-Connected Work Environment Causing Bad Management Habits?

How can you get productive communications happening between manager and direct reports to develop competence, motivation and confidence? 

4 Types of Team Conflict—And How to Deal With Each Effectively

Can you differentiate between the different types of conflict teams experience? Do you have a plan for helping the passionate people in your team to move forward? 

Focus on Who, In Addition to What, When Designing Learning Journeys

We’ve been used to designing for stakeholders and sponsors and their vision on the learning journey. Rarely have we had the end user in the room.

Where Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development

Can companies go wrong with Learning and Development?Organisations spent $359 billion globally on training in 2016, but was it worth it?

The 1 Factor That Determines How Hard Your Team Works

High performing teams are a joy to watch, aren’t they? What causes some people to fully commit to the team and give their max effort while others don’t

Engineers, Programmers, Scientists: Start Here to Lead a Technical Project Team

Do your engineers, programmers or scientists have a charter? How can you get your experts to agree to one and make it work for your team and organisation?

2020 Leadership Development Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

The challenge is how to identify the leadership, learning, and talent development patterns in the data and discern how those patterns could influence planned leadership development initiatives

3 Ways Coaching Can Help Teams and Work Groups

Sometimes coaches are hired to facilitate team performance. When coaching in a team setting, there are three principle objectives to focus on.

2020 HR and L&D Trends: 12 Expert Predictions

HR and L&D experts are already predicting that a changing landscape will require new thinking and strategies for the coming year.

Are You and Enabler Boss? 4 Steps to Developing Your People Instead

Are you regularly asked by members of your team for details on how to perform a task? Do you tell them again and again–or worse do it for them?

Taking a Heart and Head Approach to Integrity

Rather than using your mind to have the last say in all your decisions, can you allow yourself to check in with your heart, your body, and your soul? 

3 Things to do when you are Failing

Have external factors seriously derailed your plans? Do you want it all fixed and gone out of your life? If you are faced with something similar you should be doing these three things.

Proving the ROI of Leadership Development

Senior leaders mostly want to know that the money being spent for development initiatives is having a positive impact on the bottom line. 

Taking a Top-Down, Bottom-Up Approach to Leadership

Leadership works best as a partnership, with managers and direct reports working together toward achievement of company goals. But most organisations only focus on one half of that partnering equation. 

7 Tips for Letting Go as a Manager

Are you a leader that recognises the importance of delegation and how it can serve you, but still struggle with letting go. 

Goal Setting, Mental Toughness, and the Manager’s Role

Managers who are effective at goal setting with their people keep two things in mind. The first is “the big picture” and the second,”the short term”. There is a third thing.

Building Conversational Capacity to Address Conflict in Today’s Work Teams

Team leaders can facilitate constructive, learning-focused dialogue about difficult subjects by balancing candour and curiosity.

New Managers: Are You Having Trouble Letting Go of Old Habits

How have you dealt with moving from a high functioning individual contributor into a management role? The move requires a significant change of focus from the tactical to the strategic.

Stop Taking on Other People’s Problems—3 Tips from an Executive Coach

A couple of tips that managers can use to help their direct reports deal with their own “monkeys” and solve their own problems and tasks.

Not Feeling Confident on That New Task at Work? 5 Ways Your Manager Can Help

Confidence is a belief in one’s ability to succeed. It comes from within and must be nurtured. To build a direct report’s confidence on a specific task, a manager should follow some simple steps.

Suffering from Burnout? 3 Ways to Get Yourself—and Your Team—Back on Track

If much of your work consists of tasks you don’t enjoy doing, you may find yourself getting frustrated and beginning to dislike other things around you.

Leading Effectively from Start-up Growth to Maturity: Identifying the Four Stages of Development

Senior leaders need to diagnose the development level of their organisation before they consider how to best manage performance. The leader’s role is to diagnose where the organisation is at any given stage.

Reduce Turnover with One Simple Management Technique

Any organisation can begin to improve employee engagement by implementing a simple and practical strategy. This one technique will immediately increase the frequency and quality of conversations taking place between managers and direct reports.

Don’t Underestimate Your Points of Power at Work—5 Places to Look

An essential mindset for achieving your goals and contributing to the goals of others is recognising and appreciating your power at work. Not realising our own points of power may be one of our greatest assumed constraints.

Resilience at Work—Focus on Thriving, Not Just Surviving

"Resilience at work is about thriving—not just surviving", says David Witt. We need to provide conditions that let people and organisations thrive and flourish with meaningfulness and purpose.

Leading by Serving—5 Essential Ingredients to Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow

Regardless of their formal title or position, people who want to be great leaders must embrace an attitude of service to others. There are at least five critical ways leaders must serve if they want to be as effective as possible.

Don’t Confuse Collaboration with Being Nice: 7 Ways to Promote Healthy Team Debate

For leaders interested in taking some first steps toward improving collaboration in their organisations, here are seven suggestions promoting healthy debate in your our organisation.

4 Basic Human Needs Leaders Must Meet to Have Engaged Employees

Everyday the spirits of millions of people die at the front door of their workplace. Only 20% of people say they are truly passionate about their work, and the rest are still being paid to under perform and ultimately undermine the effectiveness of your business.

Do You Focus on What’s Wrong-or What’s Right?

Managers sometimes have difficulty focusing on both people and results. You don’t have to chose between one or the other. Here are some points to help any leader focus on helping people develop and move forward with planned actions.

4 Questions to Help You Clarify Your Core Values

Have you lost focus? Do you need to get back on track? Are your values being compromised?  Perhaps a values identification process can help you with your choices.

4 Key Conversations to Help Your Customer Feel Welcome

Do you fail to make your customers feel welcome? Here are 4 key conversations to have with customers to make them feel welcome and want to come back.

9 Things I Learned from My First Difficult Conversation

Effective leaders must know how to conduct difficult conversations with employees. Because of the common perception that conflict at work is bad, it’s no surprise that so many leaders shy away from having these discussions.

Stop Driving Yourself Crazy Trying to Hold People Accountable

When you drive for results and declare you are holding people accountable for those results, you are also sending the message that you don’t trust people to perform or achieve their goals. 

The Power of Clear Expectations–Identifying What and Who

When leaders set clear expectations, outcomes are much more likely to hit the mark. Stating clear expectations, however, is just the start. What else should you be doing?

The Curse of Unspoken Expectations – 3 Ways to Improve Teamwork and Collaboration

Unspoken expectations are a curse upon relationships. It’s a surefire way to guarantee you will have conflict and discord that leads to poor teamwork and collaboration in the workplace.

Focus on Competence and Commitment to Improve Productivity

Most people will tell you they are working as hard as they can, says bestselling business author Vicki Halsey. “The problem is, they still aren’t able to keep up with the workload.

Ethical Behaviour in Leadership

Examples of non-ethical behaviour in business and leadership are all around us; and recent well-publicised ethical breaches in organisations have brought a great deal of attention to the issue of ethical behaviour.

Don’t Confuse Collaboration with Being Nice: 7 Ways to Promote Healthy Team Debate

Do you confuse collaboration with simply getting along or being polite? It’s a common mistake–and one of the most difficult to address.

Are You an Excessive Collaborator? 3 Warning Signs to Look for In Your Working Calendar

Wondering if you may be an excessive collaborator? Your calendar can offer some hints. 

What Do Workers Want? Better communication with their leader for starters

Employees want communication, a trusting relationship, and clear measurement standards from their immediate supervisor. Leaders can help create the type of environment people are looking for at work.

Leaders: Don’t Let a Little Motivation “Dip” Become a Big Performance Management “Fail”

It’s a common pattern anytime people take on new tasks that require time, persistence, and effort. Initial enthusiasm turns into disillusionment.

Performance Coaching – If You Wait, it May Be Too Late

If an employee’s performance is poor enough that a coach is called in, it means the manager is in a last ditch effort to save them. If it’s done too late, it does not work. What can we do about this?

3 Conversations All Managers Need to Master

Managers don’t have enough high quality conversations with their direct reports. This deficiency can have a negative effect on both productivity and morale. Managers can learn to be more effective in their work conversations.

3 Ways to Help Managers and Direct Reports Collaborate to Achieve Goals

Make sure managers and direct reports are taking a collaborative approach to performance. It starts with agreed-upon goals. What does this mean for you in your workplace?

Sharing Feedback: 3 Ways to Help Others Improve

As people move up in their career many find they receive less and less meaningful feedback of any kind. Though many say that corrective feedback has helped their career they also say they themselves are resistant to giving it?

From Performance Management to Contribution Management: 3 Keys to Making it Work

Who wants to judge — or be judged? How can you turn performance management into a positive “How can I help you succeed?” approach?

When It Comes to Performance Management, Employees Want More, Not Less!

Are your employees wanting more from their leaders than they’re getting? A survey found a gap between what employees desire from their leaders during performance management conversations and what they were receiving.

This TV Show Illustrates The 3 Fundamentals of Effective Performance Management

How can a kid’s cooking show illustrate the three fundamentals of effective performance management: goal setting, coaching, and evaluation?

3 Ways to Combat Perfectionism

Most people agree that striving to continually grow and develop and to achieve one’s goals is a desirable trait. Perfectionism, on the other hand, can be a different story. Are you a perfectionist?

A Coaching Take on the Annual Review

As your year comes to its end there’s an opportunity for a “year in review” assessment. Mary Ellen Sailer suggests we think beyond our work achievements and consider our life achievements.

Rethinking Performance Review: A Lesson for China's College Exam

Do performance evaluations overstate or underestimate an individual’s actual contribution with an organisation? Do we over look the subjective nature of measuring performance at work?

4 Tips for Mastering the Most Difficult Performance Management Conversations

Do you find feedback conversations challenging? “Redirection” conversations tend to be especially challenging. Here are 4 time-tested, key take aways you can use to improve your feedback skills.

Performance Review: Feedback Has to Happen More than Once A Year—Here’s One Way to Get Started

Offering feedback only once a year makes it hard to provide people with meaningful or actionable information. Should there be a rethink of this process.

Quit Focusing on Accountability and Follow These 5 Steps Instead

Responsibility breeds accountability. How can leaders help their people develop an inherent sense of responsibility?

Are You a Serving Leader? A 5-point Checklist

Is the purpose of your leadership to serve—or is your expectation to be served. Would your direct reports identify you as a servant leader?

Innovators—3 ways to invite others to your next big idea

It takes a lot of energy to develop an idea and implement it successfully in an organisation. Innovation also requires collaboration. Here are three ways to innovate and collaborate more effectively.

Your Leadership Training Is Probably Missing These Two Components

We've identified two key competencies missing from most leadership development curriculum in addition to a foundational management framework.

Six Tips for a Work-From-Home Policy That Works

Working from home can provide tremendous benefits to both the employer and the employee. One thing is certain — trust is at the heart of a successful work from home policy. Can a Work-From-Home Policy work for your organisation?

3 Activities to Build Virtual Team Spirit

How can you build team spirit when you can’t have a face to face for team building? Here are three enjoyable activities to build relationships and team spirit.