Trevor Sherman – The Leadership Coach
An ideas exchange about what makes leadership at all levels in an organisation really work.
The Role of a Leader: Performance & Engagement
Communicating with Impact
Cultural Interpersonal Effectiveness
Happy Birthday to The Leadership Coach Blog. Three Years Old.
This blog is three years old. Yippee. The first article – ‘Understand to be Understood‘ – was published on 19 May 2016. Three years and 160 articles later and we’re still going strong thanks to our Guest Authors, Subscribers and Regular Visitors. Thanks for your support.
I coached someone today who has a personally very important speech to deliver and wanted to get it as right as possible.
As I listened to him speak I was struck by the demonstration of leadership that he was embodying in both what he said and how he said it. For me, it also was a brilliant example of how to solve the strategy/execution conundrum that is the source of so much leadership scholarship.
Continue reading “Strategy is Rehearsal”
Over the years I have had the wonderful opportunity of facilitating brainstorming sessions. One of my favourite tools to use, is Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats Method. Our behaviour, not our words, is the reflection of who we are. Six Thinking Hats is a brilliant tool to structure in an objective way to include the input from the individuals participating in the session and can give insight into the reflection of their personalities. The method refers to six hats that when we “wear them” we are obligated to think in a specific way. The blue hat is the leader hat that will control the discussion and the ground rules (only the facilitator will wear this hat during the entire exercise), the white hat requires pure objectivity and data driven comments, the red hat is our emotions and how we feel about the exercise, the yellow hat is for positive thinking, the black hat is for negative thinking or challenges we encounter during the solution process and the green hat is for innovative thinking or often referred to as “out of the box thinking”.
What follows are a few social conclusions that I have found in this exercise that relates to the teams’ general behaviour.
Continue reading “Why Not? A story about those who dare to be different…”I have lunch with Blog Guest Author Charlie Walker-Wise and get his first-hand account of how attention to Space and Time can create more effective communication.
I had been waiting for this opportunity for some time. To meet up face-to-face with Blog Guest Author Charlie Walker-Wise and get his first-hand account of how attention to Space and Time can create more effective communication.
Charlie had written two articles a year ago on this Blog about space and time – the links are in ‘further reading’ below. Since then I have referred my coaching clients a number of times to Charlie’s wisdom on this subject. When they needed to make a landmark presentation to a number of people. Or when they had a forthcoming significant one-to-one discussion – a so called ‘moment of truth’ or ‘crucial conversation’. Either way, Charlie’s articles kept bouncing back to me as part of my coach’s toolkit.
For me the space was on Tuesday last week at Balthazar’s French Bistro in London’s Covent Garden. The time was lunch time. I originally intended to call this article ‘Lunch with Charlie Walker-Wise’, but didn’t think it would really grab your attention dear reader!
I have known Charlie since he was 12. His parents had a home in our village when we moved in 28 years ago (you do the maths). It’s so very gratifying to see him now. Married with two young children. A successful career as Client Director with RADA Business. It’s this combination of acting and business that fuels my imagination and drives me to seek out his views.
So here we are meeting for lunch and I announce to Charlie I have an agenda. I want to pick his brains about space and time.
Continue reading “An audience with Charlie Walker-Wise: even more about Space and Time”
In Biblical terms, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse were Pestilence, Famine, War and Death. An American psychologist, Dr John Gottman, who researches divorce and its causation, identifies four new horse riders that he names Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling. The adverse impact of these behaviours apply in organisational leadership just as much as marital relationships.
Continue reading “Reining in the horses”A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR
To Our Subscribers and Visitors
From The Leadership Coach Blog Team & Authors
Storytelling is at the heart of learning for many organisations. A story well done will inspire and connect your people.
I work at a world leading drama school and as you would expect, it’s an institution full of stories. Which is lucky, as for some time now, storytelling has been at the forefront of countless organisations’ learning needs.
It is the day of the 10th anniversary of the WOW! Awards gala at the Tower of London. I thought it would salve my anger to write about the train “service” my local train operating company, Greater Anglia, “provides”. As a corporate entity it has about as much chance of winning an award as a chocolate remaining in a solid state in a furnace.
Today also saw the annual announcement of the increase in rail fares, 3.1% in January 2019.
Choosing words wisely increases our chances to get heard and foster an environment in which our colleagues will feel safe to speak their mind – bring new ideas and suggestions etc. We will get their attention!
It’s been a while but today I am gladly resuming my publications. Today I will share something about feedback and how the selection of our words is important.
I once read somewhere that around 250k people die in the US every year as result of medical mistakes. Investigations found that more than a third of these fatalities could have been avoided if doctor’s assistants had spoken when noticing that something in the procedure was incorrect. The fact, apparently, was that most of these assistants don’t speak because of the negative reaction (even aggressive) from doctors.
Have you ever experience a situation in which you were in doubt whether you should speak or remain quiet afraid of being shut by someone who believe to ‘know-it-better’?
Continue reading “Words Matter. It Is Not What But How We Say It.”
Jessica belives leadership is very important in national politics. She explains why she is now supporting a politician she can look up to.
Leadership is a fundamental element in any group, given that it is the driving element which without it, it would be difficult for that group to guide their efforts towards the common objective.
The issue of leadership in human groups has been widely debated, and especially during the twentieth century has been theorized about leadership and the organization of groups in general.
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