Emerge Stronger: Recent Episodes
Mojave Training Ltd
Each week the Emerge Stronger podcasts explores lessons and ideas on how to be a great leader and manager and to achieve success in your career and your business. Nick O’Sullivan MBE has 20 years of leadership and management experience, most gained in the Royal Marine Commandos but also the private sector. Simon Shaw has been teaching leadership and management for over 40 years and has a wealth of knowledge on the latest research and ideas. There’s also the occasional guest, hugely experienced and proven leaders themselves and all with a unique story, insights and experiences to share. It’s a rich vein of engaging content to help inspire you through your week and to enable you to be the best leader you can be – and to believe it.
In this week’s episode Simon and Nick discuss how to manage an effective Board.
· What issues should the board be concerned with, and what should they not.
· How to keep your boards eyes on the bigger picture.
· Board Culture
· Board disfunction means business paralysis.
· Responsibilities help by one and all.
· Chair is key.
This is the last episode in Season 2 of the Emerge Stronger Podcast, we hope you have a good Festive Season and hope to see you back in the New Year for Season 3.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon explore the roles and attributes of a Board of Directors. They explore a Boards purpose, the roles and responsibilities of its members - as well as what can happen when a Board isn’t working effectively.
- When do you need to stand one up?
- Who should be on your Board?
- What should they do – make sure the executives are doing things inline with what the business says it wants to do in the way that it wants to do it?
- Ensure your governance is in place and accessible to all board members and executives to work from.
- Operating an effective board is discussed in next week’s podcast.
Use full links:
UK_Corporate_Governance_Code_2018.pdf (frc.org.uk)
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss types of followers, and that individuals can move form one category to another, and this might be an indicator to other problems within a team or on an individual basis. They also discuss the merits of followership, but reasons to be wary of blind followership in order to maintain healthy conscious leadership and the importance of keeping a discussion about followship open.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon unpack the values and perils of always seeking consensus. They discus the prose and cons of consensus leadership and the pitfalls it may bring. They talk about circumstances in which a consensus culture might actually be an illusion, and how it can stifle innovation.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss the topic of making hard decisions easier. They cover Edward de Bono's six hats framework and how this is relevant, but also dive deeper into what makes some decisions hard and the other considerations in effect when in a leadership and management position. They then go onto reflect on ways in which you might make the tricky decisions a little easier to swallow.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss the power of policy and procedure. They discuss the importance of getting it right, to empower, protect and enable the people you lead. If you fail then it has the potential to divide, cause friction, stifle innovation and ultimately erode inclusion.
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In the episode we’re joined by Andrew Richards, former Army Officer, investment banker and now central banker. With extensive interest in and knowledge of inclusive leadership, both from his Army Career and in the finance sector, we explore the impact of inclusion (and exclusion), and how we can promote both.
We explore:
- How making time for inclusivity makes time for everything else
- Ensuring an inclusive environment isn’t just the role of the most senior person in the room
- The need to accept we all have unconscious bias
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In this weeks episode Nick talks once again with Deborah Knight from XseedLead about the power and perils of giving compliments in a work environment. They discuss the importance of compliments, the relationship they have to constructive feedback and the importance of taking one well. They also discuss the dynamic of a hierarchy when it comes to giving and being able to take a compliment and how they may be perceived - both up and down the food chain.
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Psychological Safety is a term now in frequent use. We all think we know what it means but very often we misuse the term. In this episode we explore what it is, why it’s important, how it differs from sociological safety and how we, as leaders, can promote both.
We explore:
- Psychological safety as a mask
- Sociological safety
- How it promotes inclusion and motivation
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The most common users of scenario-based training events are uniformed services. Why? Because they are highly effective at driving high-performance; people develop most quickly when put under pressure.
In this episode Nick is joined by Deborah Knight, Founder and Director of Xseed Lead, to explore their experience of such training and how it can help businesses drive higher performance.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon look back as a year of Mojave Training Ltd and discuss some of the high lights and key takeaways from starting Mojave one year ago. They discuss the journey of developing high quality course content, their favorite podcast episodes and the fun had along the way.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss the Power of Language as a leadership tool. The impact language has on the people you lead and to outcome you get. The strong relationship between language and emotion and how one influences the other.
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In this episode Nick and Simon discuss Mojave's online Leading People course and briefly touch on the relevance of each topic covered. Through understanding team dynamics, the importance of fairness and discussing how to get to grips with empowering your team to get the most out of them and ultimately develop and emerge as a stronger leader.
For more information: https://www.mojavetraining.co.uk/course/leading-people
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We all have fears. They can be very useful, but they can also be inhibitive or, in the worst cases, debilitating. How can we use fear to produce great outcomes instead of it constraining our ability to be our best selves?
In this episode we talk about:
- The function of fear
- How it works physiologically
- It’s function and dysfunction
- How we can harness it to achieve positive outcomes
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In this episode, Nick is joined once again by Andrew Millward-Boyton, Head of Operations for Gravity UK (part of the Adaptivist Group).
They explore some of the challenges that have emerged for organisations that have tried or are seeking to implement Agile and SAFe methodologies and what they may indicate in terms of evolving the thinking around such approaches.
In particular they discuss:
- Servant Vs Situational leadership
- Preparing the wider organisation not just the team
- Relevant management tools
- Selecting and developing suitable leaders
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In this week's episode Nick and Simon discuss the concept of authority and what it truly means.
“Authority is the currency of leadership. It must be earned if leaders are to be able to spend it”. A great line from Simon that really helps capture a key part of leadership.
There are elements of authority that are held by people in certain roles of course, but true authority is deeper than job titles. The most powerful form of authority is given by those being led, and once earned, it must be spent wisely.
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As business grow, things get increasingly complex, and that complexity create numerous challenges.
In this episode Nick and Simon explore the stages of business growth, the types of challenges that can occur and some thoughts as to how leaders at any level can navigate them successfully.
We explore topics of:
- Delegation
- Trust
- Governance
- Support systems
- Strategy
- Measures
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A lack of humility can make your team feel undervalued and intimidated. Ultimately it can stifle a diverse range of views and innovation. Humility is key to enabling a healthy team culture and can even help address inequality. Of course, that’s not to say there is no place for ego at all!
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In this week’s episode, Nick and Simon discus the little discussed topic of high performing teams looking after their leader. They discuss the concept of the leader being a vital part of the team and that for a team to become truly high performing they need to look after each and every member – including the leader. They discuss some of the constraints that teams might face when doing so and some of the options they have to look after their leader more effectively.
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In this week’s episode, Nick and Simon discus the topic of empowerment. They discuss the relationship between power and responsibility and power and empowerment. Delegation being an uncomfortable space to be in but it’s a necessary evil for organisations to remain agile and adaptable to any given situation.
They also discuss the direct correlation between the people’s approach to the work people are doing and their own values and the importance of making the work meaningful to individuals. They also discuss the necessity to build both peoples confidence and skill levels for them to want to take on more responsibility and ultimately feel empowered. This coupled with an importance in developing an ability not to micromanage people within your team and allow them to grow on their own terms, your role as a leader is the remove barriers not create them. Listen to find out how.
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In this week's episode, Nick and Simon are joined by Kasier, a leader in the field of gender equality. They discuss what the factors might be that contribute to gender inequality in the workplace, and what are the levers that leaders and managers can use to fix it.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss the topic of Emotional Intelligence covered by Mojave Training’s Leading People online course. They discuss the fine line to balance between the use of reasoned and logical debate verses using the leverage of emotion to inspire and motivate your people.
They also discuss how important it is to understand yourself before you can understand others and that it’s not just the job of the leader to develop their emotional intelligence but is just important for every team member to do their bit to create a functioning team.
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In this week's episode, Nick was joined by Margo Waldorf, self-confessed change specialist and change addict, to explore all things Change Management. They consider why, given change has always been present, is there an ever growing interest in change management, how it differs from what went before and what advantages change managers can bring to an organisation. They also highlighted the work Margo is doing to promote awareness of change managers and change makers through The Change Awards. If you deal with change in your organisation you may well want a listen!
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In this week’s episode, Nick and Simon do a deep dive into coaching, what it is, how we use it and how it can help you be a better leader. You don’t need to be a coach or set a formal coaching session to be a coach. They discuss the three spectrums of coaching; indirective and directive, the personal development and goals, therapeutic or performance based and what it takes to utilise all three effectively. They differentiate between coaching and training and stipulate how coaching usually is most effective over the longer term, anything short term normally forms part of a training package and is normally performance orientated.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss the topic of leading from the front and how it can benefit and hinder your team. They discuss a dependency that can be developed in a team where they become paralysed by their own reliance of their leader to lead the way and an inability to take their own initiative or develop the ideas of others. Allow others to follow your example by not always setting the example, and if you are going to set the example make sure it is a good one to follow and not a bad one. They also discuss the pitfalls from leading from the back and importance of making sure you’re not left too far behind, and you maintain a finger on the pulse of your team. They discuss the ability to be dynamic and morph between leading from the front and the back and the key elements required to enable this.
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In this weeks, episode Nick and Simon explore the topic of inclusivity, and how this can extrapolate to impacts on productivity and innovation. How to create the right environment, time and space for people to speak up but also to feedback on ideas from your people. How creating an inclusive environment can enable diversity which results in a richer environment for productivity and innovation.
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In this week’s episode, Nick and Simon are joined by Cliff Spolander from Business By Design, a business exit expert, about common pitfalls in owner managed businesses – particularly when it comes to making plans to exit the business. They discuss the importance of owner insight and how to guard against emotional decision making. Ensuring that you have an idea of how and when you wish to exit the business and how to protect the business from disruption. They also discuss the importance to prepare the business and develop a stand-alone entity to be passed in.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss the key requirements to enable team dynamics which is proven to deliver a high-performance capability within a team. They also debate the need of a diverse range of skill sets and capabilities within a team to give adaptability and durability to meat whatever challenges it faces. And they discuss the need for collective accountability over singling blame or praise solely on individuals, both when things go well and when things do not.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss the power of effective communication and why its important not to assume the communication process will work if it’s just a one way. Simon highlights just how much of our working life we spend communicating and the fact that we are hardwired to do so. Nick identifies how quick communication can quite often give an organisation the competitive environment, but accurate communication is also key to being effective and the two work well together to help counteract miscommunication. They talk about informal communication vs controlled communication, and how quite often the two can work together to clarify that the message has been fully understood. They discuss the differences in the communication continuum: orders, requests, suggestions and hints and the three main roles of communication – interpersonal, informational, and decision making and how the way in which you communicate differs on its role or purpose.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss what trust in the workplace looks like and how it makes a more effective team. They discuss the need for a combination of credibility, reliability, and intimacy to be truly trusted as a leader. They also discuss the concept of self-orientation and how this can affect your trustworthiness levels within a team and the way in which a team sees you as a leader. They also discuss how policy and process can both help and hinder the level of trust within a team. They also discuss what happens when the lack of trust in the workplace is on the other foot and results in a tendency to micromanage your team/team members due to your lack of trust in them to complete the job satisfactorily.
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In this week’s podcast Nick and Simon discuss the importance of looking after your people and keeping your team healthy and running at the top of their ability and productivity. They talk about how wider world events for individuals can be felt in the workplace, managers can’t influence these, but they can help manage the impact they have. They also explore how the work, and the work environment can be made more interesting and keep the employee engaged and excited about their role, even if that role includes the mundane and every day. They also discuss how you can manage expectations for the gaps that can left in an organisation due to staff absences both for the short and long term. And how you can avoid the reliance from individuals to fill that void for the long term – developing a ‘fair for everyone’ culture within your organisation through policies and processes.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss the importance of fairness in an organisation and how to lead fairly. They clarify the relevance of fair dealings, fair dos and fair play and highlight the three key areas where fairness can be managed. These being the importance of a fair framework in your Policies, processes and procedures, if this framework being applied fairly, and is the conduct of people applying the policies and procedures fair to everyone. Failure to manage any of these three areas fairly can erode trust in your organisation.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss the difference and impact leadership and management can make either for the better or for worse and the ripple effects this can have to the wider community. They discuss what is successful or good leadership; multi-layered; output orientated, and task focused. As well as setting the conditions for what comes next, building longevity in the team and workflow without burning out your resources. Short term vs long term leadership and how to balance to two for the best impact on your team. And how good Leadership is only possible when it is backed up by good management, systems, and processes.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon talk about their new online Leading People Course in particular the module on Motivation. They start with how this module covers Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but also explore the little known 6th level ‘Intrinsic Values’, which outlines a person’s transcendence beyond they’re normal limits and what they thought was possible. They discuss how Maslow’s theory is directly applicable to the work place and how to implement it in your organisation. They also discuss Frederick Herzberg’s hygiene and motivational factors and how to get the best impact from your motivational efforts through setting the right balance and elimination those de-motivational factors. Nick and Simon also give tips on how to enhance your teams sense of self and self autonomy and become a real motivational leader.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss the concept of supported functions, team(s) or elements of an organisation and their need for a supporting functions, team(s) or elements. They also discuss the fact how each element is just as important as the other, and that a good relationship, understanding and communication between each group is key for a symbiotic working environment.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss how strategy helps dispel uncertainty. They identify the four key levels of uncertainty, what strategy is, how it is misused as a concept and how you can use your strategy to filter out the noise of uncertainty. They also discuss the need for flexibility around strategy and developing a method for identifying the indicators that suggest your strategy is in need of review based on your operating environment.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss the key attributes needed to lead through a crisis. Talking through some key take away points to help you be effective in a crisis like increasing communication, the importance of creating a plan – both to stabilise the situation and regain control, then to plan a way out. The need to be flexible, creative and open to innovation and have the humility to seek help from the experts. But most importantly to be and honest visionary leader who is visible to your team in a crisis.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon identify what diversity is whether it be diversity in demographic or diversity in perspective, and the need for diversity to develop an inclusive society. They also discuss how the need to be inclusive shouldn’t divert from a business’s core values, and allow for teams to be built on individuals that are in alignment with those core values without being exclusive. Also, how leaders should embrace team members who challenge the norm with their perspectives or demographic with the aim of enriching and improving the organisation.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon discuss the relationship between empowerment and accountability. Can someone be held accountable if they’re not fully empowered to achieve the end state. And can someone be truly empowered if they are not held accountable for the decisions they make with their use of resources and authority. Is accountability the dirty word it is made out to be or can it too lead to better empowerment. Join Simon and Nick in their discussions.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss the definition of what an isolated leader is, the misconceptions as to what it means and how to avoid the pitfalls of becoming one yourself.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon way up the prospect of leaders vs managers. Is there a difference between the two, can you be effective in one area or do you need a blended strength in both areas to be successful. Nick and Simon discuss how you can be the most inspiring leader but it may not count if you can’t manage your people, your resources and your operational requirements. Likewise, you can be the most effective manager but if you don’t inspire your people will you reach the desired end state? Tune in to hear their conclusions.
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In this week’s episode Nick and Simon explore the need for ‘reserve’ in your team and your organisation capacity to deliver outcomes for the long haul. Can running an organisation too lean mean running hot? Can too hot mean a short route to blow out? Or does lean really mean factoring in a reserve capacity? And don’t forget adding a cash reserve into the mix – is your business set up to build in this kind of capacity and develop stability?
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss how relevant classic works on leadership and management are in today's ever changing leadership terrain. They discuss if lessons can be learnt from some of them today and how we can apply them.
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In the second part of this two part episode Nick and Andrew Millward-Boyton discuss the challenges faced by leaders to encourage and motivate people back into the workplace and the challenges leaders face to make this happen.
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In part 1 of this 2 part episode Nick talks to guest Andrew Millward-Boyton a Management and Leadership Consultant about the leadership lessons that can be learnt from the pandemic. Exploring the difference in behaviour and people skills in the real world verses the virtual - and if interactions typically more transactional. As well as looking at what are the impacts into personal space and how to manage this effectively.
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In this episode Simon discusses with Nick his experiences of what can happen if you let your character and your own desire manifest itself as cognitive dissonance and how it can get in the way of change. They discuss change, an organisations response to change, and a leaders role in enabling an organisation to respond to change effectively.
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In this weeks episode Nick and Simon talk to their guest Andrew Millward-Boyton a Leadership and Management Consultant with 25 years of experience working in the areas of organisational change. The three discuss the importance and pitfalls of straight talking and explore the benefits when done well.
In this weeks episode Nick and Simon discuss the importance of Mission Command and how differences in approach can help or hinder a businesses ability to adapt and maintain momentum in an increasingly fast paced business environment. They discuss the benefits of both a centralised command structure and a decentralised command structure and how, if you chose the wrong one for your team, it can be damaging for your business.
In this episode Nick and Simon discuss the short falls and challenges face with leading a team that works remotely and how to tackle these challenges before minor issues become bigger problems.
In this feature length 'Blue Monday' special episode Nick and Simon talk to Ben Williams a founder and CEO of Loopin - a tool that uses real-time employees wellbeing data analytics to gain a deeper understanding of employee engagement. Loopin enables companies to create a decentralised data model to increase retention, improve leadership, target training spend, and achieve environmental, social and governance objectives. Nick, Simon and Ben discuss the shortfalls of missed communication points within a team and how these can effect not only an individuals wellbeing, but also the overall productivity and effectiveness of a team.
In this episode Nick and Simon along with their guest Tracy Turton, a founding director of Covenant Partners, an Executive Search and Strategic Advisory company based in Milan, supporting clients globally. They discuss what traits Tracy sees regularly from successful leaders in her line of work and weather its all about the talent or if soft skills are equally as important in today's management and leadership jobs market.
In this episode Nick and Simon discuss the challenges when transitioning from managing a small team to something larger and the adaptations in leadership style that may be required.
In this episode Nick and Simon discuss how to get your ideas off the ground and make them reality. How to approach a project without getting overwhelmed, head down the proverbial rabbit hole or falling at the first hurdle.
What makes a good leader into a great leader? Is there a set formula or set of traits that results in effective leaderships? In this episode Nick and Simon explore what it takes and how anyone can develop the ability to reach for greatness.
In this episode Nick and Simon re-visit the topic of blame ans accountability before going onto explore Simon's Story Part 2. In this Podcast Simon discusses the importance of recognising a good team and how it can be even more important to keep hold of them to maintain your operational capability.
Nick discusses with his co-host Simon some of the best parts of his early leadership journey and career in the Royal Marines. With a key insight into feeling you've become part of something bigger than yourself, and the importance of buying into that psyche to develop as a stronger leader.
Nick and Simon talk about why some people are reluctant to lead and some can't wait. How being a reluctant leader isn't necessarily a negative thing and how to help prepare anyone reluctant or eager to lead at the best of their ability.
Nick and Simon explore the notion of being a competent leader and the importance of understanding markers which identify stages of competence. How to identify what competence looks like on the way to being proficient or even becoming an expert leader.
In this episode Simon and Nick discuss the unique difficulties and challenges faced by the intrepid 'Middle Manager'. Exploring how driving strategic direction down from the senior leaders and raising the needs of the team up can leave the middle manager stranded.
In this podcast we explore the difference between blame and accountability and discuss the critical function accountability has, and so what can go wrong when it is lacking.
I’m Simon Shaw from Mojave and in this episode I’m putting my co-host Nick O’Sullivan (Co-founder) in the hot seat. Nick’s going to talk about his early experiences of becoming a leader and what he’s learned from them - in fact, what we can all learn from them.
In this episode Nick O'Sullivan talks with Simon Shaw (fellow co-founder of Mojave Training Ltd) about his early experiences of leadership and how they led to him spending over four decades developing leadership skills in others.