Navigating Change
Why understanding culture can open up new opportunities for leaders
Culture plays a key role in the practice of leadership and how it is viewed. There are two important facets of culture commonly considered in the context of leadership: our internal culture or work environment, and the environment an organization interacts with. Internal Culture First, every organization has its own...
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How societies choose to fail or succeed
Having recently been challenged on the subject of global warming and climate change as issues that require leadership (see my earlier post What has the Lorax got to do with leadership?), I was introduced to the New York Times Bestseller, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared...
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What has ‘The Lorax’ got to do with leadership?
Before I answer this question it is important for me to be transparent with you. Up until recently, I knew relatively little about global warming. However, recently there have been three ‘event’s that have helped me to understand what a complex issue it is, and because it is, not to...
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Periods of isolation for a leader can be debilitating or life transforming
For children of the 1960’s and 70’s, “Gilligan”, “Skipper”, the “Howell’s”, “Ginger, the movie star”, “The Professor” and “Mary Ann”, were household names as key characters in CBS’ Television series, Gilligan’s Island[1]. It’s 98 episodes focused around the plot of finding a way to get off the island where they...
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In search of organizational virtue
In respect to modern leadership, the discussion and debate on the notion of virtue could not be more relevant. In a series of articles I have continued to deepen our understanding of virtue, its origin and nature, while acknowledging differing opinions concerning the degree to which virtue may be learned...
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Leadership, desire, and the shifting sands of change
Immigration, economic and technological advances are changing the global landscape in ways we could not have imagined, challenging traditional norms and values that make the decisions leaders have to make much more complex than ever before. In January 2012, the McKinsey Quarterly, confirmed that the economic advances sweeping through China,...
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How do you respond to organizational decline from the inside?
Over the last 12 months it has been interesting to observe and interact with leaders who are trying to effectively respond to some of the challenges they’ve not had to face directly before, or perhaps not to the same degree at least. These challenges have been brought about by unstable...
Read MoreForward thinking partnerships
The world has changed, and tomorrow will be different from today. As the French Poet, Paul Valery (1871-1945) said, “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.” Much could be said about our changing world – economic instability, political and civil unrest,...
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Need to save time? How much time do you spend in meetings?
Are you constantly running short on time? How many meetings did you attend last week? Were they productive? How much did they actually cost your organisation? In 2004 I relocated to the U.S from Australia after accepting a VP role for an organisation that was growing globally and as a...
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How do leaders overcome the obstacles of interruption and speed?
In 2006, Dr. André Martin conducted research on a sample of 800 leaders. Their age range was 29-70, and they were leaders in organisation’s ranging in size from 11 employees to 10,000. Sixty percent of the sample was male, with top executives representing about 30 percent of them. Although 52.7...
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