Your Work is Your Work

Charles Darwin is apocryphally quoted as saying, “It’s not the biggest, the brightest, or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.”  While he may not have actually said it, the sentiment stands. It is therefore vital that we develop ways and practices that assist us to learn about ourselves.  Much has…

Vanguard Leadership (or The Importance of Being our own Best Friend)

Is there room in the world for a CEO who wears their heart on their sleeve? Absolutely, undoubtedly, unequivocally, yes!  Such a leader is a vanguard leader.  We were recently in conversation with a CEO who wondered aloud if there is a place for someone like him; someone who, in my estimation, expresses how he…

Values purpose and meaning

Bizarrely, if you went into most school classrooms in the industrialised world, you would still hear teachers say or imply, “Sit down, stop talking, do your own work.”  I say bizarrely, because this notion that we will excel in our lives only if we do what we’re told, mind our own business and draw solely…

Leaders and engagement

About a month ago, I noticed on Twitter that fellow blogger, Todd Nielsen, was inviting guest bloggers from around the world for an International Leadership Blogathon that he was running in March.  Each day, he would post an article from a different blogger on his own blog site.  I duly contacted him and asked if…

Transcendent leadership

Reading the London #riotcleanup Twitter stream last week was fascinating.  Taken in isolation and looked at one-dimensionally, one might consider a community that mobilises itself to clean up after riots to be a positive phenomenon.  The range of views on the Twitter feed does not bear this out however.   Some views extend to calling…

>Not everything that counts can be counted

> We are in the process of a change, from what we know well, to something new and unknown; it’s a change in the paradigm we live in.  In other words, it’s BIG.  The time of transition always feels unstable, chaotic, because that’s exactly what it is.  We know the old and we keep getting dragged…

>Leaders and awareness

>A great educator, Caleb Gattegno, once said that the only thing anyone can ever teach is awareness.  This is handy if you are in the business of developing leaders, as it seems to be the number one thing that is mentioned in discussions about growing leadership capabilities.  In this very interesting post (http://blogs.hbr.org/video/2010/08/the-crucial-skill-for-tomorrow.html)  from the…