Category: Leader of Others

Building Positive Working Relationships
Coaching for Performance
Leadership Influencing
Team Development
Driving Execution
Operational Decision Making
Managing Available Resources
Driving for Results

Coaching for Performance #3 – REVIEWING

This is the third of three Posts on the subject of Performance Management and how the leader can drive for results with coaching. Post #3 – Reviewing Performance. The other two are Planning Performance and Supporting Performance.

What does reviewing performance involve a leader doing? What options does the leader have for the way they invest their time? How does the leader add value? What are typical coaching goals? What resource material does the leader need as a platform for the coaching? What tools does the leader need from the Coaches Toolkit? I start with an overview of coaching for reviewing performance. I then draw on the experience of two senior leaders I have worked with and observed in action.

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Coaching for Performance #2 – SUPPORTING

This is the second of three Posts on the subject of Performance Management and how the leader can drive for results with coaching. Post #2 – Supporting Performance. The other two are Planning Performance and Reviewing Performance.

What does supporting performance involve a leader doing? What options does the leader have for the way they invest their time? How does the leader add value? What are typical coaching goals? What resource material does the leader need as a platform for the coaching? What tools does the leader need from the Coaches Toolkit? I start with an overview of supporting for performance. I then draw on the experience of two senior leaders I have worked with and observed in action.

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CRER – SONHAR – PLANEJAR – EXECUTAR

Como aumentar as suas chances de sucesso? Esse foi um dos tópicos discutido com estudantes de duas universidades do Brasil.


Na minha estada no Brasil, tive a honra e o privilégio de ter sido convidado para conversar com os acadêmicos de duas renomadas entidades de Ensino Superior na Região Sul do Brasil,  Univille e o Instituto Federal Catarinense.

Nessas sessões, tive a oportunidade de conhecer grandes mestres/professores e acadêmicos extremamente interessados, preparados e focados em seu desenvolvimento – uma inspiração para mim!

No convite, a expectativa inicial era para que eu falasse sobre minha profissão. Porém, devido ao termo de confidencialidade que mantenho com o projeto do qual hoje faço parte, busquei outro tópico.

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Coaching for Performance #1 – PLANNING

This is the first of three Posts on the subject of Performance Management and how the leader can drive for business results with coaching. Post #1 – Planning Performance. The next two are Supporting Performance and Reviewing Performance.

What does planning performance involve a leader doing? What options does the leader have for the way they invest their time? How does the leader add value? What are typical coaching goals? What resource material does the leader need as a platform for the coaching? What tools does the leader need from the Coaches Toolkit? I start with an overview of planning performance. I then draw on the experience of two senior leaders I have worked with and observed in action.

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Procrastination and Creativity

It is not OK to miss deadlines. It is also not OK to meet a deadline by impacting negatively on quality. How I learnt to balance impatience to produce results with a need to focus on the quality of the outcome.


During the early start of my professional career, I gave a lot of value to get things done fast.  I was an impatient operator whose only focus was execution with acceptable results.  Now, ‘acceptable’ is very subjective word that can have a lot of different meanings depending of the one who use it.  Later I found out that acceptable results often lead to rework. Continue reading “Procrastination and Creativity”

Leadership Interview: Hans Augusteijn ‘My Coaching Journey’

We follow the fortunes of a senior leader in Northern Europe over a three year period as he learns and applies his newly acquired coaching skills and ends up a senior director spreading the coaching gospel to his direct report leaders.

I first started working with the Top Team at Maersk Northern Europe Liner Operations Cluster (NEULOC) in Rotterdam when I visited them to kick off the Coaching Master Class program in December 2012. At that time Hans Augusteijn was a Senior General Manager, a member of the senior management team and starting out on his coaching journey. Here he reflects on that journey three years on. What has he learned along the way? What can we learn from his experiences?

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Chilcot Report: Decision Making Lessons for Leaders

There are decision making lessons for leaders in the Chilcot Report into the 2003 Iraq war which has been published this week. I map these lessons back to key leadership competencies and look at Judgement, Execution & Influence.

Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament.


This is the week that the long awaited Chiclot Report was published. Sir John Chilcot has presented his findings on the UK’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq War. The report covers UK government policy decisions made between 2001 and 2009. There are hard lessons to be learned from this report for politicians, their advisers and civil servants. I have taken a look at key findings and asked what leaders can learn from them.

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The Collaborative Leader: Learning from the World of Theatre

What can a Business Leader learn from the role of a Theatre Director?


Have you ever wondered how a Theatre Director brings together a cast of often high ego actors to deliver an excellent production? A Theatre Director can often be like a new Leader: pulling together a disparate group of people that they may not have had any say in the selection of. Here we look at seven key principles of how a Theatre Director works with a company of actors which apply equally to how a Business Leader works within an organisation.

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Battle readiness. How can leader know the team is ready? And more importantly, how to ensure we are ready?

Translating strategy into operational reality; breaking down strategic priorities or business initiatives into key tasks and identifying accountabilities; establishing communication channels, capacity, processes, resources and systems to ensure effective implementation and delivery of business goals; tracking progress.

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In my previous post ‘Is impossible a fact or an opinion?‘ I wrote about arousing the earnest desire to win and that ‘impossible’, in the context of aiming higher, is an opinion! In business we often use armies or sports analogies when devising strategies to make it ‘catchy’ to our people. After all, we cannot win without the support and engagement of people. A leader succeeding without its people is the part where to me ‘impossible’ become a fact.

Last week it was commemorated the centenary of ‘the battle of the Somme’ and I thought ‘Battle readiness’ could be a handy topic for my next post.

Continue reading “Battle readiness. How can leader know the team is ready? And more importantly, how to ensure we are ready?”