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Episode 235 - How To Help Your Team Feel Heard

Summary

Most leaders understand the importance of listening, but far fewer understand what great listening actually looks like. Discover the research behind high-quality listening and why helping people feel genuinely heard can improve trust, engagement, wellbeing, and retention.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 235 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore the research behind high-quality listening and why helping people feel genuinely heard can improve trust, engagement, wellbeing, and retention.

Most leaders would agree that listening is important. In fact, if you ask people to describe the best leaders they've worked with, listening often appears near the top of the list. And yet, listening is one of those skills that can be easy to talk about and surprisingly difficult to do well.

Part of the challenge is that we often think of listening as a communication technique. We focus on maintaining eye contact, nodding, paraphrasing, and asking questions. While those behaviours can be helpful, research suggests that what matters most is whether the other person genuinely feels heard and understood. What we're after instead is high-quality listening.

Researchers who reviewed more than two decades of listening research identified three key elements of high-quality listening. First, giving someone your full attention. Second, genuinely seeking to understand what they mean, not just the words they're saying. And third, approaching the conversation with openness and curiosity rather than judgement.

When people experience this type of listening they become less defensive, more reflective, and more willing to share information and ideas. In other words, good listening doesn't just help people feel better - it changes the quality of the conversation itself.

Other recent research has also found that improving listening skills as a leader can reduce burnout and decrease people's intentions to leave an organisation. That's a useful reminder that listening can have a meaningful impact on wellbeing, engagement, and retention.

So what can leaders do?

First, focus on understanding before solving. Many leaders hear a problem and immediately jump to advice or solutions. Instead, try asking a question that checks your understanding. Something like, "So if I've understood correctly, the real challenge is…" This not only helps clarify the issue, it also demonstrates that you've genuinely been listening.

Second, remove distractions whenever possible. If you're having an important conversation, put your phone away, close unnecessary applications, and give the other person your full attention. People notice very quickly when you're only partially present, and it often changes what they're willing to share.

Third, become more comfortable with silence. Most of us feel pressure to respond immediately. Yet some of the most valuable insights emerge after a pause. When someone finishes speaking, resist the urge to jump in straight away. Give them a little space. You may find there's more they want to say.

Remember that listening isn't just about gathering information - it's about helping people feel understood. And when people feel understood, they're more likely to trust, engage, contribute, and collaborate. As leaders, one of the most valuable things we can offer isn't a solution or an answer. Sometimes it's simply our full attention.

Research references:

Kluger, A. N., & Itzchakov, G. (2022). The Power of Listening at Work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9, 121 to 146. https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-091013

Itzchakov, G., et al. (2023). Learning to listen: Downstream effects of listening training on employees' relatedness, burnout, and turnover intentions. Human Resource Management, 62(5), 731 to 752. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hrm.22103

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Summary

Hybrid work isn't simply about where people are most productive. New research shows that working remotely tends to satisfy our need for autonomy, while office days strengthen our sense of connection, with both playing a vital role in sustaining motivation. Rather than debating attendance, effective leaders intentionally design office days for collaboration and relationship building, and remote days for focused, independent work.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 234 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at the hidden motivation trade-off in hybrid work.

The debate about hybrid work often comes down to a single question: where are people most productive? Are they better off working from home or in the office?

While that's an understandable question, new research suggests it may not be the most helpful one. Instead of asking where people work best, perhaps we should be asking which psychological needs are being met in each environment.

A recent diary study published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology followed 187 employees over ten working days, collecting almost 3,000 daily observations. Rather than simply measuring productivity or job satisfaction, the researchers looked at three fundamental psychological needs identified in Self-Determination Theory: autonomy, competence and relatedness.

Autonomy is our need to feel we have choice and control over our work. Competence is our need to feel capable and effective. Relatedness is our need to feel connected to other people. These three needs are important because they underpin high-quality motivation. When they're met, people are more likely to feel engaged, energised and willing to contribute. When they're frustrated, motivation tends to become more controlled, draining and less sustainable. The findings paint a much more nuanced picture of hybrid work than many headlines suggest.

On remote workdays, employees experienced greater autonomy. They felt they had more control over how they structured their work and, importantly, they maintained their energy better throughout the day. The researchers found that this greater sense of autonomy was associated with lower declines in energy during the afternoon and evening. However, there was a trade-off.

On office days, employees experienced greater relatedness. They felt more connected to the people around them. While office work didn't provide the same autonomy benefits, it did satisfy an equally important psychological need to belong.

This suggests that the question isn't whether remote work is better than office work, or vice versa. Each environment appears to support different aspects of motivation. For leaders, this changes the conversation. Rather than arguing about how many days people should be in the office, we should be asking what each day is designed to achieve.

If someone comes into the office simply to spend eight hours attending virtual meetings with headphones on, they've probably lost much of the autonomy of working from home without gaining the connection that office work can provide. Likewise, if someone works remotely every day without meaningful interaction, they may enjoy greater independence but gradually lose the sense of belonging that helps teams perform well over time. The best hybrid leaders think less about attendance and more about purpose.

Office days should be designed around the activities that benefit most from human connection. Coaching conversations, creative problem-solving, mentoring, relationship building, onboarding new team members and tackling complex issues together are all likely to benefit from being face-to-face.

Remote days, on the other hand, can be protected for focused work, thoughtful analysis, writing, planning and tasks that benefit from uninterrupted concentration and greater flexibility.

This research also reminds us that motivation isn't like one bucket that we are either filling or depleting. Motivation is shaped by the environment leaders create. We influence motivation every time we decide how work is organised, how meetings are scheduled and how much choice people have over the way they complete their work.

There are three practical areas you can consider this week.

First, look at your team's calendar. Are office days genuinely designed around collaboration and connection, or are people simply working alone in a different location?

Second, think about remote work. Are people given enough autonomy to benefit from working remotely, or have online meetings gradually filled every available hour?

Finally, ask your team a simple question: "When do you feel most energised during your working week?" Their answers may tell you far more than another debate about office attendance.

The key takeaway is that hybrid work isn't primarily a location challenge. It's a motivation design challenge. Remote work tends to support autonomy. Office work tends to support connection. Great leaders understand that both needs matter, and they intentionally design work so their people experience the benefits of each.

As always the reference we used is in the show notes. If you did enjoy this episode, please take a few moments to rate and review it on your preferred podcast player - that helps others to find it. Have a great week.

Reference

Olafsen, A. H., Kujanpää, M., Stenling, A., Tafvelin, S., & Bentzen, M. (2026). Daily need experiences across office and remote workdays. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.

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• Five five day challenges with workbooks

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Summary Being busy does not protect people from boredom, and boredom does not mean someone has spare capacity. New research shows employees can be bored and burned out at the same time. This episode explores how role conflict, limited autonomy and poorly designed work create this combination, and what leaders can do about it.

Transcript Hello and welcome to the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. In this episode we explore whether it's possible to be both bored and burned out, and what that means for us at work.

We often think of boredom and burnout as opposites. A bored employee does not have enough to do, while a burned-out employee has far too much. One needs more work and the other needs less. But new research suggests that this neat distinction does not reflect how people actually experience work. Research shows it is possible to be extremely busy and still be bored. It is also possible to be both bored and burned out at the same time.

A recent longitudinal study examined different profiles of boredom, burnout and work engagement. Rather than assuming every employee fell somewhere on a simple line from disengaged to engaged, the researchers found several distinct combinations. Some people experienced the familiar pattern of high burnout and low engagement. Others experienced boredom and burnout together.

At first, that may sound contradictory. But think about a person whose day is packed with repetitive tasks, constant interruptions, unclear priorities and unnecessary administration. They may be exhausted by the volume and fragmentation of the work while also feeling under-stimulated by its content. They have too much to do, but it still doesn't feel challenging, meaningful or worthwhile.

That is one reason simply reducing workload may not solve every wellbeing problem. Managing workload matters enormously, but the design and quality of the work matter too. The research found that role conflict predicted less favourable wellbeing profiles. When people face incompatible expectations or competing priorities, they expend significant energy without necessarily experiencing progress or purpose.

By contrast, autonomy, learning opportunities and cognitive demands were associated with healthier wellbeing patterns. Cognitive demands do not mean overwhelming people with complexity. They involve providing enough challenge to keep work interesting and engaging.

There are three practical implications for leaders from this research:

First, don't just look at workload alone. Someone can have a full calendar and an overflowing task list while still feeling deeply under-challenged. Ask not only, "How much work do you have?" but also, "Which parts of your work are energising or stretching you?"

Second, reduce role conflict. Clarify priorities when expectations compete. If everything is urgent, people can spend enormous amounts of energy shifting between demands without feeling they have accomplished anything meaningful. Leaders add value by deciding what matters most.

Third, increase healthy challenge and autonomy. Look for opportunities to give people ownership, involve them in problem-solving, rotate responsibilities or build new skills. The goal is not to add more tasks - it is to create better work.

It is also worth paying attention to mixed signals. A person who appears disengaged may not lack motivation. They may be depleted by the wrong kind of demands. Someone who asks for more challenging work may not have spare capacity. They may be looking for work that feels more worthwhile than the tasks currently exhausting them.

The takeaway is that wellbeing is not simply about how hard people work. It is also about what they are working on, how much control they have and whether the work provides clarity, learning and meaning. Great leaders do not just manage the quantity of work. They improve its quality.

As always the reference used in this podcast is in the show notes. Have a great week.

Reference Toscanelli, C., Parmentier, M., Urbanavičiūtė, I., & Hirschi, A. (2026). The dynamics of well-being at work: Longitudinal profiles of boredom, burnout, and work engagement. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2026.2699462

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Five online courses with workbooks

• Five five day challenges with workbooks

• Nineteen recorded webinars

• A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges

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Summary

Humility is often overlooked as a leadership strength, yet research links it to higher trust, engagement, creativity, and performance. Learn why humility is far more than being nice and discover practical ways to demonstrate confidence, openness, and a willingness to learn.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 232 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership.

When we think about great leadership, humility isn't always the first quality that comes to mind. We often focus on confidence, vision, decisiveness, or influence. Yet some of the most effective leaders demonstrate humility. They don't pretend to have all the answers, they're quick to recognise the contributions of others, and they're always learning.

It turns out that humility isn't just a nice leadership quality, it has a measurable impact on how people experience their leader.

Two recent research reviews back this up. The larger paper brought together 212 separate studies on leader humility and found that, above everything else, humble leadership predicts how satisfied people are with their leader and how much leaders involve others in decisions. It also improves how well teams and individual followers perform. A second review, of 53 studies covering more than 16,000 people found humble leadership is linked to stronger trust, deeper engagement, greater job satisfaction, more creativity, and better performance at the individual level.

The second review also answered a question that's followed humility research for a while: is this just transformational leadership, servant leadership, or ethical leadership wearing a different name? The answer, in large part, was no. Humility contributed something beyond those other styles when predicting how people think and feel about their work. It has its own distinct influence.

So what does humility look like in practice? Across this research, humble leaders share three things in common:

1. They have an accurate understanding of their own strengths and limitations
2. They genuinely appreciate the strengths and contributions of others, and
3. They're open to feedback, learning, and changing their views when presented with new information.

In other words, humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's having an accurate view of yourself while recognising that others have valuable perspectives and capabilities too.

So what can leaders do to develop greater humility?

First, become comfortable saying "I don't know" or "I was wrong". Many leaders worry that admitting uncertainty will undermine their credibility. In reality, people often trust leaders more when they're honest about what they know and what they don't know. It also creates an environment where others feel safe to admit mistakes, ask questions, and learn.

Second, give credit generously. When someone on your team contributes an idea, solves a problem, or helps achieve a result, make sure people know where the contribution came from. It's a simple habit, but it sends a powerful message that leadership isn't about personal recognition, it's about helping others succeed. And when people feel their contributions are noticed and valued, they're more likely to continue contributing.

Third, regularly seek feedback from the people around you. One simple question is, "What's something I do that gets in the way of you doing your best work?" The key is not just asking the question, but listening carefully to the answer. Resist the urge to explain or defend. Instead, thank the person for their feedback, reflect on what you've heard, and look for opportunities to improve.

The key point is that humility isn't weakness. it's not a lack of confidence, and it's certainly not about downplaying your strengths. Humility is having the confidence to recognise that you don't have all the answers and that other people have valuable insights to contribute. People are more willing to trust, engage with, and follow leaders who are continuing to learn and grow.

Have a great week.

Research references

Chandler, J. A., Johnson, N. E., Jordan, S. L., Brian, D. K., & Short, J. C. (2023). A meta-analysis of humble leadership: Reviewing individual, team, and organizational outcomes of leader humility. The Leadership Quarterly, 34(1), 101660. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984322000637

Luo Y, Zhang Z, Chen Q, Zhang K, Wang Y, Peng J. (2022) Humble leadership and its outcomes: A meta-analysis. Front Psychol. 2022 Dec 21;13:980322. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980322. PMID: 36619057; PMCID: PMC9811147.

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Five online courses with workbooks

• Five five day challenges with workbooks

• Nineteen recorded webinars

• A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Underperformance conversations often go wrong before they even begin. In this episode, we explore the CLEAR framework to help leaders prepare with greater clarity, curiosity and confidence. You'll learn how to clarify the purpose, listen well, explore causes, agree on next steps and reinforce progress after the conversation.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 231 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at how to prepare for an underperformance conversation.

Most leaders think the hardest part of a performance conversation is the conversation itself. In my experience the hardest part is often the period beforehand. It's the days or weeks spent thinking about the conversation, worrying about how the other person might react and wondering whether you're approaching the situation in the right way.

I've noticed that when leaders describe a performance conversation that went badly, the problem rarely started in the conversation itself. More often, the leader entered the discussion without enough clarity. They hadn't fully thought through what they wanted to achieve. They weren't clear on the evidence they wanted to discuss. They hadn't considered the other person's perspective. And because they weren't prepared, they became reactive when the conversation didn't unfold exactly as expected.

What's interesting is that the conversations we avoid are often the conversations that would help the most. A performance issue continues. Team members become frustrated. Standards start slipping. The leader becomes increasingly concerned. Yet the conversation keeps getting postponed because it feels uncomfortable. Unfortunately, avoidance doesn't make the issue smaller. It usually makes it larger.

By the time the conversation finally happens, something else has often occurred as well. The leader has spent weeks carrying the emotional weight of the issue. They've replayed examples in their mind. They've built up frustration. They've developed assumptions about why the problem exists. In some cases, they've already decided what the other person thinks before they've even had the discussion. That's why preparation matters so much.

Douglas Stone in his work on difficult conversations, suggests that these conversations become challenging when the stakes matter, views differ and emotions are involved. That combination exists in almost every performance discussion. The goal of preparation isn't to eliminate those factors. The goal is to help us navigate them more effectively.

One framework that is particularly useful is CLEAR. The framework provides a simple structure for thinking about a conversation before it happens. It doesn't give you a script to follow. Instead, it helps you clarify your thinking so you can enter the conversation with confidence, curiosity and purpose.

The first step is Context. Before you think about what you want to say, it's worth asking yourself why you're having the conversation in the first place. What is the purpose? What outcome are you hoping to achieve? What would success look like? Many leaders focus immediately on the problem. They begin preparing examples, evidence and arguments. While those things matter, starting with the problem can create a mindset where the goal becomes proving a point. A more useful approach is to start with the outcome. If the conversation goes well, what will be different afterwards? For example, perhaps you want someone to understand the impact of their behaviour on others. Perhaps you want them to improve a particular aspect of performance. Perhaps you want to understand what obstacles are getting in the way of success. Clarifying the purpose helps shape everything that follows.

The second step is Listen. This is where many leaders struggle because we've often spent so much time thinking about our perspective that we forget to explore theirs. When leaders describe performance conversations that went unexpectedly well, one of the most common reasons is that they learned something they didn't know beforehand. The person revealed challenges, concerns or circumstances that completely changed how the leader understood the situation. Listening doesn't mean agreeing. It doesn't mean lowering expectations. It simply means recognising that there may be information you don't yet have. Questions such as, "How do you think things have been going?", "What's been most challenging recently?" or "How do you see the situation?" create opportunities for insight. Sometimes the other person is already aware of the issue and has been struggling with it for some time. Sometimes they have a completely different interpretation of events. Either way, listening helps ensure the conversation is based on understanding rather than assumption.

The third step is Explore. This is where we move from symptoms to causes. We have previously discussed clarity, capability, confidence, and motivation. The Explore stage is where those concepts become useful. Rather than assuming you already know why the issue exists, you start investigating possible explanations. Perhaps the person lacks a particular skill. Perhaps they're uncertain about expectations. Perhaps they're experiencing personal challenges. Perhaps they've lost confidence after a setback. Perhaps they're doing acceptable work but have stopped growing. The key is curiosity. Many leaders approach performance conversations believing they need to diagnose the problem before entering the room. A better approach is to enter the room with hypotheses rather than conclusions. Be willing to test your assumptions and adjust your thinking based on what you learn.

The fourth step is Agree. Once both perspectives have been explored and the likely causes are becoming clearer, it's time to discuss what happens next. This is where vague commitments can become a problem. Statements such as "I'll try harder", "I'll do my best" or "We'll keep an eye on it" sound positive, but they rarely create lasting change because nobody is clear about what success actually looks like. Effective agreements are specific. What will change? What actions will be taken? What support will be provided? How will progress be measured? When will you check in again? The more specific the agreement, the greater the likelihood of improvement. Clarity reduces confusion and creates accountability.

The final step is Reinforce. Many leaders treat the conversation as the finish line when it should really be viewed as the starting point. Most meaningful performance improvement occurs after the conversation. People need encouragement, support and accountability. They need opportunities to discuss progress and obstacles. They need recognition when they improve and guidance when they struggle. Without reinforcement, even a strong conversation can lose momentum. With reinforcement, a difficult conversation can become the catalyst for genuine growth.

Running through all five stages is one underlying principle: curiosity. The most productive conversations are often those where the leader creates the conditions for understanding to emerge. Rather than delivering a verdict, they facilitate a discussion. Rather than proving a point, they explore possibilities. Rather than solving the problem alone, they work with the other person to identify a path forward. That's why preparation matters so much. Good preparation doesn't help you control the conversation. It helps you enter the conversation with greater clarity, confidence and curiosity.

This week, think about a performance conversation you need to have. Spend ten minutes working through the CLEAR framework. Clarify the context, identify questions you want to ask, think about what you need to explore, consider what agreement might look like and decide how you'll reinforce progress afterwards. You may find that the conversation feels significantly less daunting once you've taken the time to prepare properly.

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Summary

Underperformance is often treated as a motivation problem when the real issue may be a lack of clarity, capability or confidence. Effective leaders resist the temptation to jump to conclusions and instead focus on understanding what's driving performance. By diagnosing before prescribing, asking better questions and creating clear expectations, leaders can prevent many performance issues before they occur.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 230 of the Leadership Today Podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore four areas that will help you to diagnose likely performance issues before they become a problem.

When someone in our team starts underperforming, it's remarkable how quickly we jump to conclusions. We see missed deadlines, lower quality work, reduced initiative or declining engagement and often assume we already know what's going on. They must have lost motivation. They've become complacent. They don't care as much as they used to. Before long, we've developed a story about the cause of the problem, often with very little evidence.

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make when managing performance is assuming they know why someone is underperforming. We observe behaviour and immediately start interpreting it. The challenge is that while behaviour is visible, the causes behind that behaviour are often hidden. Two people can display exactly the same performance issue for completely different reasons.

I was recently facilitating a workshop on managing underperformance and asked participants to think about someone in their team whose performance wasn't where they wanted it to be. The leaders could easily describe what they were seeing. They talked about missed deadlines, lower quality work, avoidance of difficult tasks, reduced initiative and a general drop in engagement. What was much harder was identifying why those behaviours were occurring. As the discussion unfolded, it became clear that most leaders were highly confident about the symptoms but far less certain about the causes.

A useful way to think about performance is through four questions. Does the person know what good performance looks like? Can they do it? Do they believe they can do it? And do they want to do it? These questions point us towards four common drivers of performance: clarity, capability, confidence and motivation. Understanding which of these is getting in the way is often the difference between solving a problem and making it worse.

For example, someone may avoid a task because they weren't aware it was important. Another might avoid it because they genuinely don't have the skills or experience to complete it effectively. Another person may avoid exactly the same task because they're worried they'll fail or look incompetent. Another person may avoid it because they simply don't see personal value in the task and have disengaged from the outcome. From the outside, all three situations can look identical. We see avoidance, hesitation or procrastination. What we don't immediately see is the reason behind it.

This is why curiosity is such an important leadership skill. Rather than asking, "What's wrong with this person?", effective leaders ask, "What's getting in the way of this person's success?" That subtle shift moves us away from judgement and towards understanding. It encourages us to gather information before reaching conclusions and significantly improves our chances of providing the support people actually need.

Research provides some useful insights here. Self-Determination Theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, suggests that people are more likely to be motivated when three psychological needs are met: competence, autonomy and relatedness. Competence is the feeling that we can do something well. Autonomy is having some choice and control over our work. Relatedness is feeling connected to others and to a broader purpose. What's particularly interesting is that competence sits at the foundation. When people don't feel capable, motivation often suffers as a result.

Think about a time when you were asked to do something that felt completely outside your comfort zone. Perhaps you were asked to present to a large audience, lead a major project or take responsibility for something you'd never done before. Chances are you didn't immediately feel highly motivated. You may have procrastinated, delayed getting started or looked for reasons to avoid the task. Someone observing your behaviour might have concluded that you lacked motivation. In reality, the issue may have been capability, confidence or both.

The same thing happens in our teams. Leaders often assume a motivation problem when the real issue is capability or confidence. The reverse can happen as well. Sometimes leaders invest heavily in training and development when the real issue is that someone no longer feels connected to the purpose of their work. Without understanding the cause, we're simply guessing.

Another contributor to underperformance that often gets overlooked is clarity. Many performance issues begin long before performance actually declines. They start when expectations are vague, inconsistent or poorly communicated. I've worked with leaders who were frustrated that team members weren't demonstrating enough initiative, only to discover that nobody had clearly defined what initiative actually looked like. Different leaders had different expectations, making it almost impossible for people to consistently succeed.

It's difficult to hit a target you can't clearly see. People are far more likely to perform well when they understand what success looks like, how their work contributes to broader goals and what standards are expected of them. Sometimes what appears to be an accountability issue is really an expectations issue. The conversation that needs to happen isn't about performance correction. It's about performance clarity.

So what can we do as leaders? First, diagnose before you decide. When you notice a performance issue, resist the temptation to immediately label it as a motivation problem. Consider whether the issue might relate to clarity, capability, confidence or motivation. Gather information before reaching conclusions.

Second, ask better questions. Questions such as "What's been most challenging about this?" or "What support would help you succeed?" often reveal far more than assumptions ever will. The quality of our diagnosis depends heavily on the quality of our questions.

Third, focus on prevention rather than correction. The best underperformance conversation is often the one you never need to have because expectations were clear from the beginning. Invest time upfront defining success, checking understanding and providing regular feedback before problems emerge.

Managing underperformance can be one of the most challenging aspects of leadership, but it becomes much easier when we replace assumptions with curiosity. Most people don't come to work intending to underperform. More often, something is getting in the way of their success. Our role as leaders is to understand what that obstacle is and help remove it.

This week, think about someone whose performance isn't where you'd like it to be and ask yourself four questions: Do they know what good looks like? Can they do it? Do they believe they can do it? Do they want to do it? Your answers may completely change the conversation you need to have.

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Summary

Quiet quitting isn't usually about laziness or a lack of motivation. Research suggests it's often a sign that the relationship between an employee and their organisation has become unbalanced. Discover how leaders can spot the warning signs early and rebuild engagement through better conversations and clearer expectations.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 229 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to re-engage a "quiet quitter".

Over the past few years, you've probably heard the term "quiet quitting" - the idea that some people are stepping back from their roles to just do the bare minimum. It's one of those phrases that quickly gained popularity and sparked plenty of debate. Some people viewed it as a sign that employees had become less committed. Others saw it as a healthy rejection of unrealistic work expectations.

But the important question is what causes someone who was once engaged, enthusiastic, and willing to go the extra mile to start doing only the minimum required in the first place? Recent research suggests the answer has less to do with motivation and more to do with relationships and fairness.

Researchers studying quiet quitting have found that one of the strongest predictors is employees' perceptions of the exchange relationship they have with their organisation. In simple terms, people compare what they're contributing with what they're receiving in return. When they feel the relationship has become unbalanced and they don't see a way to improve it, they often respond by reducing their discretionary effort. Importantly, this doesn't necessarily mean they're planning to leave. Instead, they adjust their level of investment. They continue to do their job, but they stop contributing the extra effort that often drives innovation, collaboration, and performance.

The research also points to an important leadership influence. Teams whose leaders maintain regular conversations about both work and wellbeing appear less likely to experience quiet quitting. In other words, leaders who stay connected with their people are often better able to identify and address issues before disengagement takes hold. So what can you do to reduce the risk of quiet quitting?

First, have open conversations about expectations. Work relationships involve an ongoing exchange. What is the employee contributing? What are they receiving in return? Have either of those things changed recently? These discussions can sometimes uncover relatively small issues that, if left unaddressed, gradually erode engagement.

Second, make sure your one-on-one meetings cover more than just tasks and deadlines. It's important to understand how people are feeling about their role, what's energising them, and what's becoming frustrating or difficult. These conversations often provide early warning signs that someone may be disengaging.

Third, if you notice a drop in effort or enthusiasm, get curious rather than critical. It's tempting to focus on the behaviour itself. However, quiet quitting is often a symptom rather than the problem. Understanding what has changed is usually more productive than immediately trying to correct the behaviour.

The key point is that quiet quitting is rarely about laziness. More often, it's a signal that something in the relationship between the employee and the organisation has shifted. As leaders, we may not be able to solve every issue, but we can create the conversations that help us understand what's really going on. And often, that's the first step towards rebuilding engagement.

Have a great week.

Research references:

Galanis, P., et al. (2023). The quiet quitting scale: Development and initial validation. AIMS Public Health, 10(4), 828 to 848. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10764970/

Dilchert, S., et al. (2026). Expanding Our Understanding of Quiet Quitting: Antecedents, Correlates, and Consequences. Human Resource Management. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hrm.70038

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Episode 228 - How To Get The Best From AI Without Falling Off The Edge

Summary

AI can be incredibly helpful, but it's not always right. Learn about the "jagged frontier" of AI capability and why the most effective leaders know when to rely on AI and when human judgement remains essential. Discover practical ways to get the benefits of AI without falling into its traps.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 228 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. In this episode we explore the so-called "jagged frontier" of Artificial Intelligence - where we fail to apply human judgement and pay the price.

If you've been using AI for a while, you've probably had two very different experiences. Sometimes it feels almost magical. It helps you generate ideas, summarise information, improve your writing, and solve problems faster than you thought possible. Then there are those other moments. The answer sounds convincing, looks professional, and is completely wrong.

Understanding why that happens is becoming one of the most important leadership skills of our time.

A study involving more than 750 consultants at Boston Consulting Group explored the impact of using GPT-4 on a range of consulting tasks. The results were impressive. People completed more work, worked faster, and generally produced higher-quality outputs when using AI. But the researchers uncovered something equally important. When participants used AI on tasks that were beyond the technology's capabilities, their performance actually became worse. The AI didn't simply fail to help. It often led people towards the wrong answer.

The researchers described this as the "jagged frontier" of AI. Some tasks sit comfortably within AI's capabilities and the benefits can be substantial. Other tasks sit just beyond that frontier. The challenge is that AI often sounds equally confident in both situations. That's why the biggest risk with AI isn't that it makes mistakes. Humans make mistakes too. The risk is that we stop applying our own judgement because the answer looks so polished and convincing. So what can leaders do?

First, identify where AI genuinely adds value in your work. Think about the tasks where it consistently helps you save time, generate ideas, improve communication, or increase quality. Just as importantly, identify the situations where you've seen it get things wrong. Understanding both sides of the equation helps you use AI more effectively.

Second, keep your judgement in the process. For important decisions, strategic thinking, or complex problem-solving, consider forming your own view before turning to AI. Even a few notes or bullet points can help you avoid being overly influenced by the first answer AI provides.

Third, have open conversations with your team about how they are using AI. Some tasks may be suitable for handing over largely to the technology. Others require people to stay actively involved, challenging assumptions and validating outputs along the way. The more explicit you are about these differences, the better the outcomes are likely to be.

The key point is that AI is neither a miracle solution nor something to be feared. It's a powerful tool with strengths and limitations. The leaders who get the greatest benefit won't be those who use it for everything - they'll be the ones who learn where it performs best and where human judgement remains essential.

Have a great week.

Research reference: Dell'Acqua, F., et al. (2023). Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality. Harvard Business School Working Paper 24-013. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4573321

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Summary

Feeling exhausted despite being busy all day? Research suggests that short breaks throughout the day can boost energy, reduce fatigue, and help sustain performance. Discover how leaders can use microbreaks more effectively and encourage healthier work habits across their team.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 227 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we're exploring how to use microbreaks to restore focus.

Have you ever reached the end of a day and wondered why you're exhausted despite never really stopping? Many leaders spend their day moving from meeting to meeting, email to email, task to task, without taking a genuine break. We often assume that pushing through is a sign of commitment and productivity. But there comes a point where working longer doesn't mean working better.

It turns out that even very short breaks can make a difference.

A 2022 review of more than 20 studies found that microbreaks, breaks of less than ten minutes, help boost energy levels and reduce fatigue. In other words, those small pauses throughout the day aren't wasted time. They're one of the ways we sustain performance over the longer term.

The researchers also found an important limitation. Microbreaks help maintain energy, but they aren't a substitute for proper recovery. If you've spent two hours doing deep analysis, solving complex problems, writing a major report, or making difficult decisions, a five-minute break will help, but it won't completely restore you. Some work requires a more substantial break. That's why lunch breaks, time away from work, and good recovery outside of work still matter.

So what can leaders do?

First, build short breaks into your day before you feel exhausted. Most of us wait until our energy is gone before stepping away. A better approach is to take a brief break every 60 to 90 minutes. Stand up, walk around, grab a drink, stretch, or simply look away from your screen for a few minutes. The goal is to create a genuine mental shift, even if it's only for a short period of time.

Second, match your work to your energy. Try to schedule your most demanding work when you're feeling fresh. Save routine tasks, administration, and email for periods when your energy is naturally lower. Too often we do the opposite, spending our best hours reacting to other people's priorities and leaving our most important work until we're already mentally depleted.

Third, role model healthy habits. Teams often take their cues from their leader. If you're working through lunch, responding to emails late at night, and sitting at your desk all day, others may feel pressure to do the same. When leaders take sensible breaks and openly manage their energy, they give others permission to do likewise.

The key point is that performance isn't just about how hard we work. It's also about how well we recover. Small breaks won't solve everything, but they can help us maintain our energy, focus, and effectiveness throughout the day. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do next is step away for a few minutes.

Have a great week.

Research reference: Albulescu, P., et al. (2022). "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0272460. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0272460

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Summary

One in five people feel lonely at work. While loneliness is often seen as a personal issue, research suggests leaders play a bigger role than they might realise in helping people feel connected, included, and supported.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 226 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership.

Most of us think of loneliness as something that happens outside of work. But Gallup's latest global research found that around one in five workers feel lonely at work.

Workplace loneliness isn't just about how people feel - research shows it's linked to higher burnout, lower performance, more sick leave, and greater turnover. In fact, loneliness can be just as damaging to performance as job dissatisfaction.

A recent review published in Occupational Medicine found that one of the strongest workplace factors associated with lower loneliness is leadership. Leaders who are supportive, approachable, and empowering help create an environment where people feel connected and valued.

Now, leaders can't solve every cause of loneliness. People bring their own circumstances, personalities, and experiences to work. But we can influence whether work becomes a place where people feel connected or isolated.

Here are three practical ways to help.

First, make genuine connection part of your regular conversations. Before jumping into tasks and deadlines, spend a minute asking how someone is going and really listen to the answer. People often don't need a solution. They just need to know someone is interested.

Second, pay attention to inclusion. Most people don't feel excluded during formal meetings. They feel excluded from the conversations before and after them. Notice who gets invited into informal discussions, brainstorming sessions, and problem-solving conversations. Small moments of inclusion often have a bigger impact than large team-building activities.

Third, be deliberate with hybrid work arrangements. People can easily become disconnected when their work patterns don't overlap with the rest of the team. Sometimes a simple conversation about coordinating office days can dramatically improve connection and collaboration.

The key point is this. Loneliness at work isn't simply a personal issue - it's often a leadership issue. Every interaction either strengthens or weakens someone's sense of belonging. As leaders, we have more influence over that than we might think.

Have a great week.

Research reference: Wright, J. K., et al. (2024). Loneliness in the workplace: a mixed-method systematic review and meta-analysis. Occupational Medicine, 73(9), 557 to 567. https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/73/9/557/7591258

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Summary

In this conversation, Andrew Beveridge speaks with Brad Englert, founder of Brad Englert Advisory and author of 'Spheres of Influence'. They discuss the importance of mentorship, building genuine relationships in business, and the significance of understanding both internal and external spheres of influence. Brad shares insights from his extensive experience in IT and leadership, emphasising the need for proactive customer service, the power of apology, and the challenges of influencing without formal authority. The discussion also touches on the dynamics of hybrid work environments and the importance of maintaining connections in a remote setting. Learn more about Brad and access a free chapter of his book - https://bradenglert.com/podcast/

Takeaways

• Mentorship is a two-way street, involving both giving and receiving.
• Understanding your boss's expectations is crucial for success.
• Building genuine relationships can lead to long-term success.
• Proactive customer service is more effective than reactive fire drills.
• Apologising can build trust and strengthen relationships.
• Long-term relationships can lead to unexpected opportunities.
• Creating a positive organisational culture requires clear communication and values.
• Navigating crises requires preparation and strong relationships.
• Influencing others without authority is a key leadership skill.
• Hybrid work environments require intentional relationship-building.

Chapters

00:11 Introduction to Brad Englert

03:26 Understanding Spheres of Influence

10:13 Building Genuine Relationships

16:24 Cultural Transformation in IT

23:04 Navigating Crisis and Change

28:58 The Power of Apology

32:24 Communication and Clarity in Leadership

36:52 Understanding Expectations and Influencing Upwards

39:29 Building Customer Relationships

45:02 Influencing Without Authority

48:46 Navigating Hybrid Work Environments

51:59 Looking Ahead: The Future of Leadership

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Summary

We each have mindsets that we bring to our leadership. In this final of a five part series, we explore Drive for Growth and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 225 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. In this final of a five part series, we explore Drive for Growth and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

We are continuing to explore The Leader’s Mindset which has four elements: Goal Orientation, Optimistic Outlook, Options Thinking and Drive for Growth. I encourage you to listen to the previous episodes first and also take the time to complete our free Mindset to Action assessment. This provides detailed feedback on all four areas along with development suggestions. Just go to https://leadership.today/mta

Continuing our journey metaphor, we can be clear about where we’re going, have a positive attitude towards that journey, and even be great at identifying various options to get there, but without Drive for Growth we won’t make progress.

Drive for Growth is like momentum and making forward progress on the journey. With a Drive for Growth mindset, a person will be motivated to keep going and persist even when things get hard. They push themselves to standards that are greater than the minimum that’s expected. Without a Drive for Growth, a person tends to give up when things become difficult to achieve. They also find it hard to get going on a task they know will be difficult.

Sometimes it can feel like some people are just born with higher levels of drive and motivation, but we can all develop and improve our Drive for Growth. Here are five practical ideas you can use:

1. Boost Your Mood: Procrastination is about putting short term mood repair over long term results. We procrastinate because it makes us feel better in the moment. Research demonstrates that boosting your mood by completing an activity you enjoy makes you less likely to procrastinate. Whether it's going for a quick walk or talking with a colleague, take a few moments to boost your mood before you begin.
2. Start Small: Getting started can be the hardest part of pursuing any goal. Identify a small first step you can take to make progress. Dedicating a short amount of time such as 10 to 15 minutes to begin can also be a useful approach. You can then add another 10 to 15 minutes on at the end, as you're likely to be more motivated once you get started.
3. Review Why It Matters: It's challenging to make progress when we lose sight of why our actions matter. Think about your broader goals and sense of purpose in life. Identify how activities align with this purpose to give you that extra motivation.
4. Reflect on Progress: Take stock of the progress you have already made. Think about where you were a month or a year ago and reflect on what you've learned and how you've grown. This will help to build your confidence and motivation to keep going.
5. Recognise That Growth is Difficult: Learning anything new is uncomfortable. Feeling awkward and wanting to give up are natural responses to trying any new activity or pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. It doesn't mean that you lack potential. Push through the awkwardness towards growth and improvement. Becoming comfortable with feeling uncomfortable is a key part of a Drive for Growth mindset.

Choose one of these to practice over the coming week. That’s our final episode in this series on The Leader’s Mindset. If you found the episodes and Mindset to Action assessment helpful, please share them with a friend or colleague. We are committed to sharing resources that help everyone with their leadership and you play a big part in spreading the news. Have a great week as you become an even better leader.

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Summary

We each have mindsets that we bring to our leadership. In this fourth of a five part series, we explore Options Thinking and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 224 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. In this fourth of a five part series, we explore Options Thinking and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

We are continuing to explore The Leader’s Mindset which has four elements: Goal Orientation, Optimistic Outlook, Options Thinking and Drive for Growth. I encourage you to listen to the three previous episodes first and also take the time to complete our free Mindset to Action assessment. This provides detailed feedback on all four areas along with development suggestions. Just go to https://leadership.today/mta

We often aren’t great at coming up with multiple options when we encounter challenges. Typically we will generate one option, and then become stuck if that option doesn’t work.

Options Thinking is like identifying various pathways to the destination on your journey. With Options Thinking, a person identifies ways around emerging challenges and problems. They are confident in their ability to come up with another way around obstacles they might face. Without Options Thinking, a person gets stuck when things don’t go to plan. They find it hard to identify new ways to reach their destination when the first pathway is blocked.

So Options Thinking has two parts - the identification of options up front, and then immediately focusing on options when you become stuck.

There are five ways you can build your Options Thinking:

1. Brainstorm Options: When you face an obstacle, immediately start to brainstorm options. Recognise that option generation and option evaluation are two distinct steps. If we are trying to evaluate our options while we generate them, we will often throw out too many options that could have merit. Instead, spend time generating multiple options before evaluating them.
2. Ask Yourself Questions - Use these questions to help prompt further options:
   • What are your options moving forward?
   • What else might you do?
   • What has worked so far?
   • How could you do more of that?
   • Who else could help?
   • What are the pros and cons of these options?
   • What are the easiest options that will have the biggest impact?
3. Engage Others: Ask a trusted colleague or friend to help you generate new options. Having someone asking you for further options and guiding you towards new areas to consider is extremely helpful. It's often even better if the person isn't close to the problem so they can take a more objective view.
4. Change Your Setting: Consider where you come up with your best ideas. Most people develop their best ideas when they’re relaxed, maybe having a shower or going for a walk, and when they’re interacting with others. Make sure you give your brain time to relax and consider options, and bring others around you to bounce ideas off.
5. Reflect on Past Successes: Take time to reflect on moments when you have overcome challenges or worked through adversity. Reflecting on our past successes can encourage us to keep going and generate new ideas to move forward.

As always I encourage you to select one of these to practice over the coming week. In our final episode of this series we are going to explore Drive for Growth. Have a great week as you become an even better leader.

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Summary

We each have mindsets that we bring to our leadership. In this third of a five part series, we explore Optimistic Outlook and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 223 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. In this third of a five part series, we explore Optimistic Outlook and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

We are continuing to explore The Leader’s Mindset which has four elements: Goal Orientation, Optimistic Outlook, Options Thinking and Drive for Growth. I encourage you to listen to the two previous episodes first and also take the time to complete our free Mindset to Action assessment. This provides detailed feedback on all four areas along with development suggestions. Just go to https://leadership.today/mta

When I talk about mindsets, the most common one that people think of is optimism and pessimism. Optimism has lots of positive benefits, particularly when you combine it with the three elements of hope theory covered in the Mindset to Action assessment. Combining the two overcomes the main shortcoming of optimism, which is its lack of direction and momentum. Just looking at the world in a positive way and expecting good things to happen doesn’t take you anywhere - you need clear goals, openness to options, and the drive to push you forward.

Continuing our journey metaphor, Optimistic Outlook is like the perspective you bring to the journey. A person with an Optimistic Outlook thinks positively about the future, expecting things to go their way. They see the future as positive. A person without an Optimistic Outlook mindset focuses on the negatives and what can go wrong. They anticipate more bad things to happen than good things.

I’m often asked if it’s possible to have too much optimism. The research suggests this is the case, but that it’s pretty rare. For example, with extremely high levels of optimism I may be reluctant to take personal responsibility when things go wrong. What is more common is so-called toxic positivity, which describes a culture where people only focus on the positive and ignore challenges, criticisms and issues. The Leader’s Mindset is all about tackling challenges and making progress, therefore avoiding this potential trap.

The Mindset to Action report provides five ways of building and maintaining an Optimistic Outlook.

1. Gratitude Journal: Write down three new things that you are grateful for each day. This will help you to focus on the positive things happening around you that are so easy to miss. Before long, you will have trained yourself to focus more on the positive than the negative in your work and life.
2. Consider the Three P’s: Martin Seligman describes three ways in which optimists and pessimists think differently in both good and bad situations - personal, permanent and pervasive.

   • When things go wrong, an Optimistic Outlook involves:

     • Personal - not automatically blaming ourselves, but rather accepting the outside forces that have contributed to the situation
     • Permanent - not extending the bad situation out, but realistically appreciating that this will pass and that other good things are probably happening

     • Pervasive - not extending the challenging event to all aspects of our life, but rather compartmentalising it to one aspect of our life* When things go right, an Optimistic Outlook includes:

     • Personal - seeing the role that we played in achieving a good outcome

     • Permanent - extending out the good result over time, and making sure we reflect on the good things that are happening in our lives
     • Pervasive - using the good result to flow into other aspects of our life
     • Tame How You Speak To Yourself: Often the way we speak to ourselves is not very kind. When things go wrong we can quickly become our own worst critic. If a friend spoke to us the way we speak to ourselves in those moments, they probably wouldn’t be a friend for very long. Instead, be generous and kind to yourself. Speak to yourself as a supportive friend.
     • Reframe Challenges as Opportunities for Growth: When we expand our horizons and try new things, we build optimism and resilience. Sure, we might make mistakes or find new things hard - that’s to be expected. See these minor setbacks as chances to become wiser, stronger and more capable.

Why not pick one of these to practice over the coming week? In the next episode we are going to explore Options Thinking. Have a great week as you become an even better leader.

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Five online courses with workbooks

• Five five day challenges with workbooks

• Nineteen recorded webinars

• A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges

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Summary

We each have mindsets that we bring to our leadership. In this second of a five part series, we explore Goal Orientation and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 222 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. In this second of a five part series, we explore Goal Orientation and the role it plays in The Leader’s Mindset.

In the last episode we introduced The Leader’s Mindset which has four elements: Goal Orientation, Optimistic Outlook, Options Thinking and Drive for Growth. I encourage you to listen to that episode first and also take the time to complete our free Mindset to Action assessment. This provides detailed feedback on all four areas along with development suggestions. Just go to https://leadership.today/mta

Snyder’s hope theory, which the Leader’s Mindset is partly based on, indicates that setting and pursuing meaningful goals is a core element of satisfaction, well-being and general health. Yet we’re typically not great at setting and achieving goals. Research reveals that of the roughly 50% of people that set a New Year resolution, only 8% achieve the goal they set. Research from Strava, the fitness tracking company, reveals that of those who set a clear fitness goal for the new year, a full 80% have given up within two weeks. That’s people who are motivated to make a change and encouraged to set a structured goal. So what goes wrong?

Setting a goal is a rewarding activity, but working toward a goal requires effort. This shift from reward to effort is where many people give up. We also know that development and growth is uncomfortable. It’s typically more comfortable to just let the goal go and stay where we are. We also often express our goals as a general desire rather than a decision. Compare “I want to improve my public speaking” with “I will improve my public speaking”. The second statement demonstrates a decision to change.

If we use the metaphor of a journey, Goal Orientation is like identifying a destination point on a map. With a Goal Orientation mindset a person is clear about what success looks like in their own terms. They have a clear vision for the future and regularly set goals towards that vision. They know where they’re headed and why that’s important to them. Without a Goal Orientation mindset, a person isn’t clear about their future direction and where they want to head. They become directionless in their lives and therefore may struggle to make progress.

Goal Orientation is where a Leader’s Mindset begins. And like any mindset, you can develop Goal Orientation with intention, practice and time. Here are four practical strategies to develop your Goal Orientation.

1. Define What Success Means To You: It's important to have your own vision of what success looks like for you. It can be easy to end up chasing others' ideas of success, or to become directionless without a clear vision of who we want to be. Consider the following questions to develop your own definition of success for your life. What are two or three key values for you? What three things would you want people to say about you at your retirement party? How would you spend your time if you no longer needed to work for money? What matters most to you? How do you define success for your life?
2. Make Sure Your Goals Are SMART: SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This framework provides a set of criteria for goal setting that ensures clarity and accountability. Specific: Define goals clearly and precisely. The more specific the goal, the easier it is to understand and work towards. Measurable: Set concrete metrics to track progress. Measurement adds objectivity to the process and enables you to assess whether the goal has been achieved. Achievable: Goals should be challenging yet realistic. Ensure that the goal can be accomplished with the available resources and effort. Also make sure there is an achievement point - a moment when you can say that the goal has been completed. Relevant: Goals should be relevant to the individual, team, or organisation's current needs and priorities. Time-bound: Set a clear timeframe for achieving the goal. This adds urgency and prevents goals from dragging on indefinitely.
3. Set Goals Across Different Time Horizons: Goal Orientation involves regularly setting goals to work towards that align with your vision of success. Sometimes we can set goals that are either so far into the future that they seem impossible, or so close to where we already are that they're not worth pursuing. A helpful approach is to break long term goals into smaller goals across different time horizons. Experiment with setting goals on the following time horizons: 10 years plus, 5 years, 1 to 2 years, 3 to 4 months, 1 month, 1 week. You can keep these goals in a note that's easy to edit and update. Your shorter term goals should be contributing towards your longer term goals and objectives.
4. Review Progress and Refine Goals: It's easy to set a goal and then fail to review your progress. Ensure you regularly review your goals. Set times up in your calendar to review your progress. Also be open to refining your goals. Just as your vision of success may change over time, so too might your goals. If a goal doesn't matter to you any more, it's okay to delete it and set a new goal.

Why not pick one of these to practice over the coming week? In the next episode we are going to explore Optimistic Outlook. Have a great week as you become an even better leader.

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Summary We each have mindsets that we bring to our leadership. In this first of a five part series, we introduce The Leader’s Mindset and how it will help you to lead more effectively in all areas of your life. This is part one of a five part series.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 221 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we are commencing a five part series on The Leader’s Mindset.

As we start our series on The Leader’s Mindset, it’s important to step back and remind ourselves about what leadership is and isn’t. Importantly, leadership isn’t a role. Someone doesn’t demonstrate leadership just because they have the title of leader. And people who don’t have a team reporting into them can absolutely demonstrate leadership. I think it’s more helpful to think of leadership as how you approach your work and life. Great leadership is about achieving sustainable results through people and, with a little effort and practice, we can all do that.

There are four domains of leadership:

1. Behaviour – what we say and do, the actions we take
2. Thoughts – conscious ideas, perspectives and opinions
3. Emotions – physical state reactions and responses
4. Context – the environment in which we are operating

Each of these influences the others. For example, our thoughts shape our behaviour and how we feel. Likewise, how we feel influences our thoughts and behaviour. And our behaviour shapes our thoughts and emotions. All of this happens in a context which can impact our behaviour, thoughts and emotions.

The Leader’s Mindset focuses primarily on our thoughts - the mindset we bring to our leadership. Some important points about mindset:

• A mindset is how we think about the world in which we live
• Our mindsets influence our feelings and behaviour
• Mindsets change over time based on our experiences and context
• We can change our mindsets through conscious effort and attention

When we think about mindsets, the one that most frequently comes to mind is optimism. We all vary in the amount of optimism we bring to our lives. Optimism is a positive outlook about the future, and expectation that things will generally go our way. With optimism we expand positive events and minimise negative events.

An additional areas of mindset research over the past 30 years has focused on hope. In psychology as defined by Snyder, hope is “the process of thinking about one’s goals along with the motivation to move towards those goals (agency) and the ways to achieve those goals (pathways)”.

We have brought the theories of hope and optimism together to identify four elements of a leader’s mindset - Goal Orientation, Optimistic Outlook, Options Thinking and Drive for Growth.

Goal Orientation is like identifying a destination point on a map. With a Goal Orientation mindset a person is clear about what success looks like in their own terms. They have a clear vision for the future and regularly set goals towards that vision. They know where they’re headed and why that’s important to them. Without a Goal Orientation mindset, a person isn’t clear about their future direction and where they want to head. They become directionless in their lives and therefore may struggle to make progress.

Optimistic Outlook is like the perspective you bring to the journey. A person with an Optimistic Outlook thinks positively about the future, expecting things to go their way. They see the future as positive. A person without an Optimistic Outlook mindset focuses on the negatives and what can go wrong. They anticipate more bad things to happen than good things.

Options Thinking is like identifying various pathways to the destination on your journey. With Options Thinking, a person identifies ways around emerging challenges and problems. They are confident in their ability to come up with another way around obstacles they might face. Without Options Thinking, a person gets stuck when things don’t go to plan. They find it hard to identify new ways to reach their destination when the first pathway is blocked.

Drive for Growth is like momentum and making forward progress on the journey. With a Drive for Growth mindset, a person will be motivated to keep going and persist even when things get hard. They push themselves to standards that are greater than the minimum that’s expected. Without a Drive for Growth, a person tends to give up when things become difficult to achieve. They also find it hard to get going on a task they know will be difficult.

Over the next four episodes we are going to explore each of these mindsets in more detail, including practical tips to practice and improve in each area. We have developed a self-assessment of these four areas called Mindset to Action. Now is a great time to complete this free assessment. Just go to https://leadership.today/mta Once you complete the assessment you’ll receive an email with your personalised report. We won’t use your email address for any other purpose.

In our next episode we are going to explore Goal Orientation in more detail. Have a great week as you become an even better leader.

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Summary

In this conversation, Dr. Alexa Chilcutt (www.linkedin.com/in/alexa-chilcutt-phd/) discusses the importance of executive communication and public speaking skills. She explains that anxiety around public speaking stems from the fear of being judged and evaluated. However, she emphasises that with practice and a clear process, individuals can become more confident and effective communicators. Dr. Chilcutt also provides tips for structuring a message, including identifying the purpose, understanding the audience, and breaking the information into three main points. Additionally, she highlights the significance of executive presence in career advancement and outlines the 10 characteristics of executive presence, which include confidence, communication ability, appearance, and values in action. In this conversation, Alexa Chilcutt and Andrew Beveridge discuss various aspects of leadership and communication. They explore topics such as executive presence, effective communication for technical professionals, and the challenges faced by women in leadership roles. Alexa emphasises the importance of intention and preparation in developing executive presence and highlights the need for technical professionals to simplify complex information for their audience. She also discusses the significance of leaders communicating directly with their teams and the broader organization. Finally, she addresses the challenges faced by women in leadership and the importance of empowering women to overcome imposter syndrome and advocate for themselves.

Takeaways

Anxiety around public speaking is common and stems from the fear of being judged and evaluated. However, with practice and a clear process, individuals can become more confident and effective communicators.

When structuring a message, it is important to identify the purpose, understand the audience, and break the information into three main points. This helps to captivate the audience and increase memory retention.

Executive presence is crucial for career advancement. It encompasses characteristics such as confidence, communication ability, appearance, and values in action. Building executive presence involves being self-aware, authentic, and aligning actions with values.

To improve executive presence, individuals can ask for feedback, record themselves presenting, and focus on creating meaningful connections with the audience. Developing executive presence requires intention and preparation.

Technical professionals should simplify complex information for their audience and use relatable language.

Leaders should communicate directly with their teams and the broader organization to ensure effective communication.

Women in leadership face challenges such as imposter syndrome and should be empowered to advocate for themselves.

Chapters

00:10 Introduction and Background

01:19 Interest in Executive Communication

05:09 Structuring a Message

09:01 Finding Your Authentic Style

11:38 Understanding the Audience

14:21 Avoiding Imitation and Finding Your Own Style

23:24 Characteristics of Executive Presence

25:11 Self-Reflection Exercise

27:10 Shifting Perceptions and Elevating Adjectives

29:12 Communicating Complex Technical Information

33:41 Effective Communication in Leadership

36:28 Building Connections and Getting Accurate Information

43:48 Challenges and Empowerment for Women in Leadership

49:21 Creating a Supportive and Diverse Organisational Culture

51:18 Connecting with Alexa Chilcutt

References and Resources

Dagley, G. R., & Gaskin, C. J. (2014). Understanding executive presence: Perspectives of business professionals. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 66(3), 197–211. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000011

Body Language Expert Explains How to Show Confidence | WIRED - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRJzvJ5XPQI

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Summary Rules can be frustrating. It can be tempting to bend the rules or ignore them altogether, but this can lead to negative outcomes. This week we explore how to work around rules but maintain your integrity.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 220 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to work around rules but maintain your integrity.

Lapses in integrity have ended many leaders’ careers. Breaking the rules is never a good idea. But we often need to be creative and flexible to get things done. Blindly sticking to out of date rules can mean we miss opportunities. Organisations can become overrun with excessive bureaucracy if we don’t challenge the rules. Sometimes we need to bend the rules, change the rules, or work around them. But how do we do that with integrity?

Research demonstrates that while rule-breakers may be seen as more dominant, they generally have less respect from others and are seen as having reduced leadership potential. The research also shows that rule-benders can be seen as having more leadership potential, but only in competitive situations. Generally, rule-abiders were viewed most positively in cooperative settings.

So while bending the rules may work when we need to win against a competitor, we need to be careful bending the rules in most other settings. We also need to be careful about the example we set for others. If we bend the rules as a leader, we can expect those who follow us to do the same. This can lead to adverse outcomes if people bend rules without fully understanding the consequences.

Here are five tips to help you bend the rules while maintaining integrity:

1. Understand why the rules exist. Take the time to research why rules were put in place originally. Speak to those responsible for the rule and find out the history behind them. You might uncover specific reasons why the rule is in place, or you might find that the rule can be changed.
2. Confirm the constraints. Sometimes rules are shared from person to person with slight variations. What someone might share as a steadfast rule might actually be quite different to the actual rule. Explore the constraints and where there might be flexibility.
3. Get creative. Look for innovative ways to either work around the rule or reduce its impact on your work. Brainstorm with your team to come up with creative solutions.
4. Get a second opinion. Before you take action, check in with someone else you respect to confirm your approach.
5. Inform others. You don’t want to be taking innovative action without letting others know. You don’t want to be seen as being deceptive or sneaky in your approach.

And if you do discover a rule that no longer makes sense for your organisation, mount the case to have it removed. That will help others to be more effective as well.

Research Rule benders make more appealing leaders than rule abiders - https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/rule-benders-make-more-appealing-leaders-rule-abiders

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Summary

Interviewers place a strong emphasis on perceptions of nervousness. But there are practical steps we can take to appear less nervous in meetings and interviews.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 219 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we work through ways to appear less nervous in meetings and interviews.

Research demonstrates that anxious candidates perform worse at job interviews, even when their skills and experience align well with the role. Interviewers place an oversized importance to the appearance of anxiety when making judgements. And this tendency can extend to other important meetings.

To avoid this, we might consider visible signs of nervousness such as shaky hands or nervous laughter. We might then focus on the use of our hands, slowing our speech or avoiding fidgeting. We can risk becoming overly sensitive to how our behaviours are coming across.

However, In the research, the only consistent behavioural indicator of nervousness that the interviewers focused on was long pauses before responding to questions. This was potentially seen as the candidate being less prepared and less assertive than if they answered questions directly. Negative perceptions of anxiety in meetings and interviews was less about nervous signs, and more to do with perceptions of assertiveness and warmth as traits. Those who were perceived as less warm and less assertive were also rated as more anxious. Those who came across as friendly and assertive were seen as less anxious. It appears the overall impression we leave is far more important than any nervous tics that we might show.

So what can we do to appear less nervous in meetings and interviews? To increase others’ perceptions of our warmth and assertiveness, you can try these techniques:

1. Plan for first impressions. We want to demonstrate warmth from the very start of the meeting or interview. Research who will be there. Prepare and practice what you will do and say when you first arrive.
2. Listen to others. When we’re nervous we can focus too much on ourselves and not enough on others. Demonstrate you’re listening by taking notes, restating their perspectives, and clarifying their views.
3. Be prepared. There’s no substitute for preparation. It will help you to avoid lengthy pauses before responding.
4. Remember to smile. When we’re nervous we can forget about our facial expressions, but they’re an important indicator of our confidence and friendliness.
5. Video yourself. Have someone ask you some practice questions, and video your responses. This can help you to uncover unconscious signs of nervousness.
6. Seek feedback. After the meeting or interview, explore how you came across. Ask about anything you could have done to appear more confident and engaged.

We often feel more nervous than we appear. Focus on the overall impression of warmth and assertiveness that you give to others. Apply these tips in your next meeting or interview.

Research

Feiler, A.R., Powell, D.M. Behavioral Expression of Job Interview Anxiety. J Bus Psychol 31, 155–171 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-015-9403-z

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Summary

Research demonstrates the background we choose for video calls has a significant impact on how trustworthy and competent we appear. This week we explore how to boost your first impressions on a video call in three simple ways.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 218 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to boost your first impressions on a video call in three simple ways.

Your choice of background on a video call has a greater impact on how you’re perceived by others than you might expect. You might be tempted to choose a novelty background to communicate a sense of fun, or a home background to reflect that you’re not in the office. But there are risks with these choices.

Selecting a novelty background or a simulated home background saw ratings of trustworthiness drop. Blurring a home background resulted in better ratings of trustworthiness for the person, but the best ratings were for a background with plants or a bookcase.

The research also found that facial expressions, not surprisingly, also mattered. Happy faces were rated as more trustworthy than neutral or sad faces.

Ratings of competence also varied by background, with bookcases, plants and blank walls leading to the highest ratings. Novelty backgrounds, home backgrounds, and blurred backgrounds saw lower ratings. Again, happy facial expressions resulted in more positive ratings of competence.

Interestingly, women were seen as more trustworthy and more competent than men across all backgrounds in the experiment. Our gender impacts the first impressions we make on a video meeting. Men will likely benefit from additional efforts to demonstrate trustworthiness and competence during the meeting.

Here are three simple ways to boost your first impressions on a video call:

1. Keep backgrounds professional. Avoid a home or novelty background when you can. Blurring a background is better, but choosing a virtual background with a bookcase or plants helps to boost first impressions.
2. Demonstrate warmth. Smiling helps perceptions of both trustworthiness and competence. Try to maintain your interest in others on the call and keep your facial expressions positive and engaged.
3. Build confidence in your competence. Research suggests it’s always best to start with warmth and build perceptions of your competence over time. Being helpful, responsive, on-time, and interested can all boost how confident you appear.

Give these practical ideas a try on your next video call.

Research - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291444

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Summary

Research demonstrates a risk of detachment and reduced connection on video calls. This week we explore ways to be more real when we’re not meeting in-person.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 217 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at how to be more real on video calls.

We make rapid judgements about people based on visual and other information we receive. While this can lead to us making incorrect judgements when we meet people in-person, the risk is increased through video calls.

Research demonstrates an increased risk that we treat a visual representation of someone as less real than if we meet them in-person. On a video call we can treat other people as abstract rather than real. This effect is likely increased on a call that has audio and video challenges.

In experiments, participants viewed others as having fewer conscious feelings and less ability to make free choices than when meeting in-person.

As a leader, this could make us seem detached and lacking empathy during the conversation. It can, in turn, lead us to give less ethical consideration to the person on the other end of the video call. Our decision making may lack the warmth, concern and consideration that we would normally provide. So what can we do about this?

When making video calls, we need to be conscious of the risk of detachment and make conscious effort to see people as real human beings. Here are some tips to try:

1. Connect as human beings first. Rather than just getting straight down to business, spend a few minutes enquiring about the other person, how they are, and what they have been doing. You might share something personal about yourself to enhance this connection.
2. Ask open questions. When we treat people as an object rather than a person, we can tend to “talk at” people rather than “talk with” people. Asking open questions helps avoid this trap.
3. Increase your ethical consideration. Explore the impact of any decisions you are making upon people. Great decisions are a combination of logic and emotion.
4. Acknowledge the challenge. You might share this research with your team members. This will help everyone to manage the risk of detachment.
5. Make the most of in-person opportunities. When you do meet together in-person, use this time to connect on a personal level. Save more administrative activities to video calls and don’t waste the time you have physically together.

Give these tips a try on your next video call, and we can all become more real.

Research summary - https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/medusa-effect

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Summary

When you’re in leadership for long enough you discover that crises are inevitable. This week we look at five ideas to help you lead through a crisis.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 216 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at five ideas to help you lead through a crisis.

When you’re in leadership for long enough you discover that crises are inevitable. Whether it's a financial downturn, a global pandemic, or internal organisational challenges, we all need to navigate through uncertainties to ensure the survival and success of our teams and organisations. Here are some practical strategies backed by research on how to effectively lead through a crisis.

1. Maintain Transparent Communication: Research suggests that leaders who communicate clearly and honestly during a crisis build trust and enhance team resilience. Sharing information about the situation, potential impacts, and the organisation's response plan helps employees feel informed and engaged. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders like Microsoft's Satya Nadella held regular virtual town hall meetings to update employees on the company's response, addressing concerns and providing a sense of direction.
2. Foster a Culture of Adaptability: In times of crisis, adaptability becomes a crucial trait for both leaders and their teams. Research suggests that organisations promoting adaptability are more likely to thrive during crises. Leaders can encourage a culture that embraces change and innovation, empowering employees to contribute ideas and solutions.
3. Prioritise Employee Well-being: The well-being of employees is a cornerstone of effective crisis leadership. Research by Gallup indicates that companies focusing on employee well-being experience higher levels of employee engagement and productivity. Leaders must demonstrate empathy, provide emotional support, and implement practical measures to ensure the physical and mental well-being of their teams.
4. Help Others See the Potential for Development. The times when I have learned the most have also been times of crisis. Fortunately I had leaders and others who encouraged me to focus on what I could learn through these tough times. That brought a sense of purpose and opportunity to what otherwise might have appeared to be entirely negative situations.
5. Develop a Robust Crisis Response Plan: Having a well-defined crisis response plan is essential for leaders to navigate uncertainties efficiently. Leaders should proactively identify potential risks, develop response strategies, and regularly test and update their crisis plans to ensure relevance. You can build this into your regular business planning. Each year I look at risks across one year, five year, and ten year time horizons. This helps me to anticipate what might go wrong and have contingencies in place ready to go.

Leading through a crisis demands a combination of strategic thinking, effective communication, and a focus on well-being. Crises present opportunities for growth and transformation when met with thoughtful, prepared and decisive leadership.

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Summary

Whether it's speaking up in meetings, taking on challenging projects, or navigating uncertain situations, courage plays a pivotal role at work. This week we explore how to be more courageous at work.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 215 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to be more courageous at work.

Whether it's speaking up in meetings, taking on challenging projects, or navigating uncertain situations, courage plays a pivotal role at work. Courage is often associated with the ability to face fear and adversity head-on. From a psychological perspective, it involves factors such as self-efficacy (a belief in your own capabilities), resilience, and a willingness to embrace discomfort. To be courageous you need confidence to act and an ability to push through negative emotions. There are a number of steps you can take to increase your courage at work.

1. Set Realistic Goals and Incremental Challenges: Research suggests that setting realistic goals and gradually increasing the difficulty of challenges can enhance courage. Start by identifying a specific work-related goal that requires a step outside your comfort zone. Break it down into smaller, manageable tasks, and tackle them one at a time. As you achieve these incremental successes, your confidence and courage will grow.
2. Develop a Growth Mindset: Embrace a growth mindset, a concept developed by psychologist Carol Dweck. Individuals with a growth mindset see challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. When faced with a daunting task at work, shift your mindset from a fixed view of your abilities to a belief in your capacity to develop and improve. This shift can empower you to approach challenges with a more courageous attitude.
3. Seek Social Support: Studies show that social support can be a significant factor in promoting courage. Cultivate relationships with colleagues who inspire and motivate you. Share your goals and fears with trusted coworkers or mentors, and seek their guidance. Having a support system not only provides valuable insights but also boosts your confidence to face challenges head-on.
4. Practice Emotional Regulation: Being aware of our emotions helps us to manage our emotions more effectively. By learning to manage your emotions, you can face difficult situations with greater composure and courage. Take a few minutes each day to practice mindfulness techniques, focusing on your breath, noticing your emotions and developing a sense of calm. This can enhance your ability to navigate challenging workplace situations.
5. Celebrate Failures and Learn from Them: Research indicates that viewing failures as opportunities for growth can foster courage. Instead of fearing failure, see it as a natural part of the learning process. When things don't go as planned, reflect on what went wrong, extract lessons from the experience, and use that knowledge to improve. Celebrating failures as stepping stones toward success can build resilience and a willingness to take calculated risks.

Remember, courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it, and with intentional effort, you can become a more courageous and impactful leader.

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Summary

Whether it’s working arrangements, a pay rise, contract terms with a client or project timelines with colleagues, we are all required to negotiate at some point. This week we explore ways to negotiate effectively.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 214 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore ways to negotiate effectively.

Whether it’s working arrangements, a pay rise, contract terms with a client or project timelines with colleagues, we are all required to negotiate at some point. Understanding the fundamentals of negotiation can help to achieve a great outcome for you, while also seeking to build the relationship with the other person.

Before we work through some tips to help your negotiations, it’s important to understand position versus interest. People come to a negotiation with a particular position in mind. This is the stance they are taking and sharing openly with the other person. For example, a colleague might have a position that a particular project will take six weeks to deliver. Behind every position is a set of interests. Interests are the reasons behind the position. So your colleague’s position around the project taking six weeks to deliver could be based on interests such as not overworking their team, delivering other projects on time, or not wanting to over-promise a faster turnaround. As we negotiate it’s important to move past positions and towards interests. Being aware of interests provides much more flexibility for all parties in a negotiation.

Beyond that, there are several points to be aware of before and during a negotiation:

1. Be clear about your goals and priorities. Entering a negotiation without being clear about what’s important to you and what you want is very risky. It’s helpful to write down what you want to achieve and why. Think about where you are willing to compromise and what’s not negotiable. Writing these down can be helpful.
2. Research and gather information. Make sure you have facts, data and documentation ready to go. This will help you to make informed decisions, anticipate counter-arguments, and establish credibility in the negotiation.
3. Work on your communication skills. Be confident, clear and concise when expressing your views. Also recognise that communication is two-way. Listen to the other person, ask questions, stay curious, and work towards uncovering their underlying interests. A respectful, empathetic and collaborative approach will help you to build rapport and avoid the negotiation becoming overly adversarial.
4. Be open to compromise. Negotiation typically involves give and take. Sometimes we need to be flexible and creative in the pursuit of an outcome that will work for both parties.
5. Know when to walk away. There will be times when you can’t reach an agreement that is adequate for you. Go into a negotiation knowing what alternatives you have available if you can’t reach an outcome. This will help you to know when you need to strategically disengage and explore other options.

Becoming more effective at negotiating takes time and preparation. Give these tips a try as you seek to increase your negotiation skills.

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• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

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Summary

With so much uncertainty and change it can be difficult to map out your career. However there are still steps we can take to build a great career.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 213 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to build a great career.

In just a few generations the number of jobs someone is likely to have in their lifetime has increased markedly. Estimates vary, but it’s likely a young person commencing their working life today will have around 15 jobs and 3 separate careers. Even across 50 years of working, that’s changing jobs about every 3 years. Career planning is becoming more challenging and complex.

When it comes to building a great career, you will find many people propose finding work with a combination of:

• Skills - what you’re good at
• Interests - what you enjoy
• Opportunities - what the world needs and is willing to pay for

The missing factor in this equation is growth - what you can develop. A job without growth opportunities will ultimately cause your career to stall. Life expectancy continues to increase so we will be working longer, which has implications for our training and development. The old model of completing training, then working in a career until your skills are bordering on redundant will no longer work. We have to continue learning, growing and adapting right across our career.

But how can you plan for a career when the job you might have in 10 years may not even exist now? Here’s how. A great career comes down to your mindset and actions. Despite rapid change and uncertainty, we can adopt a mindset that welcomes change, where we are willing to take calculated risks and learn from mistakes. We can invest in knowing ourselves and regularly improving our capabilities. And we can also build connections with others.

So in order to build a great career, I suggest you:

1. Ask “What is a great career… for me?” Your career is a personal expression of who you are and your broader purpose in life. Don’t fall into the trap of blindly following others’ careers or what your organisation is laying out for you as the accepted pathway. It’s very easy to drift without having a clear idea of what a great career means to you. Factor in opportunities to develop, breaks from work for holidays, or whatever else matters to you.
2. Set goals that matter. Approach life in a goal-oriented way. Keep stretching yourself forward towards clear goals.
3. Apply pathways thinking. When the initial path to a goal is blocked, find a different way to achieve that goal. When you hit an obstacle, ask yourself how else you can get to your goal.
4. Celebrate progress. Stop occasionally and reflect on what you can do now that you couldn’t do 12 months ago.
5. Don’t worry so much about making a career mistake. Even the seemingly poor career decisions we make are opportunities to learn and grow. The biggest mistake I made in my career turned out to also be one of my biggest development opportunities, and a stark reminder of the kind of career I really wanted. Even though it seemed like a career mistake, it actually helped me in my career.

Building a great career takes some effort. While we can’t necessarily plan every step, there are actions we can take to help build a great career.

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

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Summary

Leadership is about achieving results through people. With the demands of managing people, it can be easy to lose sight of results we need to achieve and deliver. In this episode we explore how to drive for results.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 212 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to drive for results.

Leadership is about achieving results through people. With the demands of managing people, it can be easy to lose sight of results we need to achieve and deliver. We can become distracted or even become unaware of the key outcomes expected, and therefore not provide the direction, feedback and support our people need to achieve the right results. We have all seen leaders that fail to deliver. People are left wondering what they’re spending their time on, given the shortfalls in performance for them and their team. But there are practical things we can do to help us and our teams to drive for results.

1. Determine what results matter. There are many potential things you and your team could focus on, so it’s crucial to uncover the fewest most crucial results. This should involve consultation with your manager and other key stakeholders. Try to arrive at results that reflect a range of aspects of your work. For example, rather than just focusing on financial returns, you might also include customer satisfaction metrics. Otherwise we can risk chasing short-term results that lead to longer-term issues.
2. Link results to purpose. Results by themselves don’t provide meaning. Take the time to link results to a broader purpose. This will likely include the vision and purpose of your organisation. It’s also worth helping individuals and teams link the results of their work to things that matter to them personally. Your team members might engage with their work for very different reasons to you and your manager.
3. Communicate clear measures and targets. These should be shared and discussed with your team, but also with others within the organisation including your manager. You may need your manager to sign these targets off first so you should factor this additional time into your planning. It’s best to capture these in writing to ensure clarity and agreement.
4. Talk about the “how” not just the “what”. There’s no point chasing after results and causing damage to others and the business along the way. How we achieve results is just as important as the results themselves. You should encourage people to reflect on the organisation’s values and team commitments that encourage people to work collectively towards shared outcomes.
5. Undertake regular updates and check-ins. Research suggests that making results visible and freely available helps people to drive towards these metrics. A literal scoreboard can help, particularly where people can see the change in results from week to week. For dispersed teams, there are plenty of tools that allow you to share results through the collaboration platforms you already use.
6. Focus on continuous improvement. If we use a driving analogy, a car has a number of forces operating on it including acceleration, momentum and friction. We want to find ways to gradually accelerate our performance, adding to our momentum and reducing the friction of things that hold us back. It can help to frame a discussion with your team in these terms - what’s taking us forward, what’s keeping us stable, and what’s holding us back.
7. Celebrate efforts and outcomes. Some people prefer to be recognised for their efforts, while others prefer to be praised for their outcomes. It’s helpful to see both areas of recognition as important. Sometimes people do all the right things but the results just don’t come together for reasons outside of their control - we should celebrate this. Equally, we shouldn’t be shy about celebrating great outcomes when people have reached or exceed the targets that we have set.

Achievement drive is a common feature of effective teams and individuals. We can help our teams to establish and chase after purpose-filled results, providing feedback, support and encouragement along the way.

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 160+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $500

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Summary

It’s common to experience stress at work and then struggle to perform at our best. We might even react in ways we regret later. This week we explore how to maintain composure under pressure.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 211 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to maintain composure under pressure.

It’s common to experience stress at work and then struggle to perform at our best. We might even react in ways we regret later. Perhaps it’s a comment from a colleague that annoys us, or our computer crashing and losing what we’ve been working on for hours. We then say or do something that’s not us at our best, or we might even feel unable to say or do what we’d like in that moment. But there are practical things we can do, both in the moment and as part of our daily routines, that can significantly improve the way we handle pressure.

Here are four things you can do beforehand:

1. Get plenty of sleep. Find a sleep routine that works for you and stick with it. Getting to bed around the same time and ensuring you have around 8 hours a night boosts your energy levels and resilience.
2. Start your day with exercise. This burns off stress hormones and allows you to begin your day with greater resilience to stressful situations that might arise. Find exercise that works for you. For example, if you commute, you might build a slightly longer walk into your routine. Or if you’re working from home, set an alarm to prompt you to take a walk.
3. Structure recovery time into your day. This might include taking breaks away from your work, going for a quick walk during the day, or even catching up with a colleague for a coffee away from the office. We are not great at sustained work and attention beyond 60 to 90 minutes, so short breaks across the day will help you to recover and reset. Even 5 minute breaks to step away from one task and mentally prepare for the next one make a huge difference.
4. Deal with any relational difficulties. Poor working relationships can place a lot of strain on our work day and lead us to become frustrated. We may then say or do things that don’t reflect us at our best. We don’t have to be best friends with everyone at work, but having open conversations with others about how you can best work together will help reduce stress and annoyance.

And now five things you can do In the moment:

1. Notice your emotional state. Just as we have a stream of conscious thoughts during the day, so we also have a steady stream of emotions. Tune into your body and emotional state. If you sense yourself moving up the emotional curve, do something about it before you reach the top.
2. Name it to tame it. Naming the emotion we are feeling helps us to manage it more effectively. Research even shows that putting a label on an emotion reduces the intensity of that emotion almost immediately. So if you feel angry, note that emotion.
3. Focus on your breathing. Simple techniques such as box breathing can rapidly calm our emotional state. Think of it like a box - breath in deeply for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale fully for four seconds, then hold for four seconds.
4. Have an escape plan. If you are feeling close to losing control of your emotional state, have a plan for how you might exit the situation.
5. Say sorry. If you do go over the edge and say or do something you regret, apologise to those involved. This will help others to understand that you weren’t at your best and that you intend to do better next time. An honest apology goes a long way to maintaining and building effective relationships.

These are just some practical things you can do beforehand and in the moment to help us maintain our composure and respond well when under pressure. If you found this helpful you can check out our Harnessing Your Emotions five day challenge for more tips - https://leadershiptoday.vhx.tv/challenge-harnessing-your-emotions . Have a great week.

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

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Summary

Artificial Intelligence is all around us and provides great opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of our work. This week we explore how to use Artificial Intelligence at work.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 210 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we examine how to use Artificial Intelligence at work.

Artificial intelligence is a complex and evolving field. It can feel overwhelming to consider how to use AI at work. In reality, AI is built into so many things, that you’re already using AI multiple times per day. To help clarify, AI expert Juliette Powell talks about Artificial Intelligence as triple A systems - algorithmic, autonomous and automated. With this definition, it’s easy to see how your organisation is already applying AI. Here are some steps you can take to implement and use AI well at work.

1. Collaborate with Artificial Intelligence experts. While leaders don't need to be AI experts themselves, collaborating with professionals in the field is crucial for successful implementation. AI is not just a technology upgrade, it’s a completely different way of approaching work. There are risks implementing something that we don’t understand, so using experts to guide your thinking will help.
2. Establish clear governance. The application of Artificial Intelligence has ethical considerations. It’s possible to create adverse impacts on minority and other groups through the use of AI, so we need to proactively measure fairness and equity implications. Establishing clear governance around the use of AI will assist with this. We also need to consider data protection principles. Providing AI systems with access to your data may create privacy risks that need to be actively managed. Those accountable for AI governance should develop clear guidelines for employees to minimise these and other risks.
3. Identify high-impact use cases. Not all tasks require the intervention of AI, so leaders must strategically identify areas where AI can make the most significant impact. Conduct a thorough analysis of your business processes to pinpoint repetitive, time-consuming, or data-intensive tasks that could benefit from automation.
4. Education. Provide employees with the resources and opportunities to upskill and reskill in areas related to AI. Workshops, training programs, and online courses can help employees understand AI concepts, its applications, and how to integrate it into their daily tasks. By investing in education, leaders not only empower their teams but also create a workforce that is adaptable to the dynamic nature of AI technologies.
5. Encourage safe-fail experiments. It’s best to apply Artificial Intelligence in a way that minimises risk. Many organisations implement AI by first running the work through parallel processes to measure the impact on quality and efficiency. They are then able to objectively compare any benefits of AI with the traditional process without risking the quality of delivery.
6. Invest in quality data infrastructure. Artificial Intelligence is only as good as the data it uses. It’s easy for the implementation of AI to be let down by poor quality and out of date records. Assessing the quality of data being fed into AI will improve the outcomes you are likely to achieve.

Artificial Intelligence will continue to provide benefits to organisations looking to improve their performance. Being informed and considered helps us to manage the implementation of new systems in a way that maximises benefits and minimises risks.

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

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Summary Starting a new job can be exciting and terrifying at the same time. We are often keen to deliver results quickly, but taking action too soon can sometimes backfire. This week we explore how to transition into a new role.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 209 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to transition into a new role.

Starting a new job can be exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time. We are often keen to deliver results quickly, but taking action too soon can sometimes backfire. We’ve all seen people come into a role and quickly institute change without fully appreciating the context for their work. Or others that focus on the wrong things and end up not delivering what’s required. There are some simple steps we can take to increase our chances of starting a new role well.

1. Plan your approach. While this step seems so obvious that it’s barely worth listing, it’s remarkable how many people start a new role without a plan in place. I recommend having a clear plan for your first day, your first week, and your first month. During those first few weeks you can then develop a broader 60 to 90 day plan. You can involve your manager in this planning to ensure your objectives align with their expectations. Look at what’s already in place, and resist the urge to make many changes in your first few weeks until you’ve had a chance to meet with others.
2. Connect with People. You want to use the first few weeks in a new role to meet with your manager, peers, direct reports, and customers. These meetings will vary in their objectives, but the main goal is to develop a connection with people - to introduce yourself and find out more about them. Where possible, you should meet with people in person. Be clear about the intent of the meetings - if it’s just to connect and find out more about them, then say that. The personal connections you establish in your first few weeks will serve you well into the future. They are also likely to provide further insight into the role and their expectations.
3. Connect with Purpose. Be clear about how the role contributes to the organisation. While this should be clear through the recruitment process, it’s worth clarifying with your manager how the role makes a larger contribution. This will help guide your decision making and also provide motivation for the role.
4. Determine Priorities. Identify the not-negotiable outcomes that need to be achieved. We’ve all seen people become excited about new initiatives and opportunities, only to neglect the core deliverables in their role. Once you’ve achieved the key elements of your role, you can then look towards other contributions.
5. Metrics. As you transition into a new role, it’s helpful to determine how to measure your progress and performance. In some roles it’s easy to identify metrics, but others can be a bit more challenging. Work with your manager and others to identify important metrics that provide a genuine insight into your performance.

Moving into a new role presents lots of opportunities and challenges. Taking these five steps will help you to make the transition successful.

If you are moving into a leadership role, you’ll find our free Leadership Practices Assessment and supporting videos helpful - https://leadershiptoday.vhx.tv/leadership-practices-1

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

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Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

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• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

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Summary

When sensitive issues arise in the workplace it can be hard to know what to say and do. We might shy away from political and social issues, or find it difficult to respond to those taking a particular stand on an issue. This week we explore practical ways to handle political and other sensitive issues at work.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 208 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore ways to handle political and other sensitive issues at work.

When sensitive issues arise in the workplace it can be hard to know what to say and do. We might shy away from political and social issues, or find it difficult to respond to those taking a particular stand on an issue. However political topics and social movements are bound to make their way into our workplaces. As a leader we need to demonstrate empathy, while also maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment. Here are five ways we can achieve this balance:

1. Stay neutral and objective. For political and other sensitive issues it’s best remain impartial and avoid taking sides. Your primary role as a leader is to create a safe and inclusive space for all employees, regardless of their political affiliations and beliefs. Point people to your organisational values and expectations as the guide on how people should interact at work.
2. Encourage open dialogue. While we might need to personally take a more neutral position, it’s important to allow people to discuss their perspectives at work. Ignoring political and social movements will seem odd to your people. Here we want to encourage respectful and constructive conversations where people can hear different points of view. Building understanding of different perspectives can help people to continue to work effectively with each other, even when they may hold quite different views.
3. Set clear boundaries. You should make it clear that while discussions about politics and other social issues are encouraged, they should never interfere with productivity or inclusion. We all need to work effectively with each other. People typically have far more in common than they do different from each other, so encourage people to focus on shared values and priorities.
4. Lead by example. In your interactions listen with curiosity and respect. Avoid sharing your political beliefs in a way that could alienate or intimidate others. Focus on common ground and shared values that unite the team.
5. Address conflicts promptly and privately. If political or other discussions escalate into conflict, address this quickly. Act as a mediator where that’s required, ensuring the people involved can share their perspectives and listen to each other in a respectful way. This will work best in private rather than involving the whole team.

Remember, the goal is to create an inclusive workplace where everyone feels heard and respected, regardless of their political or social beliefs. By setting a positive example and facilitating open, respectful discussions, you can help maintain a healthy work environment for your team.

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Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

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Summary

There are more generations in the workforce than ever before. How do we ensure expectations are met and people work together effectively? This week we discuss how to lead a multigenerational team.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 207 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we discuss how to lead a multigenerational team.

There are more generations in the workforce than ever before, with up to five generations all trying to work together. Generational differences and tensions are a regular feature in any discussion of work culture and challenges. So how do we not only reduce the downside risk of having this broad range of ages working together, but also harness the potential benefits? I’ve managed teams that included people who were brand new to the workforce right through to retirement age. For me the benefits were obvious, but there were occasional misunderstandings and challenges. Here are some points to consider when leading a multigenerational team.

1. People are far more than their generation. While each generation may have some shared experiences, there is huge diversity within generations. Leading someone solely based on their generation is likely to lead to poor outcomes for you and them. Their goals, needs and interests are likely to be more about them as an individual than them as a member of a generation.
2. Find out what matters to each individual. Have open discussions with your team members about their goals and what matters to them most at work. You might be surprised at what people raise during this discussion. For example, you might find younger and older team members both share an interest in flexible work arrangements, but for different reasons.
3. Tailor to individuals and their needs where possible. Adjusting your approach and meeting the needs of your team members is really important. For example, I’ve helped people to take additional unpaid leave for an overseas trip, varied the start and end times for people that needed that flexibility, and allowed people to work from different locations. You also want to do this in a way that is fair and sustainable. Be clear with people what you can and can’t vary, and why. You don’t want to set up precedents that are difficult to undo.
4. Build understanding and appreciation of diversity. Provide opportunities for people to work together and get to know each other. Use discussion prompts in team meetings with time set aside to build an understanding of each other. A great idea here is to ask people to share a five star recommendation - anything that they would give five stars to. This could include a book, holiday destination, activity, movie, restaurant, recipe - anything. You might be surprised at what interests people have in common.
5. Encourage inclusion. Diverse teams only outperform other teams where there is understanding and inclusion. Encourage people to actively include and consult with others to gain their perspectives. Use the experience in your team by asking people to mentor each other. I’ve even seen mentoring work well where a younger team member might mentor an older team member on something like use of technology or social media. Don’t assume that the mentor needs to be older than the person being mentored.

Harnessing the diversity in a multigenerational team can unlock many benefits for your team and organisation. It all starts with understanding and valuing the different experiences, skills and preferences people bring. Building inclusion can help people to see multiple generations in your team as a benefit rather than a drawback.

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We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Negativity can really impact a team’s motivation and performance. This week we explore how to manage a persistently negative team member.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 206 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to manage a persistently negative team member.

Having a negative person on your team can be really draining. The tendency to always point out the downside and limitations can drag others down and reduce motivation. It can be a difficult situation to address. We don’t want to shut down criticism or pretend that everything is perfect, and we don’t want to respond in a way that makes them feel like they don’t belong. However, we also don’t want to become trapped in negativity that can impact others’ enthusiasm and commitment. Here are some tips that will help you to manage a persistently negative team member:

1. Don’t assume it will get better with time. Negativity doesn’t tend to go away. In fact, the more you allow it to take hold, the more it can grow within the team. You need to address unreasonable negativity early. Just hoping it will get better by itself is not going to work.
2. Don’t assume it’s all about work. Often the person who complains the most at work may also be facing challenges outside of work. An honest conversation can help address this.
3. Provide feedback on impact. Look for examples of negativity from the team member and provide feedback as soon as possible. You want to clearly anchor the feedback in a specific situation, and provide insight into the impact of the person’s actions on you and others. For example, “during the meeting earlier today when you described our new project as a waste of time that will never work, I saw several people look discouraged, and I felt like your comments made the project even harder to achieve”.
4. Explore their intent. Oftentimes our intent is not the same as our impact. In my earlier example, the person describing the project as a waste of time may not have intended to discourage others. They may have intended to express some concerns about the feasibility of the project. Once the person is aware of the impact of their approach, helping them to share their intent will provide you with greater context.
5. Help them to reframe. Once the person is clear on their intent, you can help them to achieve their desired impact. You might work through options of how they could express their concerns in a constructive way. For example, “I have some concerns about how feasible this project is. Can we discuss people’s views on that, and how we might make our goals achievable?”. This is likely to have a much more positive impact, while still addressing their original intent. In this way their negativity can be transformed into a super power that actually helps the team.
6. Listen for kernels of truth. It could well be that the project isn’t feasible. Just because something is expressed in a negative or damaging way doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth to what they’re saying. Asking probing questions to explore their perspective can help draw out a new perspective in a more positive and actionable way.
7. Recognise improvement. Look for examples of the person expressing things in more constructive ways and provide positive encouraging feedback to the individual. It’s always important to notice and appreciate efforts to grow and improve.

Negativity is contagious and challenging to manage. Engaging with the person sharing negative views can help turn them around, and provide them with more positive ways of making an important contribution to the team. Have a great week.

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Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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In this interview we speak with Juliette Powell about her latest book, The AI Dilemma - 7 Principles for Responsible Technology

During the interview we discuss a range of issues and opportunities around Artificial Intelligence: - What drew Juliette into AI in the first place - The "dilemma" in the AI dilemma - Ways to think about AI in terms of triple A systems - algorithmic, autonomous and automated - How to avoid the dehumanising impact of AI in organisations and society - How to introduce AI in an organisation while avoiding magnification of existing bias - Regulation of AI by technology firms and government - The implications of AI for the employment market

Juliette Powell is an independent researcher, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker at the intersection of technology and business. Her consulting services focus on global strategy and scenarios related to AI and data, banking, mobile, retail, social gaming, and responsible technology. She has delivered live commentary on Bloomberg, BNN, NBC, CNN, ABC, and BBC and presentations at institutions like The Economist, Harvard, and MIT. She works with such organizations as Reuters, the United Nations, Warner Brothers, l’Union des Banques Suisses, Microsoft, The Red Cross, Cirque du Soleil, IBM, and the World Bank Group. Juliette’s previous book is 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking (Financial Times Press, 2009). She was a cofounder with Intel Labs of the research network WeTheData. The AI Dilemma is based in part on her research conducted at Columbia University. Powell is a faculty member at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and the founding partner of Kleiner Powell International (KPI), kleinerpowell.com. You can learn more about Juliette and her latest book here: https://www.juliettepowell.com/

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Summary

Moving on to a new role is a whole lot smoother when you have someone ready to replace you. This week we walk through the key steps to developing a leadership succession plan.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 205 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we walk through the key steps to developing a leadership succession plan.

Moving on to a new role is a whole lot smoother when you have someone ready to replace you. All too often though we look for a change of role, and then have to rush finding a replacement or miss the chance to handover altogether. With some forward planning and effort we can ensure that leadership succession is smooth, fair, and well executed.

Step 1 is to identify potential successors. An important point here is that the successor to your role doesn’t necessarily have to come from your team. You will want to work with your own leader and others across the organisation to identify potential successors early. This could be based on performance evaluation data, 360 degree feedback, and other records. Potential successors don’t need to be ready to do your job today. In fact. It’s highly unlikely that anyone will be able to make a direct transition into your role without some development. Look instead for people who may have demonstrated performance or potential related to your role. Even if they’re 70% of the way to being able to do your role, with time you are likely to be able to bridge that gap.

Step 2 is to create individual development plans. These should be put together in consultation with individuals. There’s not much point considering someone as a successor for your role if they’re not interested in the role. Some people may be happy at their current level, or they may be looking for quite a different opportunity in the future. Individual development plans and discussions should include career planning. Identify any gaps the individual may have for taking on your role and other identified potential roles.

Step 3 is to provide development opportunities. Here we are working with the person to fill their development gaps. We often default to training courses, but development gaps are often best filled through stretch assignments and projects, mentoring and coaching. Look for opportunities to build their development into the work itself.

Step 4 is to test the succession plan. Here we want the individual to have a chance in the role itself. You can have potential successors step up into your role while you’re away, or work alongside you on a project. Keep in mind that the person may want to do things differently to you, so provide freedom to make the role their own where that’s possible..

A leadership succession plan is a great way to help you, the person who will take over your role, and your organisation to be successful.

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We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Grief and loss are inevitable experiences for all of us. This week we explore how to lead a team through grief.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 204 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to lead a team through grief.

Grief and loss are inevitable experiences for all of us. And the experience of grief isn’t confined to our personal lives. Things like the death of a colleague, serious illness, and workplace accidents can all lead to grief at work. As a leader it can be hard to know how to respond. We may either try to continue with business as usual, or be tempted to become full time counsellors. On top of that, the grief is likely to impact us personally as well. Here are four things worth focusing on when you’re leading a team through grief and loss.

1. First, it’s important to recognise grief’s varying influence on the team. While grief is a universal experience, it affects individuals differently. Some may visibly demonstrate their grief, while others may internalise their emotions. It’s important to also recognise that people will take varying times to process their emotions around grief. It’s important to listen to people and give them your full attention. Acknowledging and validating their feelings can really help people to see their reactions as normal and acceptable in a workplace setting.
2. Second, acknowledge with the team the likely impact on productivity and engagement. Grief will understandably distract people from their work. It’s unreasonable to expect productivity to remain constant. This is an important moment to clarify priorities and adjust expectations. You may need to communicate this upwards to ensure any likely operational impacts are clear. Many people will find work a welcome distraction from their grieving. Providing a sense of meaning and purpose to the work will help people to continue to contribute, even if overall output is reduced.
3. Third, ensure emotional well-being is a priority. Link people to any available resources your organisation may offer such as employee assistance programs or counselling. You may want to offer flexible work arrangements and time off to provide space for people to grieve. Normalise seeking help through these resources.
4. And the fourth point, foster a supportive team environment. Even as the team leader you don’t need to be the sole source of care and support. Team members can support each other. Ensure that grieving team members do not feel isolated or excluded. Include them in team activities and discussions, but respect their need for space. Also, recognise the support that you might need. There’s not much point leading your team through grief, only to collapse at the end of the process.

Grief in any context is difficult. At work these practical steps can really help you and your team to grieve well and support each other effectively.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Optimism is pretty easy when things are going well. This week we explore how to stay optimistic, even in challenging situations.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 203 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to stay optimistic, even in challenging situations.

Optimism is pretty easy when things are going well. Seeing the bright side isn’t difficult when things are bright. But our lives aren’t typically either good or bad. Even in the good times, challenging situations can arise and knock us around. But how optimistic we feel has very little to do with our circumstances. Instead we can all learn optimism and apply it as a skill.

Optimism is a lens through which we view life. Optimism zooms in on the good things to really study and make the most of them. It allows the good moments to spread across other areas of our life, and into the future over a longer period of time. In contrast, optimism zooms out in the challenging moments to gain greater perspective. It contains the bad things to one area of our life and to a moment in time. So how do we stay optimistic?

1. Schedule time to step back and reflect. Often we end up on autopilot, letting our circumstances dictate how we think and feel. Instead, we want to grab hold of our thoughts and put them in perspective. We want to be intentional about how we think and feel. This requires time to reflect, and the best way to ensure this happens is to schedule it in your calendar. Take time at the start of each day to choose how you want to think and feel about any good and not-so-good things that happen. Take time at the end of the day to reflect on the things you are grateful for.
2. Tame how you speak to yourself. Often the way we speak to ourselves is not very kind. When things go wrong we can quickly become our own worst critic. If a friend spoke to us the way we speak to ourselves in those moments, they probably wouldn’t be a friend for very long. Instead, be generous and kind to yourself. Speak to yourself as a supportive friend.
3. Reframe challenges as opportunities for growth. When we expand our horizons and try new things, we build optimism and resilience. Sure - we might make mistakes or find new things hard - that’s to be expected. See these minor setbacks as chances to become wiser, stronger and more capable.
4. Build supportive connections. Life isn’t meant to be travelled alone. We need other people. Gather people around you that you can support and that can support you. Look for ways to encourage other people. Helping people is motivating and will make you feel more optimistic.
5. Have a laugh. I was recently stuck at the airport with some colleagues as our flights became more and more delayed. To make things worse, I was going to miss a dinner with friends that I had been looking forward to. We started sharing some pretty low quality jokes with each other. Suddenly the annoying flight delays became a great chance to connect and feel joy together. Even in the hard times, take time to experience joy.

Optimism is something we can all learn and improve. It just takes some intentional effort, time and focus to see the good in life and recognise opportunities to grow and develop. Have a great week.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Even the best leaders need to listen to broad perspectives. This week we explore ways to gain input from others.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 202 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore ways to gain input from others.

As a leader, your decisions can shape the direction of your team and organisation. While your experience and expertise are invaluable, tapping into the insights of your team members can lead to more well-rounded and innovative solutions. Gaining additional input not only empowers your team but also strengthens your leadership. Let’s explore four practical tips to help you gather valuable input from others and make more informed decisions.

1. Foster an Open and Inclusive Environment: Creating an environment where diverse perspectives are welcomed is essential. Encourage open discussions, active listening, and the sharing of ideas without fear of judgment. When team members feel their input is valued, they are more likely to contribute their insights, leading to richer discussions and better decisions.

2. Schedule Regular Feedback Sessions: Set aside dedicated time for feedback sessions with your team. These sessions can take the form of one-on-one meetings or group discussions. Use these opportunities to ask open-ended questions, such as "What challenges are you currently facing?" or "Do you have any suggestions to improve our processes?" Regular feedback sessions not only provide a platform for input but also demonstrate your commitment to continuous improvement.

3. Use Brainstorming Techniques: Brainstorming is a powerful tool for generating a wide range of ideas. Organise brainstorming sessions where team members can freely contribute their thoughts on a particular challenge or project. Encourage a no-judgment atmosphere, and use techniques like mind mapping to ensure everyone's input is heard. Brainstorming sessions can lead to innovative solutions that might not have surfaced otherwise.

4. Implement Anonymous Surveys: Sometimes, team members may be hesitant to share their input openly. In larger teams and groups anonymous surveys can provide a safe space for honest feedback. Use surveys to gather opinions on specific topics, collect suggestions for improvement, or gauge overall satisfaction. Ensure the surveys are well-structured and ask targeted questions to gather actionable insights.

Tapping into the collective wisdom of your team can strengthen your leadership. By fostering an inclusive environment, scheduling regular feedback sessions, using brainstorming techniques, and implementing anonymous surveys, you empower your team to contribute their insights. Embracing diverse perspectives leads to more informed decisions, innovative solutions, and a team that feels valued and engaged. As you integrate these practical tips into your leadership approach, you'll not only strengthen the bond with your team but also harness the power of collaborative decision-making for an even better future.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Given how important goal setting is to performance and satisfaction, we can all use some tips to improve our goal setting. This week we explore how to set better goals.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 201 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to set better goals.

Goal setting is a core activity that guides individuals and teams towards success. As a leader, your ability to set clear and meaningful goals is central to achieving excellence. However, we’re often less effective at goal setting than we think. Today we will explore four practical actions you can take to set better goals, both for yourself and for your team.

1. Align with Vision and Strategy: Every goal should be a stepping stone towards a larger vision. Before setting goals, ensure that they align with your team's overall vision and the organisation's strategic objectives. This alignment keeps everyone focused and moving in the same direction. When goals resonate with a higher purpose, they become more meaningful and more motivating.

2. Make Goals SMART:

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This framework provides a set of criteria for goal setting that ensures clarity and accountability.

• Specific: Define goals clearly and precisely. The more specific the goal, the easier it is to understand and work towards.
• Measurable: Set concrete metrics to track progress. Measurement adds objectivity to the process and enables you to assess whether the goal has been achieved.
• Achievable: Goals should be challenging yet realistic. Ensure that the goal can be accomplished with the available resources and effort. Also make sure there is an achievement point - a moment when you can say that the goal has been completed.
• Relevant: Goals should be relevant to the individual, team, or organisation's current needs and priorities.

• Time-bound: Set a clear timeframe for achieving the goal. This adds urgency and prevents goals from dragging on indefinitely.

• Foster Ownership and Collaboration: Involve your team in the goal-setting process. When people have a say in setting their own goals, they feel a sense of ownership and commitment. Encourage collaboration by soliciting input and feedback from team members. This not only leads to better goal alignment but also promotes a culture of shared responsibility.

• Break Down Goals into Milestones: Large goals can feel overwhelming, but breaking them down into smaller, manageable milestones can make them more achievable. Each milestone serves as a mini-goal and a progress marker. Celebrate successes as these milestones are reached, boosting motivation and maintaining momentum.

Goal setting is both an art and a science, and leaders who excel at it inspire their teams to reach new heights. By aligning goals with vision and strategy, making them SMART, fostering ownership and collaboration, and breaking them down into milestones, you set the stage for success. Remember, the best goals are those that not only drive performance but also resonate with the hearts and minds of your team, creating a sense of purpose and fulfilment in every achievement. Have a great week.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Procrastination has been described as “our favourite form of self-sabotage” (Alyce Cornyn-Selby). This week we explore how to overcome it.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 200 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. Procrastination has been described as “our favourite form of self-sabotage” (Alyce Cornyn-Selby). This week we explore how to overcome it.

Most people experience procrastination from time to time. 25% of the population even have procrastination as a defining personality trait. Procrastination is associated with a range of negative aspects including low self-esteem, pessimism, anxiety, fatigue and detachment. It’s not only bad for performance - procrastination can wreak havoc on our well-being.

Procrastination can be defined as voluntarily delaying an intended task despite expecting to be worse off for doing so. This is a crucial element of procrastination - that we put things off even when we know we will be worse off as a result. So why do we procrastinate at all given it’s so bad for us? The function of procrastination is short-term mood repair. We procrastinate because it makes us feel better in the short term, even when that’s at the expense of achieving longer-term goals. Research even shows that the more negative our mood, the more time we spend procrastinating. So what can we do about procrastination?

A good place to start is to think about the opposite of procrastination. A flow state is the closest we experience to the opposite of procrastination. When we experience flow our attention is fully focused, we feel flexible and adaptable, our skills are challenged, we feel great and time flys by. So how do we achieve flow? Flow is assisted by clear goals, flexibility in pursuing those goals, lots of feedback, and an opportunity to stretch our skill set. So here are six practical approaches you can try to get into flow and overcome procrastination:

1. Choose to be challenged in an area of interest: Boredom increases the risk of procrastination, so we want to focus our attention towards tasks that are interesting. Being guided by our interests can get us out of the procrastination rut and ready to tackle other more challenging areas.
2. Set goals and deadlines to work towards: We prioritise and work harder to achieve tasks that have a deadline, so use that to your advantage.
3. Boost your mood before you begin: Given procrastination is a technique to restore our mood, boosting our mood reduces the risk of procrastinating in the first place. Go for a walk around the block or undertake some other mood-boosting activity before you tackle a task that you typically put off.
4. Minimise distractions: Turn off wifi or use settings to reduce notifications and access to distracting apps.
5. Involve others: Gather people who can provide encouragement, mentoring and feedback. It’s harder to procrastinate when others are checking in and holding you accountable.
6. Work in bursts: Set a timer for 15 minutes and start working. When the 15 minutes is up, assess whether you can put in an extra 15 minutes. The urge to procrastinate tends to fade away once we get started.

There’s no need to be plagued by procrastination. Give these practical tips a try and let me know how you go. If you want to dive into this topic in more detail, our Leadership Today subscription includes a recorded webinar called “A Procrastinator’s Guide” and also a five day Defeat Procrastination challenge. Go to www.learn.leadership.today for more information and use the promo code PODCAST at checkout for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five-day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Twenty five recorded webinars and Ask an Expert interviews - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 150+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Leadership is challenging at the best of times, but even more so when people aren’t hitting the mark. This week we explore how to deal with underperformance.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 199 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to deal with underperformance.

Leadership is challenging at the best of time, but even more so when people aren’t hitting the mark. Underperformance can be tricky to address. Research shows that the further people are away from performance standards, the less feedback they receive. Managers often avoid dealing with underperformance, hoping that things will magically get better with time. But performance rarely improves by itself. It takes a concerted effort on the part of the leader and the individual to turn things around.

It’s helpful to consider two dimensions of underperformance - skill and will.

Skill refers to a person’s capability and proficiency in performing their tasks. It's possible that an individual's skills are not aligned with the requirements of their role, leading to subpar performance. Addressing skill-related underperformance involves identifying skill gaps and providing the necessary resources for improvement.

Will refers to the person’s motivation in completing their tasks. Motivation plays a significant role in performance. Low motivation can result from various factors, including personal issues, disengagement, or a lack of recognition. Dealing with will-related underperformance involves understanding the root cause of demotivation and implementing strategies to reignite enthusiasm and commitment.

Underperformance may also be a mix of skill and will gaps.

With those principles in mind, here are five practical strategies you can apply to help with underperformance in your team.

1. Goal Setting and Monitoring: Set clear, achievable performance goals that align with the person’s role and the team's objectives. Clarity comes first. If people aren’t clear about their role and expectations, you can’t manage underperformance. Regularly monitor progress and provide timely feedback. This approach keeps employees on track and motivated to achieve tangible results, addressing both skill and will dimensions of underperformance.
2. Personalised Development Plans: For skill-related underperformance, work with the employee to create a tailored development plan. Identify areas that need improvement and provide resources such as workshops, courses, or mentorship. This proactive approach not only enhances skills but also demonstrates your commitment to their growth.
3. Motivational Conversations: When dealing with will-related underperformance, engage in motivational conversations. Understand the person’s concerns, aspirations, and potential roadblocks. Together, devise strategies to reignite their passion and commitment to their role. Sometimes, a simple change in responsibilities or opportunities for skill application can reignite enthusiasm.
4. Constructive Feedback and Recognition: Initiate open and honest conversations with underperforming employees. Address skill gaps by providing specific feedback and suggesting training opportunities. For issues related to motivation, recognise their efforts and contributions particularly where you see improvements, reinforcing the value they bring to the team. Constructive feedback motivates improvement and fosters a sense of belonging.
5. Mentorship and Role Modelling: Pair underperforming employees with mentors who can provide guidance and support. Mentorship encourages skill development and fosters a sense of belonging. Additionally, lead by example—demonstrate enthusiasm, dedication, and a growth mindset. Your actions can inspire others to embrace improvement and take ownership of their performance.

Underperformance can be tricky to manage well. Being clear and supportive, while also providing the help and development people need, will provide your best opportunity to turn things around.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

It can be one of the most tricky conversations to have with your manager. This week we look at how to ask for a pay rise.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 198 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at how to ask for a pay rise.

In a competitive job market it can be tempting to go for a job in another organisation in order to increase our pay. Often people find out that the grass isn’t greener and regret their decision to leave. It is worth at least asking whether a pay rise is possible before making a more drastic decision.

It is important to recognise that what you are paid is based on a number of factors, including your industry, your organisation, your role, and your contribution within that role. Industries pay wildly different rates for the same roles. Generally speaking, the more profitable the industry, the higher the pay levels. Organisations also vary in their pay practices. Some will pay higher than their competitors, and others will pay lower.

People care about their pay compared to those in other organisations before they join an organisation. This is called external competitiveness - the extent to which an organisation is competitive against its peers. Once they’ve joined an organisation, people then really care about how their pay compares to others within the same organisation. This is called internal equity - the extent to which my pay is competitive against others doing similar roles within the organisation. You could find the largest pay increases are possible by changing organisation or industry. But work life isn’t just about pay.

So let’s say you want to stay in the same organisation. How do you ask for a pay rise?

1. Don’t get too caught up with what others are being paid. Rather focus your conversation on what you can control and what you are bringing to the organisation. This could include changes in your role such as greater accountability, more complex problem solving, or increased skills required to complete your work. It could also include changes in your contribution such as improved performance, helping others, or contributing to projects beyond your usual role.
2. Check any existing pay review processes. If you have a Human Resources department it’s worth seeing how often pay is typically reviewed and the standard process. Having said that, most organisations will have some scope for out of cycle reviews.
3. Flag the conversation ahead of time. Say something like “I was hoping we could discuss my pay. Can I set up a meeting to do that?”. This will give your manager time to prepare rather than feeling like they have been hijacked by the conversation.
4. Recognise that your manager may be nervous about this conversation as well. Help put them at ease by being polite and calm.
5. Prepare for the meeting. You might structure the conversation by saying that you want to stay with the organisation and are enjoying the role. You can then discuss changes in the role and in your contribution since the last pay review.
6. Don’t put your manager on the spot. The manager will typically not be able to make a decision right away, so discuss what time they might need to review your pay.
7. Be prepared for a no. It is entirely possible that your pay rise request may be denied. Prepare for this by considering whether you are prepared to stay with the organisation. You might want to look for other roles within the organisation, or could even start exploring roles outside the organisation.

Asking for a pay rise can be a tricky conversation. However, preparation, being clear about what you want, and being considerate can increase your chances of a good outcome.

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We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

We all know holidays are important, but in our always-on work culture it can be hard to take a genuine break. There are some practical steps you can follow to ensure your holiday is a success for you and your colleagues.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 197 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at how to take a holiday. Given our always-on work culture and the technology that allows us to work anywhere, taking a holiday has never been more important and more challenging. Many people struggle to find the time to take a break. And when they do they find it difficult to truly switch off, continuing to check emails and answer phone calls. We are built to oscillate between stress and recovery, preferably on a daily basis. But even if we have effective daily strategies to maintain our wellbeing, there’s an ambient level of stress that a genuine break from work can help address. Taking a clean break from work can have significant benefits to our health, well-being and performance. As leaders, we need to role model this to our people as well. There’s no point encouraging your team members to take time off if you never do. Here are five ideas for how to take a holiday well:

1. Plan ahead. Secure the time in your calendar and gain the required approvals. I have found when I failed to plan ahead, it was difficult to find a completely free week. Lock the time away early so it can’t be booked over.
2. Delegate and collaborate. Distribute any responsibilities that need to happen while you’re away. Use this as an opportunity for further development and growth. Pay it forward by supporting others when they take leave.
3. Prepare for the break, but don’t overwork. Communicate the dates you will be away. Document any work in progress and take time to walk others through what might come up while you’re away.
4. Switch off completely. Set clear boundaries with your work. Leave the work laptop and phone at home. You might want to provide a contact phone number to a trusted colleague for any emergencies that arise, but be clear about what constitutes an emergency.
5. Choose the type of holiday you need. Holidays come in many different forms. A holiday might be about activity, or connections with friends, or rest by a pool, or a cross-cultural experience. Try new things and broaden your horizons. But make sure you don’t come back from your holiday exhausted.

Holidays are an important part of sustained performance as a leader. Build a culture where holidays are encouraged and supported. Be prepared and set others up for success. Role model taking a break to your team and colleagues.

Now’s a great time to book that next holiday in. Have a great week.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Erica Keswin is a bestselling author, internationally sought after speaker, and workplace strategist. Her first two bestselling books Bring Your Human to Work: 10 Surefire Ways to Design a Workplace That’s Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World (McGraw Hill 2018), and Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines Into Workplace Magic (McGraw Hill 2021) were widely discussed in media outlets like Good Morning America, MSNBC and Live with Kelly & Ryan, as well as many print articles and reviews. Her forthcoming book is called The Retention Revolution: 7 Surprising (and Very Human!) Ways to Keep Employees Connected to Your Company (September 2023 McGraw-Hill) and will set leaders up for success in this new world of work.

When Erica isn’t writing books and offering keynotes, she coaches top-of-the-class businesses, organizations, and individuals to help them improve their performance by honoring relationships in today’s hybrid workplace. Erica is honored to be one of Marshall Goldsmith’s Top 100 Coaches, as well as one of Business Insider’s most innovative coaches. She’s also the founder of the Spaghetti Project, a roving ritual devoted to sharing the science and stories of relationships at work. Erica lives in New York City with her husband Jeff, three children and her labradoodle, Cruiser.

During our interview we discuss:

• Workplace trends and what Erica is seeing as the major changes over the past few years

• The competing forces taking the world of work forward and backward

• The significant impact a well-designed onboarding process can have on employee engagement and retention

• What Erica has learned from organisations about flexible working and what it takes to make it work

• How to make the most out of meetings

• The importance of managers

• The off-boarding process and how to support people wanting to return in the future

You can learn more about Erica here: https://ericakeswin.com/

Her latest book is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Retention-Revolution-Surprising-Employees-Connected/dp/1265158681

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Summary

Trust is the cornerstone of effective leadership. This week we explore practical ways to build and maintain trust.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 196 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to build trust. Trust is not just a word; it's the cornerstone of effective leadership. Anyone who has experienced working with someone they didn't trust understands the detrimental impact a lack of trust can have. The definition of trust we use at Leadership Today is “being confident you have my best interests at heart and can be relied upon to deliver”. Let's break down the two crucial elements of trust and explore actionable steps you can take to build it.

Element One - Having My Best Interests at Heart

Here are four actions you can take to build connection and care.

Action 1: Build a Personal Connection

Begin by getting to know the people you lead on a personal level. Understand their career aspirations, interests, and what truly fulfils them in their work. Genuine conversations about their goals and challenges help foster a deeper understanding.

Action 2: Demonstrate Genuine Care

Show that you genuinely care about your team members' well-being. Advocate for their interests and advancement. Look for opportunities to support their growth, whether it's through projects that align with their interests or training that boosts their skills.

Action 3: Provide Personalised Recognition

Recognise and celebrate the unique contributions of each team member. Publicly acknowledge their achievements and show appreciation for their efforts.

Action 4: Regular Check-ins and Feedback

Engage in regular one-on-one conversations to discuss progress, challenges, and goals. Seek feedback on your leadership style and actions, showing that you are open to improvement and value their input.

Element Two - Being Reliable

Here are four actions you can take to foster competence and consistency.

Action 1: Set Clear Expectations

Communicate your commitments and expectations clearly. Let your team know what you're working on and what they can expect from you. Clarity minimises uncertainty and establishes a foundation of trust.

Action 2: Demonstrate Expertise

Share your knowledge and skills with the team. Offer guidance and support based on your expertise. Be careful to also remain open to diverse perspectives and be willing to learn from others.

Action 3: Consistency in Behaviour

Consistency breeds trust. Keep your emotions in check, regardless of circumstances. Uphold your values and principles consistently, demonstrating your reliability and predictability.

Action 4: Accountability and Humility

When things go well, acknowledge and praise your team's contributions. When things don't go as planned, take personal responsibility as the leader. Admit mistakes, apologise if necessary, and work together to find solutions.

Trust begins with you and your actions as a leader. By investing in these actionable steps, you can cultivate an environment of trust where your team members feel valued, supported, and empowered. Remember, trust is not just an outcome; it's a continuous effort that strengthens the foundation of your leadership journey. Choose one or two actions to try out this week and let me know how you go.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Our thinking can fall into a rut over time. This week we explore five ways to take a broader perspective.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 195 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at five ways to take a broader perspective. Over time it's easy to fall into the trap of narrow thinking. Our minds can become confined to familiar sources of information and limited perspectives from the people around us. To excel as leaders, we need to break free from this thinking rut and embrace new ways of approaching challenges. Here are five ways to expand our horizons, foster innovation, and become more effective leaders.

1. Read Widely: Leadership is not confined to a single field of expertise. To gain a broader perspective, it's crucial to read widely and explore knowledge outside our usual sources of information. Pick out books, articles, and research from various disciplines. By immersing ourselves in diverse sources of information, we can spark creativity, uncover new insights, and develop a more holistic approach to problem-solving. When we expand our intellectual horizons, we become better equipped to tackle complex issues with fresh and innovative ideas.
2. Seek Out Diversity: Leadership thrives on diversity – diverse perspectives, experiences, and ideas. Actively engage with colleagues and stakeholders from different backgrounds, departments, and roles. Embrace diversity in ideas and actively seek out the viewpoints of others. Innovation often arises at the intersection of diverse ideas.
3. Stay Informed about Industry Trends: In the ever changing world of business, staying informed about industry trends is essential. Keep yourself updated on the latest developments, challenges, and emerging opportunities within your industry or field. Dive into industry publications, attend conferences, and participate in webinars to broaden your knowledge base. Being informed empowers you to make data-driven decisions and see the bigger picture.
4. Encourage Feedback and Constructive Criticism: Role model an openness to improvement by encouraging feedback and constructive criticism from your team members and peers. Create a culture of psychological safety, where everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts without fear of retribution. Embrace feedback as opportunities for growth, not personal attacks. By being receptive to suggestions, you can expand your perspectives and gain valuable insights that you might have otherwise missed.
5. Use Data and Analytics: In today's data-driven world, relying on data and analytics is essential for informed decision-making. Data provides an objective understanding of a situation and reveals patterns and trends that might remain hidden from our limited perspectives. By analysing relevant data, you can gain a clearer and more holistic picture of your organisation's performance, customer needs, and market dynamics. This empowers you to make well-informed decisions that drive growth and success.

As leaders, it’s important to recognise the risks of falling into a thinking rut. To thrive in the face of challenges, we must actively break free from our comfort zone and expand our horizons. Reading widely, seeking diverse viewpoints, staying informed about industry trends, encouraging feedback, and using data and analytics are great strategies to become more effective and innovative leaders. Try applying one of these approaches this week and let me know how you go.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

This week we’re exploring an ancient technique to help you memorise a presentation with numerous points in a set order.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 194 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we’re exploring an ancient technique to help you memorise a presentation with numerous points in a set order.

Think about the best presenters you’ve seen. Were they constantly checking their notes, or reading off PowerPoint slides? Probably not. There’s nothing wrong with having notes, but it is compelling and indeed freeing to be able to present your ideas in a clear sequence without notes.

Today we’re going to explore a mnemonic or memory technique that is perfectly suited to storing away numerous points in a particular order.

Many of us would say we don’t have a great memory, but the problem is usually the initial storage of the memory rather than recall of the memory. For thousands of years people have used various techniques to store memories in a way that makes them easier to retrieve. One approach that’s particularly effective is the Memory Palace, also known as the Method of Loci (or location). I’ve used this approach to memorise presentations up to 30 minutes long comfortably without needing to use notes. I really don’t consider myself to have special memory abilities. This technique really makes it quite easy.

The first thing you need to do when using the Memory Palace technique is to think of a location with various way points that you know well. For example, I use the house I currently live in, storing points away in rooms and locations in a set path through the house. It could be a path you regularly walk that has clear landmarks and objects along the way. Ideally you will use this same path for every presentation you want to remember. The pathway and landmarks should be effortless to recall. Using my house I have a number of places where I can store a memory or point in my presentation. I start at the front door, then there’s the entrance hall, around the corner to a bathroom, a son’s bedroom, on to the kitchen, then the living room, another son’s room, then the dining room, lounge room, upstairs to yet another son’s room, another bathroom, and then a final bedroom. That’s 11 way points which is plenty. I typically find I don’t even need to use the upstairs rooms.

We then chunk up our presentation into main points. Each of these main points should be easy to talk through. You can even contain multiple points within these points if you want to get really advanced. The key then is to create a vivid and hopefully unusual visual association you can store in each location. The more bizarre, colourful and ridiculous the better.

Let’s say I’m giving a general presentation about leadership. My first chunk is a discussion about the definition of leadership I typically use and some discussion that will come out of that. I have about 5 minutes worth of content that I can use around this point. So the first point I want to remember is “what is leadership?”. The visual reminder could be the word “leadership” shaped like a large bright red inflated question mark. Perhaps I could also put some smaller question marks following the large question mark as it walks around in a circle. My second point is around the impact leadership can have. So in the second room, the bathroom, I might have a large hammer smashing the mirror on the wall - a memorable image of impact. If I have several sub-points under that main point, I could memorise a sequence of events unfolding in the room. For example, if I want to talk about the impact of leadership on people, organisations and society, I could have the hammer smash a figurine representing people, then a building representing organisations, then a globe representing society. We repeat the storage process through the remainder of the rooms. To store all of this information away I just walk through the house in my mind, recalling each of the visual cues and ensuring I can then bring to mind the points I need to make. I physically walk through the house the first few times, closing my eyes in each room to store away the visual associations. I find that makes the memories even stronger.

A few final tips - think about key objects in each room. For example, my eldest son has a record player in his room, so I use that to interact with other visual cues. We have a fire place in our lounge room, so I often have points interacting with fire in that room.

I recommend the first time you use this technique that you keep a simple paper copy of the points. If nothing else, getting your presentation down to a post-it note of points is far ahead of reading from slides or pages of notes. Also, you can use this approach for more than just presentations. Anything you need to memorise in a particular order will work, so you could memorise your calendar for the day, a list of errands, or people you need to speak with.

I hope you find this approach as helpful as I have. Give it a try and let me know how you go.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Cynicism in others can be challenging for a leader. This week we outline some practical steps you can take to deal with cynicism in the workplace.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 193 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. Cynicism in others can be challenging for a leader. This week we outline some practical steps you can take to deal with cynicism in the workplace.

Cynicism is a belief that others are only focused on their own interests and are not sincere. At work this might include assuming leaders are just out for themselves, and any initiatives are ultimately going to be bad for people. Cynical behaviour can be discouraging for leaders and colleagues alike. It can decrease trust, creativity and collaboration. As a leader there are some practical steps you can take to deal with cynicism.

1. Lead by example. Make sure you’re being positive and honest in your communications. Cynicism can breed in environments that lack transparency and trust, so make sure you are role modelling these.
2. Encourage people to talk about their frustrations, and focus on continuous improvement. Sometimes as leaders we think it’s best to avoid discussing frustrations, but it’s actually helpful and indeed necessary to bring them out to the surface. The key thing is to then focus on improvement.
3. Bring people together from different areas. It’s difficult to be cynical about someone you know well. More in-person time helps people to see others as real human beings and can reduce cynicism.
4. Provide direct and timely feedback. It can be tempting to make generalisations about a person’s character or approach when trying to tackle something like cynicism. However, instead of describing someone as cynical, it’s more effective to base your feedback on observed behaviour. What did the cynicism actually look like? What was the impact of that behaviour on you and others? This approach will help the other person to understand and accept the feedback.
5. Coach people past cynicism. Those who are being cynical are often frustrated by their inability to shape the team and organisation. You can help them to explore what they want to achieve and more effective ways to influence outcomes.

In my experience, with a little bit of effort and empathy, people who have been cynical in the past can often become the biggest agents for change. Why not try some of these approaches in the coming week.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 150+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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In this interview we speak with Ralph Kilmann, conflict management expert and author of the book Mastering the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, detailing the tool he co-created almost 50 years ago. We discuss:
- What drew him to conflict in the first place
- Why conflict is on the rise and what we can do about it
- His conflict mode framework
- The core skills of managing conflict well
- How to think about conflict in an organisational setting
- Thinking about conflict across cultures

You can learn more about Ralph Kilmann, his latest book, and even take the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument here - https://kilmanndiagnostics.com/

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Summary

Decision making and problem solving are significantly important to any leadership role. This week we look at ways to make better decisions.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 192 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at ways to make better decisions.

To help us make better decisions, we will explore three elements - the inputs, the outputs, and involving others.

First element, the inputs. We tend to use either an analytical approach or a conceptual approach when considering inputs to our decisions. They are distinct cognitive processes, each with their benefits and limitations.

Analytical thinking is a logical and structured approach to problem-solving that involves breaking down complex issues into smaller components and analysing them individually. It relies on data, facts, and evidence to understand the current situation, identify patterns, and draw conclusions. This could include detailed analysis of the financial situation, or exploring current customer data.

Conceptual thinking is a more abstract and creative cognitive process that involves synthesising diverse ideas, connecting disparate concepts, and envisioning new possibilities. It focuses on the "big picture" and the underlying principles or frameworks that shape a situation. This might involve combining products or services together to reach new customers. It could include drawing on lessons from a completely different industry.

Leaders need to employ analytical thinking to analyse data, evaluate risks, and make evidence-based decisions. At the same time, conceptual thinking enables them to envision future possibilities, set strategic direction, and inspire their teams. By leveraging both approaches, leaders can develop comprehensive insights as an input to decision making. Coming up with our Leadership Today On-Demand service involved both analytical and conceptual thinking. The conceptual idea was to draw lessons from online fitness training and apply these to leadership development. So our service feels quite different to traditional online courses. You don’t have to access content in any particular order. Just start where you’re interested and expand from there. The analytical thinking involved testing the market, reviewing the content people were most interested in, and analysing competitor offerings.

Second element, the outputs. Once we’ve gather information and have completed our analysis, an effective decision needs to consider what could be called both the head and the heart. The head is logical, rational, cold and detached. Here we focus on consistency and objective facts. The heart focuses on the impact of our decisions on people. It’s empathetic, warm, involved and connected. When using a heart approach things can become more subjective, however we can still use rigour when considering the implications of our decisions on the people likely to be impacted.

Third and final element, involving others. We each have preferences around how we take information in and make decisions. I tend to be more of a conceptual and heart kind of person when it comes to analysis and decision making. While that brings some strengths around drawing together broad trends and considering the human impact of decisions, I risk not considering enough data and involving too much emotion in decision making. I therefore involve others at the input and output stages. I find this helpful to check my thinking and ensure I’m not overlooking important information or implications. It’s particularly helpful to involve people who may be directly impacted by the decision making. Here we do need to be clear about what help we are seeking. Is their involvement an input to decision making, or are they actually making the decision? Clarity around involving others is very important.

I hope you found these three elements of effective decision making helpful - the inputs, the outputs and involving others. This week I encourage you to apply one aspect that stood out to you.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Many people want to be more assertive at work. This week we explore assertiveness as a type of conversation.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 191 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to be more assertive at work.

Many people want to be more assertive at work - you might be one of them. Perhaps you feel your perspectives are overlooked, or you struggle to get your opinions across to people, or you’re frustrated that others just steamroll through and always get their way. To address these challenges, we really need to break some misconceptions about assertiveness. Assertiveness is not something you’re born with. It’s not a personality type or preference. Rather, assertiveness is a set of skills any of us can develop and improve.

A helpful way to think about assertiveness is to picture a line. At one end of the line is passive. If I’m being passive it’s 100% about them, the other person and their needs, wants and interests, and 0% about me, my needs, wants and interests. It’s okay to be passive sometimes, particularly on issues that really matter to the other person but don’t matter to you. If it’s genuinely not important to you, it’s perfectly fine and even a great idea to let the other person get what they want. However, if we’re passive about things that matter to us, then that can be a problem. At the other end of the line is aggressive. Here it’s 0% about the other person, and 100% about my needs, wants and interests. Again, sometimes it’s perfectly appropriate to put your needs and wants first. There are issues where it’s important to hold your ground. But if you’re aggressive about every issue, even ones you don’t care about, that’s likely to limit your effectiveness and relationships.

So assertiveness isn’t being passive, and it’s also not about being aggressive. Assertiveness also isn’t the midpoint on the line - it’s not 50% about them and 50% about you - that’s compromise not assertiveness.

Instead, assertiveness is a type of conversation - one where my needs, wants and interests are 100% on the table, but so are the other person’s needs, wants and interests. The best way to measure your assertiveness isn’t by seeing whether you got your way or not - that’s really more a measure of aggressiveness. Instead, you can measure your assertiveness by whether the other person understands your perspective and why it’s important to you, and also whether you understand their perspective and why it matters to them. We may then have a shared problem to work through - you can’t always get a win-win solution right away. Here are a few quick tips for more assertive conversations:

• Be clear about needs, not just your wants. Sometimes what people present as what they want isn’t the same as what they actually need.
• Write down your needs, interests and wants before a meeting then make sure you share these during the meeting. Preparation really helps.
• Acknowledge where there is disagreement and your willingness to work with the other person towards a solution.

If you found this helpful, check out our Boost Your Assertiveness course.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

The week we explore how to prepare for a job interview to give you the best chance of winning that new position.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 190 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to prepare for a job interview.

Job interviews are stressful and unpredictable. There are no guarantees in an interview and it can feel like a guessing game. But there are some simple things you can do to dramatically improve your chances of success.

1. Take their perspective. An interview is an opportunity to learn more about you and your capability to take on a role. Think about the goals of the interviewer. They want to be confident that you can do the role, so the interviewer will be looking for specific things, which brings us to the next tip.
2. Ask about the interview format and selection criteria. You will most likely already have the selection criteria as these are typically spelled out as part of the application process. If you don’t have the selection criteria, ask your contact if they can provide them. In addition it’s helpful to know the general format of the interview, number of interviewers, and any tips they might have to make sure you’re as prepared as possible. Complete a self-assessment against the selection criteria. This will help prepare you to address any gaps that might come up during the interview.
3. Create a narrative. How is this role a sensible next step in your career journey? It will be helpful to the interviewer to demonstrate the story or narrative that has led up to this point. Why this job specifically? And why this job now?
4. Do your research. If you’re applying for a listed organisation, read through their annual report and latest investor briefings. If it’s a smaller organisation, look for any media releases or newsletters. Demonstrating that you understand how this role fits in to the broader organisational challenges and opportunities will impress any interviewer. Come into the interview with the mindset and awareness of an investor. Clearly explain how you can add value to the organisation through this role.
5. Prepare evidence and examples. There are two broad types of interview questions - hypothetical and behavioural. A hypothetical question could be about a scenario such as “How would you deal with a difficult customer?” A behaviour question looks for a specific example of when you’ve done something, such as “Tell me about a time when you’ve dealt with a difficult customer?”. With either approach, make sure you include actual examples. Even if the questions are hypothetical in nature, providing behavioural answers through real examples is far more compelling. Ask a friend to help you practice by asking behavioural questions.
6. Come with questions. A pretty standard way to finish an interview is to ask if you have any questions, so it is worth having one or two genuine questions prepared in advance. A great question to ask is whether there’s any other information you can provide that might help their decision making.
7. Arrive early and dress appropriately. Make sure you’re not in a rush for the interview. If it’s online, log in early to test your technology. For clothing, err towards a step up from what others wear at the organisation. Dress standards vary widely between organisations and even offices. Wear something that makes you feel comfortable and confident, but that also shows you’ve made an effort for the interview.
8. Follow up. Send an email to say thank you for the opportunity, offer to provide further information if needed, and ask for feedback.

I hope these tips have been helpful. Interviews are always going to create some stress, but with a bit of planning and thought you can improve your odds of being successful dramatically.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Summary

Delivering a presentation is a fear-inducing situation for most of us. This week we look at practical ways to manage pre-presentation nerves.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 189 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at ways to manage pre-presentation nerves.

Most of us will need to give a work presentation at some point. Whether it’s to a group of 5 at a team meeting or 500 at a conference, speaking in public can be very stressful. This applies to online presentations as well. These nerves impact people differently, but many will experience an elevated heart rate, sweating, feeling hot or going red, and struggling to concentrate.

If we let our nerves get the better of us we may not present as well as we had hoped. Our fear might even lead us to avoid opportunities to share our ideas in the future. However there are some practical steps you can take to deal with pre-presentation nerves that will help you to be more confident and clear.

1. Prepare. Be really clear about what you’re planning to say. I’ve found keeping presentations to three main points works well. Your notes should be bullet points rather than a script. You can start by outlining the three points you will cover, then go into more detail for each of the points, then summarise the three points at the end.
2. Practice. Run through your presentation in front of the mirror or, better yet, video yourself. Don’t ever let your actual presentation be the first time you’ve said it out loud. I find it helpful to visualise the room I will be presenting in. If you have access to the room ahead of time that’s even better. Run through the presentation until you only need your notes occasionally as a prompt.
3. Know your audience. Take the time to understand their interests and needs. Speak with people one-on-one before the presentation to gain their perspectives and insights. You can even gather further information during the presentation by getting a show of hands or asking questions. Great presenters focus far more on their audience than themselves.
4. Reframe your emotions. Being nervous or feeling excited have the same physical signs. It’s down to how you interpret your physical state. It’s far better to say to yourself “I feel like this because I’m excited about this opportunity to present and want it to go well”. This won’t remove all the physical signs of stress, but it will help you to use these feelings to your advantage.
5. Breathe. We breathe all day long, but we rarely focus on our breathing. We can use our breathing to calm us. A great approach is the box breathing technique. The box is a simple way to remember the structure - inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds. Doing this for just a minute will calm you down dramatically.
6. Pose a question for discussion early. Asking a question of the group and having them discuss it with one or two others provides an engagement point and also gives a chance to settle in, take some deep breaths and focus.
7. Focus on individuals not the group as a whole. Another presentation technique which can work well is to focus your attention on a single person for a sentence, then shift to someone else for the next sentence. You need to make this natural for you, but making eye contact will draw people in. It is also a reminder that you are communicating with a room of individuals, not just a group of people.
8. Seek feedback. This can feel painful, but feedback is a great way to improve. Find someone who can provide you with balanced feedback and speak with them prior to the presentation to set this up well. After the presentation, ask them to share anything that worked well, and things you should do differently next time. Then thank them for the feedback.

Your presentations will continue to improve with practice. If you can learn to expect and even enjoy the discomfort, you will be able to deal effectively with pre-presentation nerves.

Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer

We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.learn.leadership.today and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription.

Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader.

Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including:

• Our annual conference including a range of leadership experts - valued at $450

• Five online courses with workbooks - valued at $250 each

• Five five day challenges with workbooks - valued at $150 each

• Nineteen recorded webinars - valued at $100 each

• A searchable library of 140+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges - valued at $350

That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.

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Hello and welcome to episode 188 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore ways to build the working relationship you have with your manager.

The working relationship you have with your manager is particularly important for your performance and career. Yet we can all struggle to make this relationship work. It’s easy to put this down to personality and style differences, or perhaps a lack of interest or skill on the part of the manager. However there are some important things to keep in mind. Managers are typically busy. What you might see as a lack of interest or attention may simply be due to them having so much on. Managers have a different perspective and priorities. The scope and time horizon associated with their role could be dramatically different to your role. There are likely to be things they are focused on that you may know nothing about. Your manager might work quite differently to you. Their work style and preferences could well be different to yours.

So, keeping all of these things in mind, here are seven tips for working more effectively with your manager:

1. Establish clear goal posts. Having agreed expectations is fundamental to performance and your relationship. Without clear goals, you can’t have an effective working relationship with your manager.
2. Build trust. Trust is a combination of having another person’s best interests at heart, and being reliable in following through on your commitments. To build trust you need to understand what is important to your manager. You also need to be rock solid in delivering what has been agreed.
3. Ask “How can we best work together?” This is a great question to explore what your manager has found most helpful when leading others. It also opens up a two-way conversation where they’re likely to ask what you’ve found most helpful from other leaders, so be prepared to share some thoughts.
4. Secure some one-on-one time. Given the time constraints on managers this can be challenging, but even 20 minutes a week can make a huge difference. Frame this in terms of how it will be helpful for your manager. For example, it provides an opportunity to bundle-up non urgent questions rather than disturbing them during the week. It will also help ensure clarity and alignment, and that your manager is across progress against objectives.
5. Try to lighten their load. It’s easy to come to your manager with a problem and just make their life harder. Instead, come with options and potential solutions. Even better, come with your preferred approach and rationale.
6. Seek specific feedback. Let your manager know what you’re working on and that you’d appreciate and value their feedback. Again, frame this up from the manager’s perspective and how this regular feedback will help you to be even more effective.
7. Express gratitude. The research is clear - the more senior someone is, the less feedback they receive. Let your manager know what you’re appreciating about the way they have led you. This will encourage them to keep going.

I hope you have found these tips helpful. Give them a try and let me know how you go.

Check out www.leadership.today for more episodes and information about our Leadership Today App.

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Summary

Many people are uncomfortable receiving feedback from others, even when the feedback is positive. We explore how to accept feedback with grace.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 187 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we explore how to accept feedback with grace.

How would you feel if I said “I have some feedback for you”? When I ask this question in leadership development programs, most people indicate that they would feel nervous, a sense of dread, that they would want to leave, or that they’re expecting bad news. It turns out that most of us assume feedback will be negative. When we receive negative feedback we might feel defensive, want to argue back, or even provide our own negative feedback without fully thinking through the implications. But many people even struggle receiving positive feedback. They might try to play it down, perhaps making a joke, or suggesting that the person providing the positive feedback is wrong. So how can we make the most of the feedback we receive, taking it on with a bit more grace? Here are six tips:

1. Always say “thank you”. If it’s positive feedback, try not to dismiss the feedback. If it’s negative feedback, don’t get defensive but just share genuine thanks that the person has had the courage to speak with you.
2. Don’t respond right away. If it’s positive feedback, come back to the person later to let them know what you appreciated about their feedback. If it’s negative feedback, come back to the person later with what you’ve taken out of their feedback. You’re likely to respond better with some additional time to think and reflect.
3. Look for the truth in the feedback. If you have received positive feedback, assume that it’s true. For example, if someone says you seemed really confident when you were presenting to the team, even if you didn’t feel confident, the truth is that you appeared confident. If someone provides negative feedback, look for the kernel of truth. You may not agree with or accept all of the feedback, but there’s likely to be an element of truth in there somewhere.
4. Separate intent and impact. You can set out with the best of intentions, but feedback is focused more on your impact than your intent. Focus on the impact you’re having and be clearer in sharing your intent.
5. Provide further context if required. If you have received negative feedback, it can be helpful to provide further context. It’s important here not to be defensive or dismissive, but additional context can help others to understand why you did what you did.
6. Let them know what you will do as a result. Whether it’s positive or negative feedback, let the person know what you’re planning to do based on the feedback they’ve provided. If it’s positive feedback it might be that you’ll try to keep doing this in the future. If it’s negative feedback, you might let them know what you will try to do differently.

Always remember that feedback is a gift. We may not always like the way the gift is wrapped, but there’s always value in feedback. Give these approaches a try and let me know what you think.

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Summary

This week we explore why focusing on your identity is a better investment of time than focusing on your personal brand.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 186 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore why focusing on your identity is a better investment of time than focusing on your personal brand.

With the proliferation of influencers and social media over the past decade, there has been an increased focus on building a personal brand. Well meaning organisations even run workshops helping people to carefully curate their LinkedIn image. On the surface this sounds like a good thing to focus on in the context of our leadership. Surely we want to be careful about how we present ourselves to the world? There are however some risks of treating yourself as if you were a company or a product. Who we are is much more than just how we want to be seen by others. And how others see us is likely to be more genuine if it’s grounded in our identity.

Our identity is who we are, not just our external persona. It includes what we value, our opinions, what’s important to us, and ultimately who we are.

Personal brand is how we want others to see us. It tends to be more carefully curated. There is a risk that our personal brand can become detached from our identity. This can lead us to effectively put a mask on as we interact with others. This doesn’t just require additional effort to maintain, it also can come across as disingenuous. People are very good at picking up when we are pretending to be something we’re not.

In contrast, identity is who I am, not just my external persona. When we focus on our identity, we are more grounded in who we are and what we stand for. This gives us a sense of purpose and direction. When we are clear on our identity, our personal brand flows naturally.

Here are three things you can consider this week if you want to explore your identity:

1. Reflect on your values and beliefs. What is important to me? What motivates me?
2. Look at your life experiences and how they have shaped who you are today. What have you learned from your successes and failures?
3. Examine your relationships and the people who have influenced you. Your identity is often formed in reference to others.

So this week spend some time considering your identity. It’s a better investment than your personal brand. Have a great week.

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Summary

It turns out many people don’t like compulsory team building activities at work. So how do we build relationships and connections in a way that people do appreciate?

Transcript

Welcome to episode 185 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to build team connections without resorting to compulsory fun.

Many leaders are noticing a reduction in inter-connection between their people. This could be due to a range of factors, including an increase in remote working, busy-ness or just inattention to relationships as an important part of team effectiveness. People are therefore exploring ways of building these connections. A tempting option is to book a hopefully fun team building activity. However research suggests that people can resent team building activities, particularly when they aren’t voluntary. Even when people are okay with being involved, often the activities chosen don’t allow much opportunity for discussion and bonding.

Research suggests that intentional efforts at building relationships and connections are usually more beneficial than generic team building activities. Here are some of the suggestions I’m sharing with clients who are wanting to build team cohesion:

1. Focus on team effectiveness. We are here to do a job, and your team building efforts are best placed when they have a clear link to the effectiveness of the team. That doesn’t mean it needs to be stale or boring, but the activities need to have a point.
2. Allow people to share and get to know each other safely. Team building efforts work best when people can choose how much or how little they want to share. An example is having people share a five star recommendation. This could be anything - a book, holiday destination, recipe, restaurant, activity - anything they would give five stars and why. This simple question often breaks down barriers and allows people to safely open up and get to know each other.
3. Invest your own time in getting to know your people. Team building works best when the leader is involved and makes a conscious effort to get to know all the people in their team, rather than just sticking with the people they know or seeking to keep a distance between them and the team.
4. Building effective relationships is part of the work, so stick to normal work hours. If your team want to organise to do something together outside work hours, that’s great. But anything you organise should honour their time.

Give these approaches a go with your team and have a great week.

Reference

Petr Matous, Julien Pollack, Jane Helm. Collecting experimental network data from interventions on critical links in workplace networks. Social Networks, 2021; 66: 72

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Summary

This week we explore how goal setting changes over time and with our personality preferences. Could setting tighter goals make us more happy?

Transcript

Welcome to episode 184 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how goal setting changes over time and with our personality preferences.

People vary markedly in the way they set goals and where they focus their goals. In general though, tighter and clearer goals tend to be more effective than loose and general goals. A tight goal of exercising for 30 minutes each day is likely to be more effective than a loose goal of wanting to become more resilient. A tight goal of practicing giving presentations in weekly team meetings is likely better than a loose goal of wanting to become a better communicator. But the kinds of goals we set can vary over time and with our personality preferences.

A 2020 study by researchers at the University of California tracked the goals of participants from when they started college to 20 years later. They also looked at the personality preferences of participants, the impact these had on the goals set, and how personality changed over time.

The study found that personality changes impacted the kinds of goals people set. For example, participants whose levels of agreeableness, kindness and compassion increased placed more emphasis on family, relationship and social goals over time. Similarly, those who increased in responsibility, organisation and self-control placed more value on economic and family goals over time. This can help explain why our views of success vary so much - we value different things and set different goals.

The researchers also found that people placed less emphasis on goals as they headed into middle-age, and believed this was due to people being more selective in the focus on goals while also having achieved some of the major goals they set in the preceding 20 years. Interestingly, research also suggests happiness tends to reduce from a peak in our late teenage years, to a low point around 47, before increasing steadily into old age. The mid-forties often feature the greatest competing demands around relationships, parenting, career and health. It is however interesting that the period where we have fewer clear goals appears to coincide with the period when we are least happy. We can end up being so busy that we lose focus on what is most important. We end up focusing on survival rather than planning for the future.

As a leader, it's important to understand that different members of your team may have different approaches to goal setting based on their personality types. By understanding these differences, you can tailor your approach to goal setting to best suit each individual. For those with a strong sense of conscientiousness, it's important to provide clear guidelines and deadlines when setting goals. These individuals thrive on structure and specificity, so providing a clear roadmap and measurable outcomes can help them stay focused and motivated. On the other hand, individuals with high levels of openness may benefit from more flexible and creative goal setting. These individuals tend to be more innovative and enjoy exploring new ideas and possibilities. By providing a broader vision for the goals and allowing for more creativity in how they are achieved, you can tap into their strengths and keep them engaged.

So this week I encourage you to take another look at your goals. How clear and tight are they? What areas of your life do they focus on? Are there goals you need to let go, or new goals you need to set? Spend some time dreaming about what the future could hold, then use goals to mark clear waypoints towards the life you want.

References

Olivia E. Atherton, Emily Grijalva, Brent W. Roberts, Richard W. Robins. Stability and Change in Personality Traits and Major Life Goals From College to Midlife. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2020; 014616722094936

Blanchflower, David G. Is Happiness U-shaped Everywhere? Age and Subjective Well-being in 132 Countries. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series No. 26641 January 2020.

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Summary

When looking for ways to improve and make progress, it is sometimes helpful to explore what could be the most negative outcome and what we can learn from that. This week we look at the benefits of thinking about how to break something in order to make it even better.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 183 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at the benefits of thinking about how to break something in order to make it even better.

I was recently watching a documentary about SpaceX, the manufacturer and launcher of rockets, including the largest and most powerful ever made. In the documentary called “Return to Space” they reflected on the contrasting approaches to experimentation and progress used by SpaceX and NASA. The documentary explained that NASA focuses on getting things as right as possible on paper first before committing to a launch. This leads to an inherent conservative risk-aversion. Success from a NASA perspective is a rocket flight that’s perfect first time even if that takes a long time to get to. SpaceX in contrast has seen some of the most spectacular and dramatic rocket explosions ever. Instead of being disappointed by these or even viewing them as failures, each explosion was seen as an opportunity to gather data and learn fast. Elon Musk even declared their latest Star Ship launch as having a 50% chance of success. He said in an interview "I'm not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement”. Star Ship exploded prior to reaching orbit. Interestingly though, SpaceX’s other rockets now have an enviable level of safety and reliability. By breaking it, SpaceX are learning how to fix it.

So what does this mean for the rest of us leaders who aren’t in the space race? Whether it’s a physical product, a service, or a process, I believe there are several lessons we can learn and apply.

1. Conduct a pre-mortem. A post-mortem is something we undertake after a negative event to find out what went wrong. A pre-mortem flips this process to consider what could go wrong in advance. In a pre-mortem we look at potential negative outcomes and work back to what might cause these, and therefore what we might do differently. This makes it far easier for people to speak up and air concerns.
2. Check your culture. Organisations have different attitudes towards risk and failure. If you are in a risk-averse organisational culture, it’s helpful to consider how you can fail safely. Safe-fail experiments are a great way to stress-test what you’re building.
3. Encourage people to be open about risks and failure. Often times people will attempt to downplay risks and cover up failures. Promoting sharing of these as learning opportunities can help people to be more forthcoming and honest.
4. Focus on the system, not the people. When things go wrong, it’s easy to point the blame at individuals. Instead we should start with the system. This will encourage honest reflections and openness rather than fear of retribution.

I hope you found this helpful. Consider how you might fail-forward in your context. Have a great week.

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In this interview I speak with Clifford Morgan, author of the new book "The Coaching Leader - Essential Skills to Enhance Your Leadership and Develop Your People Every Day". 

We discuss:

• Challenges leaders are facing today
• The benefits of leaders taking on a coaching approach
• What it takes to be a great coach
• Some lessons from Cliff's military background

You can learn more about Cliff, his book and other resources at: https://cliffordmorgan.com.au/

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Summary

Appreciation is an under-utilised method for engaging and motivating our people. This week we explore the most appreciated ways of showing appreciation.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 182 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the most appreciated ways of showing appreciation.

There are many ways we can show appreciation, however research demonstrates that employees favour some approaches over others. Before we explore these, it’s important to think about what we are appreciating.

Appreciation can largely be based on either effort or results. As leaders we will tend to favour one of these over the other. For me, I tend to place more emphasis on recognising effort. Some people really appreciate having their efforts recognised on the way towards a result, so this approach works well for them. However, others would prefer to be recognised for what they have delivered. They may even dislike being recognised for their efforts. So any form of appreciation starts with a conversation. You should explore how people have liked being appreciated in the past.

Research into the ways people prefer to be appreciated highlights words of affirmation as the most frequently chosen, with just over 45% selecting this as their most preferred method. This could include verbal or written appreciation. There weren’t major gender differences in how people prefer to be appreciated. Interestingly, the least preferred approach was gifts, coming in around 5%.

It can sometimes be easy to just give someone a gift or other token recognition, but this is likely to fall flat if it’s not paired with words of appreciation. Providing regular specific appreciation and positive feedback is a great way for motivating your people. Everyone wants to feel appreciated. Take some time to talk to others about how they like to be appreciated and build that in to your approach.

Have a great week.

Reference

White, P. (2017), "How do employees want to be shown appreciation? Results from 100,000 employees", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 197-199. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-06-2017-0037

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Summary

As human beings we face a tension between solitude and socialising. This week we explore practical ways to strike the right balance for you.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 181 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explode practical ways to strike the right balance between solitude and socialising.

As human beings we face a tension between solitude and socialising. A recent study found that in older adults, while socialising is important for mental and physical well being, times of solitude are also important to help people recharge. The authors provide a helpful analogy of solitude and socialising as opposite ends of a see saw. We need both, and we need to oscillate back and forth.

Socialising helps foster a sense of belonging and connection with others, allows us to consider new perspectives, and builds relationships. In contrast, loneliness not only impacts our mental health, but also our physical health.

Solitude allows us to reflect and consolidate our experiences. This can help build our understanding of ourselves and our effectiveness. As the earlier study flagged, solitude can also allow us to recharge and refresh from the demands of socialising.

We need to be strategic in our application of both solitude and socialising. Here are some thoughts to consider:

1. How do you spend your time now? Take a look at your calendar and gain a rough idea of your balance between solitude and socialising.
2. Assess your current levels of satisfaction with this balance. Our needs can shift over time. What worked for us five years ago may not suit us now. Changes in our work arrangements may have also knocked our balance out. If you find yourself working more often remotely, you may also need to be more intentional about scheduling social connections.
3. Make the first move. If you do want to increase your level of social interaction, don’t wait for others. Think about people you love catching up with and give them a call to schedule a time to reconnect.
4. Schedule seclusion. While meeting with others often requires a calendar invite, we don’t typically apply the same approach to time alone. Put time for solitude and reflection in your calendar.

Striking a balance between solitude and socialising is important. What works for others may not work for you, and what worked a few years ago may no longer work. Take a quick audit and let me know how you go. Have a great week.

Reference

Luo, M., Pauly, T., Röcke, C., & Hülür, G. (2022). Alternating time spent on social interactions and solitude in healthy older adults. British Journal of Psychology, 113, 987– 1008. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12586

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Summary

With a fluid employment market it can be tempting to keep looking for new opportunities. This week we explore why you might need to stop looking for your next job.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 180 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. With a fluid employment market it can be tempting to keep looking for new opportunities. This week we explore why you might need to stop looking for your next job.

We all have times in our career when we want to make a change of job or organisation. We might be dissatisfied with our current role, be chasing a higher salary, or just want to make a change. We can then end up committing a lot of time and energy to looking around for new opportunities. If we’re going to go down the path of looking externally for a new role, we need to make sure the effort is well placed and worth it. The search for a new role can lead us to be less engaged and effective in our current role. Frustrations will likely become even more pronounced and noticeable. So here are some things to consider before you look for that next job:

1. Focus on going rather than leaving. It’s far better to be motivated to go towards something you want to do, rather than have your decision driven by a desire to escape where you are. The grass often isn’t greener on the other side, and we can sometimes make poor decisions in order to get away from a situation. What feels like an awesome move can suddenly feel less great two months in.
2. Explore internal options. Be open with your manager about what’s working and not working with your current role. Look for opportunities to add value to the organisation. If your interests align with organisational needs, it’s likely that a job can be crafted towards these needs. Talk to others about opportunities that might exist within the organisation. We often underestimate an organisation’s willingness to adapt or even create a job to keep a great employee.
3. Make a decision to start or stop searching. It’s easy to start half-heartedly looking around without fully committing to a job search. That just extends the uncertainty of a job change which typically doesn’t help us. If you’re not convinced it’s time to leave, set a date in the future when you will reassess that decision. If you have decided to leave, set aside time each week to dedicate to that job search. As humans we crave certainty, so provide yourself that certainty by making a decision.
4. Write a list of opportunities you would love to have in the future. You might want to work overseas, or manage a team, or work in a particular industry. Having this list clear in your head will help you to quickly act on opportunities that might come up unexpectedly. Most people’s careers are filled with chance encounters and opportunities, so be clear about what you want.

I hope these ideas are helpful. Having a fulfilling career is in your hands, but can also be elusive at times. Take time to reflect occasionally and make progress, but don’t obsess about that next job and miss the opportunities in front of you. Have a great week.

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Summary Over the past few years meetings have become worse than ever. Here’s what meeting science teaches us about how to make meetings great.

Transcript Welcome to episode 179 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore making meetings great.

The pandemic saw a rapid shift to working from home. This was associated with significant changes in meeting habits according to research by Microsoft and others, including:

• 13% increase in the number of meetings
• 14% increase in the number of people attending each meeting
• More multitasking doing meetings with around 42% of people working on other things such as email
• Shorter meetings but more likely to run over time
• Meetings across a longer work day, particularly for managers
• People having fewer meetings with their direct manager

Now, each of these are interesting in their own way, but the flow on impact of working remotely on work performance can be significant. For example:

• 57% of people reported a reduction in their ability to brainstorm with colleagues
• 32% reported a reduction in their opportunities to collaborate
• 26% reported a decrease in opportunities to discuss dissenting positions

So the way we’re approaching meetings currently clearly isn’t working, and is only getting worse with the shift to online. Something needs to change.

Fortunately there are people who specialise in researching how to make meetings better. Here are six rules for meetings from those who specialise in meeting science:

1. Call a meeting with a clear purpose and only when necessary - not everything needs to be a meeting, so save meetings for two-way communication and collaboration
2. Include only those people whose expertise and knowledge is required - virtual meetings allow us to easily invite far more people, but it’s important to ensure each person is there for a reason
3. Prepare and follow an agenda - this should be distributed beforehand so people can prepare and maximise their time together
4. Start the meeting on time - set a culture where meetings begin on time even if everyone hasn’t arrived
5. Avoid distractions and multitasking - when meetings are purposeful and well run, you will see a drop in multitasking, particularly if you also shorten meetings
6. Actively encourage everyone to participate, including after the meeting - given you have the right people in the room, make sure they all have a voice and opportunity to share

Try re-introducing these meeting disciplines to generate greater value from your meetings, and let me know how you go.

Reference Collaboration and Meetings By Nancy Baym, Rachel Bergmann, Adam Coleman, Ricardo Reyna Fernandez, Sean Rintel, Abigail Sellen, Tiffany Smith Chapter 1 of The New Future of Work: Research from Microsoft into the Pandemic’s Impact on Work Practices, edited by Jaime Teevan, Brent Hecht, and Sonia Jaffe, 1st ed. Microsoft, 2021.

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Skip Bowman is an author, consultant and speaker focusing on how to transform organisations with a growth mindset and psychological safety. Skip is based in Copenhagen and has worked with global organisations for over 25 years. Skip has an upcoming book - From Safe to Great - which will be published in September 2022.

Our discussion covered how growth mindset and psychological safety can be applied at a team and organisational level, what it feels like when leaders get things right, the challenges facing leaders, and how to encourage people to work collaboratively. Skip also discussed how leaders need to consider how automation, artificial intelligence and climate challenges will impact our organisations and world.

You can learn more about Skip and his work at https://www.safe2great.com/

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Summary Ongoing debates remain about returning to the office. Here are some thoughts to tackle this often contentious topic.

Transcript Welcome to episode 178 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. Ongoing debates remain about returning to the office. This week we explore ideas to tackle this often contentious topic.

In many geographies the opportunity to return to the office following the worst of the pandemic has coincided with tight labor markets. As a result, employees often have more bargaining power than employers when it comes to workplace conditions and ways of operating. Many senior leaders want people back in the office, citing perceptions of collaboration and culture suffering under remote working. These views often align with their personally preferred way of working, and less so with the experiences of employees. Many employees are enjoying their new found flexibility and ability to give the commute a miss. They’re delivering the same level of performance, so why come in to the office? So how do we progress these conversations? Here are six steps to consider:

1. Start with the work: This sounds obvious, but it’s important to determine the best way to work by starting with the results you’re after. We need to start with the why and what before we get to the how of the work. This should include consideration of how each job interacts with others.
2. Recognise your own biases and interests: Write down how you prefer to work and be as detailed and honest as you can be. Have people in your team do the same thing. It’s easy to assume that the way we prefer to work is what everyone else prefers as well, but you will quickly learn from this process that isn’t true. We need to be careful not to inflict our preferences on others.
3. Listen with respect: Be genuinely interested and provide space for people to share their opinions.
4. Recognise that no one has best practice: It’s helpful to look at what organisations are doing around flexible work, but no one has it all sorted out yet. Be careful not to blindly follow the lead of others.
5. Measure the right things: When changing the way we work, we need to be able to measure performance. Without that we are flying in the dark.
6. Experiment: Rather than setting things in place for all time, try something for a month or two and evaluate how it went. You can then make adjustments.

This experimental mindset will help reduce the level of debate and unstick many of the conversations around returning to the office. Give it a try and let me know how you go.

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Summary

The pandemic shifted much of our work away from transformational towards transactional. What has this meant for us and what can we do?

Transcript

Welcome to episode 177 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we discuss making work transformational.

It was just over a year ago when I was speaking with a relatively new employee in an organisation. They described how their work was being undertaken. They joined the organisation when everyone was working remotely, so they had not met any fellow employees in person. Their manager was helpful, but clearly busy. The employee’s typical work day involved their manager asking them to do something via email, which they worked on for the next hour or two and then forwarded on the completed work. Then they waited for the next work request. Sometimes there would be another request, and other times they would be left wondering what else they should do with the remainder of their day.

This is an almost textbook definition of transactional work. Yes - work is being completed, but it’s easy to see the lost productivity, engagement, and enjoyment in this way of working. Added to this is a greater risk of the employee leaving for another job. The employee remains unchanged - not really learning or growing. The team isn’t benefiting from interactions, creativity and support, so they’re not collectively growing either. While this might be an extreme example, I believe work has shifted far more towards transactional and away from transformational over the past few years. The mantra has become “just let me get my work done”. Efforts to bring people together to collaborate, support, and build connections are rarely made, and actively resisted.

In contrast, transformational work leaves the individual, team, and organisation different. It’s like working out. If you lift weights, at the end of the workout you are different to when you started. There’s strengthening and growth. That growth compounds over time to the point where you are transformed through the workouts you complete. It’s the same with our work. If we continue to stretch, challenge, and support our people, they will grow. In contrast, transactional work doesn’t just inhibit growth - it leads people to go backwards in their performance, engagement, and satisfaction.

So what can we do to make work transformational? Here are four ideas you can try out this week:

1. Talk about frustrations with a view towards improvement. A soldier in the Army once described to me the somewhat unorthodox approach of their commanding officer. The leader told their people that it was okay to occasionally complain or express frustration, provided they then focused on improvements and solutions. He asked that they remove their symbols of rank - the bands and stripes on their chest and shoulders that were velcroed on, to walk in and share their issues. He then asked them to walk out of the office, put their symbols of rank back on, and come back in to focus on improvements. This senior officer made it safe to raise concerns, but coupled that with accountability. He made it safe to open up, and compelling to act.
2. Delegate meaningful work. Transactional leadership involves delegating tasks. “Complete this report for me” or “setup a time with this person”. When the task is done you need to delegate again. When you delegate accountabilities, it provides ongoing responsibility and direction. Here you are asking the person to be accountable for producing the reports, or for liaising with the stakeholder. This transformational approach allows the leader to operate as a coach or mentor, rather than relying on command and control. It’s far better for the individual and the leader.
3. Build intra and inter-connection. Part of a leader’s role is to identify opportunities for their people to work with a diverse range of colleagues within the team and across the organisation. You can actively support this process to help build connections, support, and collaboration.
4. Have work-related fun. Daniel Goleman once said that great leaders recognise that having a good time isn’t a waste of time. That doesn’t necessarily mean going out bowling or other activities outside work hours. Work with your team to find enjoyment in the work.

I hope you found this helpful. If it is of interest, there’s more detail in my 2023 Leadership Today conference session titled “Bring Belonging Back”. You can find that and all the other conference sessions at 2023.leadership.today - have a great week.

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Summary

In this episode we explore putting the “inter” into connection.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 176 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore putting the “inter” into connection.

I’m recording this in March 2023. The last few years have brought dramatic changes to the way we work. Necessary adjustments during a pandemic have had positive, negative and interesting impacts on how we approach our work today. There are individual impact, but today we’re going to focus on teams and collaboration.

One of the interesting shifts highlighted through research conducted by Microsoft and others is that teams have become more intra-connected and less inter-connected. Teams have become more siloed - showing a 25% reduction in cross-group collaboration when compared to 2019. At the same time, teams are more intra-connected - adding more active connections within the team.

The positives from this shift include greater team identity and connection at a local level. It’s an understandable response to extraordinary times - we draw in with those we’re closest to. But a negative is that we invest less time working across the organisation. We become more “intra” than “inter” connected. However one of the advantages of being in an organisation is the cross-team collaboration that allows us to deliver more than the sum of its parts. The challenge for many organisations now is how we bring inter-connection back. Here are three tips for re-building inter-connection.

1. Self-reflection point. Ask your team to identify the positives, negatives and interesting elements of how we work in our organisation today. Why do we include interesting? The author Edward de Bono has helped people to think about thinking. His six thinking hats framework for example encouraged people to approach problems from six different perspectives, and also recognise their more typical approach to situations. One thing that stood out for me from his work was our tendency to look at things from a perspective of positives and negatives. That many of our institutions such as politics and our legal systems are adversarial. But this way of looking at the world can constrain us. There’s also interesting things - things that aren’t necessarily positive or negative, but are still relevant. I’m sure you’ll find exploring positives, negatives and interesting elements of how we work to be beneficial.
2. Work across teams to identify how we can help each other. You might think of this as paying it forward at a team level. What can our team do to help another part of the organisation? If you’re a support function that might be easier. But if you’re in operations, consider how you can help a support function and make their life easier. Or perhaps your organisation is segmented by geography - look for ways to support other regions.
3. Actively connect people across the organisation. Help people in your team to build their network. You don’t necessarily have to do this with an outcome in mind beyond building inter-connection. You’re likely to have more connections than the people you lead, so use these connections to help build their network.

I believe as we rebuild inter-connection our teams and organisations will be able to achieve far more than we could by just focusing on our own team. Have a great week.

Checkout the Leadership Today Conference - www.2023.leadership.today

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This month we’re featuring one of the guests from our 2023 Leadership Today conference. I had the pleasure of interviewing four time Olympian Drew Ginn talking all things leadership, teams, stress and careers. Drew has had an extraordinarily successful athletic career in rowing with three Olympic Golds and a Silver together with a host of international medals, has coached at elite levels in rowing and cricket, while also having worked in business leadership. The full interview and other conference sessions from leadership experts will be available to subscribers from February 25th. Just go to Leadership.Today and follow the on-demand link, or download the Leadership Today app.

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This month we’re featuring one of the guests from our 2023 Leadership Today conference. I had the pleasure of interviewing four time Olympian Drew Ginn talking all things leadership, teams, stress and careers. Drew has had an extraordinarily successful athletic career in rowing with three Olympic Golds and a Silver together with a host of international medals, has coached at elite levels in rowing and cricket, while also having worked in business leadership. The full interview and other conference sessions from leadership experts will be available to subscribers from February 25th. Just go to Leadership.Today and follow the on-demand link, or download the Leadership Today app.

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This month we’re featuring one of the guests from our 2023 Leadership Today conference. I had the pleasure of interviewing four time Olympian Drew Ginn talking all things leadership, teams, stress and careers. Drew has had an extraordinarily successful athletic career in rowing with three Olympic Golds and a Silver together with a host of international medals, has coached at elite levels in rowing and cricket, while also having worked in business leadership. The full interview and other conference sessions from leadership experts will be available to subscribers from February 25th. Just go to Leadership.Today and follow the on-demand link, or download the Leadership Today app.

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This month we’re featuring one of the guests from our 2023 Leadership Today conference. I had the pleasure of interviewing four time Olympian Drew Ginn talking all things leadership, teams, stress and careers. Drew has had an extraordinarily successful athletic career in rowing with three Olympic Golds and a Silver together with a host of international medals, has coached at elite levels in rowing and cricket, while also having worked in business leadership. The full interview and other conference sessions from leadership experts will be available to subscribers from February 25th. Just go to Leadership.Today and follow the on-demand link, or download the Leadership Today app.

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Summary

In this episode we explore the numerous benefits of building a culture of care at work.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 171 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to build a culture of care at work.

Psychology demonstrates that we benefit not just from being cared for, but we’re also wired to care for others. Organisations can benefit from meeting this basic human need through a culture that fosters belonging, connections and care. This helps to build trust, effective communication, meaning and purpose. All of this contributes to productivity and effectiveness.

So how do we build a culture of care at work? Here are a few ideas:

1. Role-model the importance of care by actively caring for others. There’s no point expecting others to demonstrate care if it doesn’t start with us.
2. Recognise that care doesn’t have to be soft - it can be very practical. It can include demonstrating a genuine interest in the work of others, or offering to help somewhen when they are under pressure.
3. Show appreciation. Genuine thanks for the contributions of others helps to show you care. Appreciation can often focus on outcomes, but it’s also worth recognising efforts even when they don’t produce the anticipated results.
4. Recognise and reward efforts to care for others. Celebrate the times when people have gone out of their way to care for others.
5. Look for opportunities to care for others outside your organisation. That might include extending care to your customers and in to the communities where you operate through charities. This helps provide additional meaning and purpose to the work we conduct.

Caring isn’t just good for the people we care for, it’s good for us as well. Why not grab one of these points and apply it this week.

If this was of interest, you’re going to really like our upcoming Leadership Today On-Demand conference on the theme “Belong”.

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Summary

This week we explore research into why sleep matters so much for our emotional state, and tips for better sleep.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 170 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore research into why sleep matters so much for our emotional state, and tips for better sleep.

We all know that sleep matters for our general health and wellbeing. Getting 7 to 8 hours of high quality sleep a night makes a big difference in our ability to concentrate, be resilient, and relate well with others. REM sleep, characterised by rapid eye movements and dreaming, is thought to be particularly beneficial for memory consolidation and emotional processing. Recent research suggests that REM sleep assists with the consolidation of positive emotions associated with safety, while suppressing the influence of negative emotions associated with danger. It’s thought this process helps people to maintain a healthy balance in their focus on safety and danger. A lack of REM sleep can tip this balance too much toward a focus on danger, and a range of anxiety-related disorders can result. Having an appropriate emotional balance will help greatly in the daily stresses of leadership.

Given sleep is so important, how do we make sure we’re getting enough? Here are seven tips:

1. Maintain a consistent sleep schedule. It’s tempting to vary when we go to bed and wake up across the week, but sticking to the same schedule helps.
2. Set your bed room up for sleep. Make sure the room is dark, quiet and cool. Don’t get in the habit of watching TV in your bedroom.
3. Avoid screens at night. The blue light from screens, particularly from phones, laptops and tablets, messes with your sleep cycle and hormones such as melatonin.
4. Avoid caffeine and alcohol in the hours before sleep. Both can negatively impact your ability to get to sleep and stay asleep.
5. Wind down before sleep. Most smart phones allow you to set sleep reminders which can prompt you to have a relaxing routine before bed. This might include taking a bath, reading, or undertaking relaxation techniques.
6. Have an exercise routine. Exerting yourself physically during the day will help you to fall asleep.
7. If you wake during the night and are struggling to fall back to sleep, get up and do something relaxing until you feel tired again. This can help your body and brain to reset for more sleep.

Getting enough sleep is an important element of effective leadership. The better you rest and restore, the better prepared you are to lead others. Have a great week.

Reference

Mattia Aime, Niccolò Calcini, Micaela Borsa, Tiago Campelo, Thomas Rusterholz, Andrea Sattin, Tommaso Fellin, Antoine Adamantidis. Paradoxical somatodendritic decoupling supports cortical plasticity during REM sleep. Science, 2022; 376 (6594): 724

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Summary

Much of the discussion around flexible work has focused on the ‘where’ of work. It turns out the ‘when’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ of work matter even more.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 169 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how the discussions around flexible work are often the wrong way around. Instead of starting with the ‘where’, we should begin with the ‘why’.

A lot of discussion about flexible work has focused on the ‘where’ of work. Can I work at home instead of the office? If so, how many days a week? Are you going to force me to come in particular days?

Interestingly, a recent survey of 10,000 knowledge workers in the US found the ability to set their own hours was even more important than working from home. While 78% of workers wanted flexibility for where they worked, 95% wanted flexibility over when they worked.

While people are focused on the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of their jobs, the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of work provide even greater opportunities to engage and motivate people.

Clarifying the ‘why’ of the work involves identifying why this work matters, the broader purpose people are contributing to, and how this role contributes to that purpose. This sense of purpose helps with motivation - people are more motivated when they feel like they are contributing to something meaningful and important. And it also ensures people are working in the same direction. When things are unclear, they can refer back to this broader purpose to guide their decision making and efforts. This is what I describe as aligned motivation - people are motivated and heading in the same direction. But it’s possible to be aligned and not motivated, so what else can we do to motivate others?

Deci and Ryan’s work shows motivation is about providing autonomy, building capability and confidence, and fostering a sense of belonging through meaningful connections. If you’re interested in how leaders practically do this you can take a look at our Leadership Practices in the Leadership Today app for a free assessment and tips.

When you’re seeking to engage your people, it’s easy to become drawn into a discussion about the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of work. Instead, make sure you begin with the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of work before moving on to the ‘when’ and ‘where’.

Reference

Katherine Bindley and Chip Cutter. Workers Care More About Flexible Hours Than Remote Work , Wall Street Journal.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/workers-care-more-about-lexible-hours-than-remote-work-11643112004

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Summary

Are deadlines always a good thing? And when might they backfire? This week we explore research focused on exactly these questions.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 168 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore when setting a deadline might backfire, leading to a reduced chance of delivering.

If you want someone to complete a simple task for you, are you better off setting a one week deadline, a one month deadline, or no deadline at all?

A team of researchers explored just this question. They randomly selected New Zealand participants and offered a $10 donation to charity in return for completing a 5 minute survey. Their findings showed that a shorter deadline of one week resulted in a greater response rate than a one month deadline. 6.6% completed the voluntary survey with the shorter deadline, versus 5.5% for the longer deadline. The researchers believed the one month deadline provided the greatest opportunity to procrastinate, and it also saw the lowest number of completions of early responses. So a shorter deadline is definitely better.

Interestingly, providing no deadline to complete the survey actually worked best, with 8.3% of people voluntarily completing the survey. Like the one week deadline, not providing a deadline at all led to a higher number of early responses to the survey than a long deadline.

So how do we apply this research in our leadership? The most direct application is in surveys. When I was heavily involved in employee surveys we used to apply a combination approach. Our initial survey requests typically didn’t include a deadline. After two weeks, we would then provide a one week deadline to those who hadn’t completed the survey. And we would always keep the survey open a week after the deadline. For whatever reason there is always a small number of people who don’t start things until the deadline has passed. This combination produced better results than just providing a two or three week deadline up front.

When we want people to voluntarily complete a short task, we’re best to initially not provide a deadline. If we are asked for a deadline, we’re better off specifying something short like one or two weeks, rather than a longer deadline of a month. This approach helps to provide people with freedom to manage their time. Not setting a deadline provides that freedom while avoiding the risk of procrastination for simple tasks. It’s like we all operate with a range of vision for deadlines.

In a firm I worked for there was a running joke. If anyone ever said something would be ready in six weeks, it was taken to mean that it would never be done. Six weeks was long enough into the future that it was beyond most people’s planning and attention.

For smaller tasks, why not experiment with shorter deadlines and not having deadlines at all. You will likely find things will be completed more reliably and faster than if you set a one month deadline.

Reference

Knowles, S., Servátka, M., Sullivan, T. & Genç, M. (2022) Procrastination and the non-monotonic effect of deadlines on task completion. Economic Inquiry, 60( 2), 706– 720.

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Summary This week we explore how agreeableness as a personality trait has a positive impact on work investment and teamwork.

Transcript Welcome to episode 167 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how agreeableness as a personality trait has a positive impact on work investment and teamwork.

Since the 1950s, and particularly from the 1980’s, personality research has focused primarily on the big 5 personality traits - Openness-to-Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Taken together these 5 traits account for the majority of differences in personality between individuals while also having predictive ability across a range of positive and negative outcomes in workplace settings. They provide our best understanding of personality across a range of settings and individuals.

A recent study focused on the agreeableness trait. As a personality trait this describes people who are cooperative, polite, friendly and kind. Agreeableness is associated with an interest in others and in building positive relationships. The study by Wilmot and Ones is of the most comprehensive analyses of agreeableness undertaken, bringing together 1.9 million participants across more than 3,900 research studies.

Their research highlighted a broad range of positive outcomes associated with agreeableness in a workplace context.

The benefits for individuals and teams included:

• Focus on growth and concern for others
• Contentment with current circumstance
• Investment in building and maintaining relationships with others
• Team working including cooperating with others and working towards shared goals
• Work investment and commitment
• Tendency to place less emphasis on results, and being more lenient in rating others’ performance
• Ability to adjust to new contexts
• Greater likelihood of respecting social norms and rules

In summary, those with agreeableness as a personality trait are likely to invest more effort into their work, primarily in a corporative and team-building way.

Here are some tips for building agreeableness:

1. Take a genuine interest in others. Empathy is a cornerstone of agreeableness. It’s easier to get along with people that we understand and can relate to.
2. Invest time in building relationships. Agreeableness is often about quantity time. Relationships require investment.
3. Consider shared goals, not just individual goals. Agreeableness is interested in collective outcomes and team wins.
4. Maintain connections during moments of disagreement and conflict. Relationships are usually more important than winning an argument.

It’s also worth nothing that, as a leader, you can assess and select for agreeableness and other personality traits that may be important for work performance. This requires personality instruments that are specifically designed for a selection context, but is worth exploring if you want to build effective teams.

References Wilmot, M. P., & Ones, D. S. (2022). Agreeableness and Its Consequences: A Quantitative Review of Meta-Analytic Findings. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 26(3), 242–280.

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Summary Is optimism always better for happiness and well-being? This week we explore which is best for mental well-being - being pessimistic, realistic or optimistic.

Transcript Welcome to episode 166 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore which is best for mental well-being - being pessimistic, realistic or optimistic.

The benefits of optimism have been widely promoted over the past few years. However, as we have discussed before, unrealistic optimism can lead to negative outcomes. Pessimism often has a range of even worse outcomes. The classical view in psychology is that mental health requires accurate self-perception. So are we better off just being realistic?

A recent study tackled the question of pessimism, optimism and well-being in a clever way. They tracked the financial expectations and actual outcome of 1,600 people over an 18 year period.

The researchers identified those with unrealistic optimism - where they consistently overestimated the likelihood of positive financial outcomes - as having a 14% reduction in long-term mental well-being, and 12% increased level of distress. Constantly falling short of expectations is clearly damaging. But those who were unrealistically pessimistic were even worse off, showing a 22% reduction in long-term well-being and 37% higher psychological distress than those with realistic and accurate expectations.

So what can we take away from this research? Here are four ideas to improve our mental well-being:

1. Learn from the surprise wins and the tough times. It’s striking how these patterns of unrealistic optimism and pessimism were sustained by participants over nearly two decades. Let’s aim for learning and improvement, converting these wins and losses into personal development and growth.
2. Gather information to confirm or refute your perspective. When things are uncertain our natural tendency can be to avoid information. Instead, we should actively seek out alternative perspectives.
3. Speak to others and gain their perspectives. Good advice and feedback are priceless. We often underestimate how important it is to learn from others.
4. Aim for accurate self-perception. The more we can see ourselves and events as they really are, the greater our mental well-being.

Reference de Meza, D., & Dawson, C. (2021). Neither an Optimist Nor a Pessimist Be: Mistaken Expectations Lower Well-Being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(4), 540–550.

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Summary

If we expect something to be boring, it ends up being even more boring.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 165 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how expecting something to be boring makes it even more boring.

Let’s face it, we all get a little bored at times. Sometimes we even expect something to be boring in advance. Universities are a great place to research boredom. Lectures can be amazing, but they can also be a little tedious. One of the best psychology lectures I ever went to was on human perception. Our amazing and rather elderly professor put glow in the dark dots on his torso and limbs, then turned out the lights in the lecture theatre. He walked around in front of a hundred or so students demonstrating how just a few dots allow us to clearly see the human form. Unfortunately he then tripped over, and the dots all ended up being in a pile on the floor. Fortunately he was fine, but the lesson always stuck with me. But for every lecture like that, there were many others that didn’t quite reach the same heights.

Researchers have shown that our expectations about a lecture can impact the way we feel about the lecture. If we expect a lecture to be boring, we actually end up feeling even more bored than we would have otherwise felt. Expecting something to be boring makes it even more boring.

So what can we do about this? Here are four ideas.

1. Remain curious. Even the most boring topic, presentation or meeting will have some interesting elements if we just look out for them.
2. Remind yourself of why you’re there in the first place. Positioning the potentially boring even in the context of a broader purpose can make that time more meaningful.
3. Try a little daydreaming. Letting your mind wander during a boring event might just help you to come up with that breakthrough idea you have been chasing.
4. Cut your losses. If something is truly boring and doesn’t add any value, you can always walk out.

Have a great, and not boring, week.

Reference

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/if-you-expect-lecture-be-boring-youll-probably-end-feeling-more-bored

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Summary

Research demonstrates the process by which biased people become more biased. Here’s what to do about it.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 164 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how biased people become even more biased.

We are living in particularly polarised times. On so many issues across society and politics we see people becoming more entrenched in their thinking and less open to alternate perspectives. Clearly this isn’t great for us individually and collectively. I’m sure, like me, you would love people to be open to changing their mind.

A key driver of what we’re seeing around us is selective exposure bias. Research demonstrates that people will actually walk away from the opportunity to make money if it allows them to avoid reading an alternative view of issues like same-sex marriage or gun control. A recent piece of research showed so-called “pro-diversity” thinkers are less susceptible to this bias. Someone who is pro-diversity in their approach is more comfortable interacting with new ideas and people who don’t share their perspective. They don’t necessarily just agree with others, but they’re happy to listen to different perspectives.

This presents a challenge though. If people who aren’t open to diversity in the first place also actively avoid information that might change their perspective, aren’t we doomed to just become more polarised? The authors of the study believe part of the answer is in making cross-group interactions inevitable. If we can, in our organisations and in society at large, cause people of differing views to come together. How do we do become more pro-diversity and less prone to selective exposure?

1. Read widely. Don’t limit yourself to one news publisher. Actively expose yourself to new ideas and different perspectives.
2. Engage someone who you know has different views to you. There’s just one rule here though - you’re only allowed to ask questions. Don’t argue back, just seek to understand.
3. Agree to disagree, but be open to changing your mind. Saying we agree to disagree is a bit of a cop out - it closes down further discussion. Instead, be open to changing your mind.

Adam Grant’s book Think Again is a great read if you want to extend on these ideas.

Reference

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/cognitive-bias-can-push-people-more-extreme-ideological-positions

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Summary

The mindset we bring impacts our ability to build professional connections.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 163 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how the mindset we bring impacts our ability to build professional connections.

One of the challenges and opportunities in any career is building and maintaining professional connections. For some of us, even hearing the word “networking” gets our heart racing - and not in a good way.. Our success in building and keeping these connections is often about the expectations we bring into the relationship.

Attachment theory describes three main sets of mindsets and expectations with which we approach building new connections.

The first attachment type is “Secure”. With this mindset we expect that people want to connect. We also see ourselves as worthy of those connections. Furthermore, someone with a secure attachment type believes that people can generally be trusted. Having a secure attachment type allows us to establish and maintain connections well. This is what we’re aiming for.The two other attachment types we will consider today are less effective, and can be actively detrimental to building professional connections.

The “Anxious” attachment type assumes that there’s always a risk of losing a connection - that people will just leave one day. As a result, they work overly hard at making connections, and then cling on to people once the connection is made. Ironically this approach makes others more likely to leave, so it becomes a self—fulfilling prophecy.

The third attachment type is “Avoidant”. People with this approach to relationships are also worried about people leaving or letting them down, but instead of clinging on to people, they keep them at a distance. As a result, they form fewer close connections in an effort to protect themselves from someone leaving.

These attachment types are formed through our experiences. If significant people have let us down or left us early in life, it’s probably no surprise that we make an effort to protect ourselves in the future. And the attachment style we use may vary over time and with different circumstances. You might have a secure attachment type outside of work, but be more avoidant at work.

Being aware of the primary attachment styles we demonstrate can help us to actively try new things. If we know we tend to cling on to people, we might focus instead on building a broader network of connections. If we know we tend to avoid making new connections, we might set ourselves a goal to build up the connections we have at work. All of this requires us to step out of our comfort zone, but that is where all growth happens.

So reflect on the attachment styles you tend towards and use this knowledge to build up your professional connections.

Further reading:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/08/making-keeping-friends-attachment-theory-styles/671222/

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Summary

The mindset we bring impacts our ability to build professional connections.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 163 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how the mindset we bring impacts our ability to build professional connections.

One of the challenges and opportunities in any career is building and maintaining professional connections. For some of us, even hearing the word “networking” gets our heart racing - and not in a good way.. Our success in building and keeping these connections is often about the expectations we bring into the relationship.

Attachment theory describes three main sets of mindsets and expectations with which we approach building new connections.

The first attachment type is “Secure”. With this mindset we expect that people want to connect. We also see ourselves as worthy of those connections. Furthermore, someone with a secure attachment type believes that people can generally be trusted. Having a secure attachment type allows us to establish and maintain connections well. This is what we’re aiming for.The two other attachment types we will consider today are less effective, and can be actively detrimental to building professional connections.

The “Anxious” attachment type assumes that there’s always a risk of losing a connection - that people will just leave one day. As a result, they work overly hard at making connections, and then cling on to people once the connection is made. Ironically this approach makes others more likely to leave, so it becomes a self—fulfilling prophecy.

The third attachment type is “Avoidant”. People with this approach to relationships are also worried about people leaving or letting them down, but instead of clinging on to people, they keep them at a distance. As a result, they form fewer close connections in an effort to protect themselves from someone leaving.

These attachment types are formed through our experiences. If significant people have let us down or left us early in life, it’s probably no surprise that we make an effort to protect ourselves in the future. And the attachment style we use may vary over time and with different circumstances. You might have a secure attachment type outside of work, but be more avoidant at work.

Being aware of the primary attachment styles we demonstrate can help us to actively try new things. If we know we tend to cling on to people, we might focus instead on building a broader network of connections. If we know we tend to avoid making new connections, we might set ourselves a goal to build up the connections we have at work. All of this requires us to step out of our comfort zone, but that is where all growth happens.

So reflect on the attachment styles you tend towards and use this knowledge to build up your professional connections.

Further reading:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/08/making-keeping-friends-attachment-theory-styles/671222/

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Summary

This week we consider the challenges of cross-cultural leadership.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 162 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we consider the challenges of cross-cultural leadership.

How have you found working across different cultures? Perhaps you’ve travelled to other parts of the world, or maybe the business you work in has a broad cultural representation. Sometimes it can be challenging to figure out what’s a personality difference and what’s a cultural difference.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of cultures, yet I’m still surprised by cultural differences. Given the global audience for the work we do, I’m always conscious of cultural assumptions that might creep in to the way we think about leadership development. It can be challenging working across cultures. There are core assumptions in our cultural world view that we may not even recognise.

Researchers have built various frameworks to try to understand how cultures differ. One of the better know frameworks is the Lewis Model of Cultural Types. As someone who had travelled the world and spoke 10 languages, Richard Lewis realised he was in a good position to explore cultural differences. His book “When Cultures Collide”, first released in 1996, brought together a framework to understand how cultures can differ. His model is based on a triangle, with the points of the triangle being linear-active, multi-active, and reactive. Lewis then plots countries at each of these points and along the edges of the triangle.

Linear-active cultures are about doing one thing at a time. He saw linear-active cultures such as those in Germany and Switzerland as cool, factual, decisive planners. The UK and US are also close to this cultural type. Multi-active is about trying to do multiple things at once. Multi-active countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have cultures that are warm, emotional and impulsive. Parts of Europe including Italy and Greece, and sub-saharan Africa are also near this cultural type. Reactive cultures are about responding to others. Reactive cultures like Vietnam were described by Lewis as courteous, accommodating, compromising and polite. China and Japan are also near this cultural type.

It’s clear how these cultural types can create conflict and confusion when we bring them together.

So how do we tackle these cultural differences. Here are six ideas:

1. Be aware cultural differences exist. Keeping this in mind as you work across cultures will help you be prepared.
2. Don’t fall back on to stereotypes. This is a risk in Lewis’ work - that we end up stereotyping millions of people just based on where they live. In any cultural group there can be a very broad range of expressions and approaches.
3. Be actively curious about other cultures and people. Questions are always a great place to start. Be actively curious about people and their cultural background.
4. Talk about culture. If your team works across cultures, help them to step back to reflect on effectiveness.
5. Clarify expectations. Cultural differences and conflict can be amplified when there are unclear expectations.
6. Discuss how we can best work together. This is a great levelling questions that allows everyone to contribute.

Next time you’re working across cultures or in a culturally diverse team, take a few moments to review these points and apply them. Have a great week.

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Summary

This week we consider the challenges of cross-cultural leadership.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 162 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we consider the challenges of cross-cultural leadership.

How have you found working across different cultures? Perhaps you’ve travelled to other parts of the world, or maybe the business you work in has a broad cultural representation. Sometimes it can be challenging to figure out what’s a personality difference and what’s a cultural difference.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of cultures, yet I’m still surprised by cultural differences. Given the global audience for the work we do, I’m always conscious of cultural assumptions that might creep in to the way we think about leadership development. It can be challenging working across cultures. There are core assumptions in our cultural world view that we may not even recognise.

Researchers have built various frameworks to try to understand how cultures differ. One of the better know frameworks is the Lewis Model of Cultural Types. As someone who had travelled the world and spoke 10 languages, Richard Lewis realised he was in a good position to explore cultural differences. His book “When Cultures Collide”, first released in 1996, brought together a framework to understand how cultures can differ. His model is based on a triangle, with the points of the triangle being linear-active, multi-active, and reactive. Lewis then plots countries at each of these points and along the edges of the triangle.

Linear-active cultures are about doing one thing at a time. He saw linear-active cultures such as those in Germany and Switzerland as cool, factual, decisive planners. The UK and US are also close to this cultural type. Multi-active is about trying to do multiple things at once. Multi-active countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have cultures that are warm, emotional and impulsive. Parts of Europe including Italy and Greece, and sub-saharan Africa are also near this cultural type. Reactive cultures are about responding to others. Reactive cultures like Vietnam were described by Lewis as courteous, accommodating, compromising and polite. China and Japan are also near this cultural type.

It’s clear how these cultural types can create conflict and confusion when we bring them together.

So how do we tackle these cultural differences. Here are six ideas:

1. Be aware cultural differences exist. Keeping this in mind as you work across cultures will help you be prepared.
2. Don’t fall back on to stereotypes. This is a risk in Lewis’ work - that we end up stereotyping millions of people just based on where they live. In any cultural group there can be a very broad range of expressions and approaches.
3. Be actively curious about other cultures and people. Questions are always a great place to start. Be actively curious about people and their cultural background.
4. Talk about culture. If your team works across cultures, help them to step back to reflect on effectiveness.
5. Clarify expectations. Cultural differences and conflict can be amplified when there are unclear expectations.
6. Discuss how we can best work together. This is a great levelling questions that allows everyone to contribute.

Next time you’re working across cultures or in a culturally diverse team, take a few moments to review these points and apply them. Have a great week.

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Summary This week we explore goal setting, and the importance of letting go and moving on.

Transcript Welcome to episode 161 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are exploring letting go and moving on.

Striving for goals is generally a good thing. Self-control helps us to move towards our goals, delaying other potentially tempting distractions in the hope for a better return for our efforts. Hope-filled people are great at varying their plans towards goals when they hit obstacles. But what happens when the goal we are chasing after becomes unachievable for reasons outside our control? What’s the best way to respond to having our plans thwarted?

The Covid pandemic provided an opportunity to study this in detail. Many of us found our goals upended by the impact of Covid restrictions. We all know people who were unable to see family members for extended periods, whose holiday plans were thrown into chaos, or whose goals at work needed to be jettisoned altogether. Some people seemed to handle this more effectively, disengaging from their old goals and setting new goals. They seemed able to let go and move on. However, others seemed stuck and unable to move on from the dead end goal they had set.

Researchers are clear to distinguish between goal disengagement and goal reengagement. Goal disengagement is letting go of a previous goal. Goal reengagement is the ability of a person to move on to a new goal. People can be good at goal disengagement but not good at reengagement and vice versa.

Researchers have found that goal reengagement is particularly important to satisfaction. For example, in people with life changing acquired brain injuries, researchers found that goal disengagement had little impact on quality of life and satisfaction, while goal reengagement had a markedly positive impact. In these cases, the ability to set and chase after new goals seemed far more important than investing energy into letting go of goals that had become unachievable.

This research suggests that rather than focusing on the loss associated with thwarted goals, we are better investing our energy into setting new goals. This optimistic, future-focused and flexible approach is something we can build in ourselves and others. If there are goals that have become completely unrealistic, it’s important to note this and then help the team to establish new goals. Picking over the disappointments associated with the old goal is less helpful than establishing an inspiring future. Letting go matters, but moving on is even more important.

References https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/good-self-control-can-both-help-and-hinder-attempts-move-after-failure

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09602011.2019.1608265?journalCode=pnrh20

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Summary This week we explore goal setting, and the importance of letting go and moving on.

Transcript Welcome to episode 161 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are exploring letting go and moving on.

Striving for goals is generally a good thing. Self-control helps us to move towards our goals, delaying other potentially tempting distractions in the hope for a better return for our efforts. Hope-filled people are great at varying their plans towards goals when they hit obstacles. But what happens when the goal we are chasing after becomes unachievable for reasons outside our control? What’s the best way to respond to having our plans thwarted?

The Covid pandemic provided an opportunity to study this in detail. Many of us found our goals upended by the impact of Covid restrictions. We all know people who were unable to see family members for extended periods, whose holiday plans were thrown into chaos, or whose goals at work needed to be jettisoned altogether. Some people seemed to handle this more effectively, disengaging from their old goals and setting new goals. They seemed able to let go and move on. However, others seemed stuck and unable to move on from the dead end goal they had set.

Researchers are clear to distinguish between goal disengagement and goal reengagement. Goal disengagement is letting go of a previous goal. Goal reengagement is the ability of a person to move on to a new goal. People can be good at goal disengagement but not good at reengagement and vice versa.

Researchers have found that goal reengagement is particularly important to satisfaction. For example, in people with life changing acquired brain injuries, researchers found that goal disengagement had little impact on quality of life and satisfaction, while goal reengagement had a markedly positive impact. In these cases, the ability to set and chase after new goals seemed far more important than investing energy into letting go of goals that had become unachievable.

This research suggests that rather than focusing on the loss associated with thwarted goals, we are better investing our energy into setting new goals. This optimistic, future-focused and flexible approach is something we can build in ourselves and others. If there are goals that have become completely unrealistic, it’s important to note this and then help the team to establish new goals. Picking over the disappointments associated with the old goal is less helpful than establishing an inspiring future. Letting go matters, but moving on is even more important.

References https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/good-self-control-can-both-help-and-hinder-attempts-move-after-failure

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09602011.2019.1608265?journalCode=pnrh20

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Don Schmincke is a best-selling author, researcher with MIT and Johns Hopkins and adviser to CEOs across a broad range of industries. You only have to read one of Don’s books or see him in action to recognise Don is not your typical leadership thinker.

We discuss leadership failures and fads, why our approaches to leadership development often fall short, and what we should do about that. We also explore themes from Don's books including what leaders can learn from 9th-century samurai, the experiences of mountaineers, and his latest focus on entrepreneurs.

Learn more about Don and his work - Saga Leadership

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Don Schmincke is a best-selling author, researcher with MIT and Johns Hopkins and adviser to CEOs across a broad range of industries. You only have to read one of Don’s books or see him in action to recognise Don is not your typical leadership thinker.

We discuss leadership failures and fads, why our approaches to leadership development often fall short, and what we should do about that. We also explore themes from Don's books including what leaders can learn from 9th-century samurai, the experiences of mountaineers, and his latest focus on entrepreneurs.

Learn more about Don and his work - Saga Leadership

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Summary This week we explore how delegating isn’t just great for results, it also helps people to develop.

Transcript Welcome to episode 160 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

This is the last in our series focusing on Leadership Practices - the skills leaders apply day to day that allow them to effectively respond to the challenges they face. I believe this leadership practice is one of the most overlooked and important activities a leader can undertake to maintain the motivation and commitment of their people. Clearing is about identifying frustrations and reducing their impact. Frustrations are disastrous for engagement and well-being. This is particularly true when people really want to deliver results but are held back, whether that’s by excessive red tape, clunky processes or uncooperative colleagues.

The role of a leader is to help people investigate the cause and impact of frustrations. Sometime we can’t fix a problem at the root cause, but we can often reduce the negative impact the frustration has on people at the point of impact. Sometimes we want to avoid discussing frustrations because it feels too negative. However if the focus is on improvement of processes and outcomes then frustrations can become the key to increased productivity and performance. Clearing makes sense with a capable team that is trying to deliver, but frustrations are holding them back. When productivity and performance need to improve, it’s important to involve the team. They’re often closest to the issues that are holding performance back. Our research has shown a strong relationship between reducing frustrations leading to greater satisfaction, productivity, engagement and well-being. Clearing the way is great for your people and great for your organisation.

Just a reminder to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary This week we explore how delegating isn’t just great for results, it also helps people to develop.

Transcript Welcome to episode 160 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

This is the last in our series focusing on Leadership Practices - the skills leaders apply day to day that allow them to effectively respond to the challenges they face. I believe this leadership practice is one of the most overlooked and important activities a leader can undertake to maintain the motivation and commitment of their people. Clearing is about identifying frustrations and reducing their impact. Frustrations are disastrous for engagement and well-being. This is particularly true when people really want to deliver results but are held back, whether that’s by excessive red tape, clunky processes or uncooperative colleagues.

The role of a leader is to help people investigate the cause and impact of frustrations. Sometime we can’t fix a problem at the root cause, but we can often reduce the negative impact the frustration has on people at the point of impact. Sometimes we want to avoid discussing frustrations because it feels too negative. However if the focus is on improvement of processes and outcomes then frustrations can become the key to increased productivity and performance. Clearing makes sense with a capable team that is trying to deliver, but frustrations are holding them back. When productivity and performance need to improve, it’s important to involve the team. They’re often closest to the issues that are holding performance back. Our research has shown a strong relationship between reducing frustrations leading to greater satisfaction, productivity, engagement and well-being. Clearing the way is great for your people and great for your organisation.

Just a reminder to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

This week we explore how delegating isn’t just great for results, it also helps people to develop.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 159 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

Over the past few episodes we have been focusing on leadership practices - sets of skills that leaders apply to suit needs of people and the situation. This week we’re looking at Delegating. As we have explored before, people often struggle with delegation. Delegating takes time and effort. It is often faster in the short term to just do things ourselves. But it is over the longer-term that delegating has a major benefit. If there is something that takes you an hour per week to do, how much time would you be prepared to invest in training someone else up store take that task on? Let’s say it takes 8 hours to train them up. You will earn that time back six times over within the first 12 months. So from a personal efficiency perspective, delegation is great. But also think back over your career and when you have learned the most. Typically it’s when someone has delegating something meaningful to you that your learning was fast tracked. The risk we often fall into is delegating a task rather than an accountability. The problem with delegating a task is that I need to re-delegate it every time the need comes up. Delegating an accountability allows the person to take the responsibility and run with it. It also allows them to complete the task in their own way, which often leads to even better performance.

Delegating works best once we’ve laid the groundwork through reflecting, inspiring, developing and connecting. People are then in a position to take on broader responsibilities, knowing the context they’re working in and the support available. Delegating makes sense with capable people who have potential to deliver even more. But delegation isn’t always the right approach. We should be careful delegating a task with high risk to people who are brand new. Equally, there are tasks such as performance management and financial approvals that only the leader can undertake.

But the work of leader isn’t over once we’ve delegated, and that leads us on to the final leadership practice - clearing. We will cover that next week. Just a reminder to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

This week we explore how delegating isn’t just great for results, it also helps people to develop.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 159 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

Over the past few episodes we have been focusing on leadership practices - sets of skills that leaders apply to suit needs of people and the situation. This week we’re looking at Delegating. As we have explored before, people often struggle with delegation. Delegating takes time and effort. It is often faster in the short term to just do things ourselves. But it is over the longer-term that delegating has a major benefit. If there is something that takes you an hour per week to do, how much time would you be prepared to invest in training someone else up store take that task on? Let’s say it takes 8 hours to train them up. You will earn that time back six times over within the first 12 months. So from a personal efficiency perspective, delegation is great. But also think back over your career and when you have learned the most. Typically it’s when someone has delegating something meaningful to you that your learning was fast tracked. The risk we often fall into is delegating a task rather than an accountability. The problem with delegating a task is that I need to re-delegate it every time the need comes up. Delegating an accountability allows the person to take the responsibility and run with it. It also allows them to complete the task in their own way, which often leads to even better performance.

Delegating works best once we’ve laid the groundwork through reflecting, inspiring, developing and connecting. People are then in a position to take on broader responsibilities, knowing the context they’re working in and the support available. Delegating makes sense with capable people who have potential to deliver even more. But delegation isn’t always the right approach. We should be careful delegating a task with high risk to people who are brand new. Equally, there are tasks such as performance management and financial approvals that only the leader can undertake.

But the work of leader isn’t over once we’ve delegated, and that leads us on to the final leadership practice - clearing. We will cover that next week. Just a reminder to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

People have a basic need to be connected and belong. There is much leaders can do to increase collaboration and support.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 158 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

This is the fifth instalment in our focus on leadership practices. This time around we are exploring Connecting. People want to belong - it’s a basic human need. And when people work together effectively, the whole is always more than the sum of its parts. The Connecting leadership practice is focused on building teamwork locally, and also connections across the organisation. This leadership practice strengthens the organisation by encouraging greater collaboration.

It all starts by connecting people with others who can provide support. As the leader you don’t need to be the only source of support and encouragement. We can broaden the support network that is available, providing a richer sense of belonging for the individual. Helping people to build connections across the organisation strengthens the organisation. We naturally work in silos - Connecting is like the conduit that allows people to work across these silos. This often leads to more creative ideas and better outcomes.

Connecting doesn’t leave teamwork to chance, instead the leader invests time, effort and resources into developing teamwork. The leader also provides direct support and encouragement to those around them. They demonstrate practical care for people.

Cooperation and collaboration help in most situations. Connecting as a leadership practice should therefore be common and frequently used. But some tasks are independent and don’t require collaboration. Therefore it’s important to not force connections and collaboration for activities where they aren’t needed.

Over the next few weeks we will explore the final two effective leadership practices. It’s a great time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

People have a basic need to be connected and belong. There is much leaders can do to increase collaboration and support.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 158 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

This is the fifth instalment in our focus on leadership practices. This time around we are exploring Connecting. People want to belong - it’s a basic human need. And when people work together effectively, the whole is always more than the sum of its parts. The Connecting leadership practice is focused on building teamwork locally, and also connections across the organisation. This leadership practice strengthens the organisation by encouraging greater collaboration.

It all starts by connecting people with others who can provide support. As the leader you don’t need to be the only source of support and encouragement. We can broaden the support network that is available, providing a richer sense of belonging for the individual. Helping people to build connections across the organisation strengthens the organisation. We naturally work in silos - Connecting is like the conduit that allows people to work across these silos. This often leads to more creative ideas and better outcomes.

Connecting doesn’t leave teamwork to chance, instead the leader invests time, effort and resources into developing teamwork. The leader also provides direct support and encouragement to those around them. They demonstrate practical care for people.

Cooperation and collaboration help in most situations. Connecting as a leadership practice should therefore be common and frequently used. But some tasks are independent and don’t require collaboration. Therefore it’s important to not force connections and collaboration for activities where they aren’t needed.

Over the next few weeks we will explore the final two effective leadership practices. It’s a great time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

Developing people builds their capability, but also increases the capacity of our teams.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 157 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

We are continuing our look at the leadership practices that help us to achieve results through people. We’ve explored the less effective practices of Directing and Avoiding, along with Reflecting and Inspiring. This time around we are focusing on the leadership practice of Developing.

We want to feel competent at work, and be learning new things that matter to us. Effective leaders recognise this and invest time and effort into developing their people. Not only does this help individuals, it also builds the capacity of the team to deliver even more. People can then contribute at higher levels in their existing role, and can also progress in their career.

Developing as a leadership practice involves identifying and developing required skills by providing challenges and coaching aligned to others’ interests. The last part - development being aligned to others’ interests - is fundamentally important. So leaders begin by discussing the skills and capabilities people want and need to develop. Developing often requires coaching rather than telling. Great leaders provide opportunities for people to challenge themselves, together with the coaching and support required to figure out their own way forward. They don’t just tell people what to do. This allows people greater freedom and autonomy in how they approach their work, and this helps to increase motivation. Leaders using this practice invest time, effort and resources into developing people. Developing is never a short-term fix - it is always a longer-term investment.

Developing as a leadership practice makes sense where there are capable people with potential for more. It’s not necessarily the right approach with someone who is a peak performer and not interested in further development - however that’s quite rare.

Over the next few weeks we will explore three other effective leadership practices. It’s a great time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

Developing people builds their capability, but also increases the capacity of our teams.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 157 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

We are continuing our look at the leadership practices that help us to achieve results through people. We’ve explored the less effective practices of Directing and Avoiding, along with Reflecting and Inspiring. This time around we are focusing on the leadership practice of Developing.

We want to feel competent at work, and be learning new things that matter to us. Effective leaders recognise this and invest time and effort into developing their people. Not only does this help individuals, it also builds the capacity of the team to deliver even more. People can then contribute at higher levels in their existing role, and can also progress in their career.

Developing as a leadership practice involves identifying and developing required skills by providing challenges and coaching aligned to others’ interests. The last part - development being aligned to others’ interests - is fundamentally important. So leaders begin by discussing the skills and capabilities people want and need to develop. Developing often requires coaching rather than telling. Great leaders provide opportunities for people to challenge themselves, together with the coaching and support required to figure out their own way forward. They don’t just tell people what to do. This allows people greater freedom and autonomy in how they approach their work, and this helps to increase motivation. Leaders using this practice invest time, effort and resources into developing people. Developing is never a short-term fix - it is always a longer-term investment.

Developing as a leadership practice makes sense where there are capable people with potential for more. It’s not necessarily the right approach with someone who is a peak performer and not interested in further development - however that’s quite rare.

Over the next few weeks we will explore three other effective leadership practices. It’s a great time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary Motivation is great, but only if people are motivated in the same direction. That’s where Inspiring comes in.

Transcript Welcome to episode 156 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

Today we are continuing our series on essential leadership practices. Last time around we looked at Reflecting. This time we’re focusing on the leadership practice of Inspiring.

A leader’s role is to achieve results through people. The mechanism for doing this is aligned motivation. Importantly, there’s no point having one without the other.

Aligned people who aren’t motivated are clear about where we are headed, but just don’t care or can’t be bothered getting there.

Motivated people who aren’t aligned might be keen and active, but are often working in different directions and cross purposes.

What we need is both - for people to be aligned and motivated.

Inspiring is about taking our vision and plans, and translating them into what matters to people. The focus of Inspiring is on others’ needs and interests, and not on ourselves.

To do that we need to know what interests and motivates our people. The best way to find this out is through conversation. Get to know people - not just who they are at work, but who they are as a whole human being. That allows us to communicate the vision behind the work we do - why what we do matters in the content of their needs and interests. This helps us to align people to that vision around their interests and motivations. We can ensure that roles that are defined in the context of the vision - that there is a clear link back to the vision in all of the work that we do.

Inspiring as a leadership practice is particularly helpful when we have a new vision to communicate. It’s also useful when there have been failures and setbacks that have negatively impacted motivation. Change and uncertainty can result in people becoming mis-aligned with the broader purpose and vision, so Inspiring can be helpful here as well. As a leadership practice, Inspiring is not needed as much when things are stable, and the team is performing well - they’re already aligned and motivated.

Over the next few weeks we will explore four other effective leadership practices. It’s a great time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary Motivation is great, but only if people are motivated in the same direction. That’s where Inspiring comes in.

Transcript Welcome to episode 156 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

Today we are continuing our series on essential leadership practices. Last time around we looked at Reflecting. This time we’re focusing on the leadership practice of Inspiring.

A leader’s role is to achieve results through people. The mechanism for doing this is aligned motivation. Importantly, there’s no point having one without the other.

Aligned people who aren’t motivated are clear about where we are headed, but just don’t care or can’t be bothered getting there.

Motivated people who aren’t aligned might be keen and active, but are often working in different directions and cross purposes.

What we need is both - for people to be aligned and motivated.

Inspiring is about taking our vision and plans, and translating them into what matters to people. The focus of Inspiring is on others’ needs and interests, and not on ourselves.

To do that we need to know what interests and motivates our people. The best way to find this out is through conversation. Get to know people - not just who they are at work, but who they are as a whole human being. That allows us to communicate the vision behind the work we do - why what we do matters in the content of their needs and interests. This helps us to align people to that vision around their interests and motivations. We can ensure that roles that are defined in the context of the vision - that there is a clear link back to the vision in all of the work that we do.

Inspiring as a leadership practice is particularly helpful when we have a new vision to communicate. It’s also useful when there have been failures and setbacks that have negatively impacted motivation. Change and uncertainty can result in people becoming mis-aligned with the broader purpose and vision, so Inspiring can be helpful here as well. As a leadership practice, Inspiring is not needed as much when things are stable, and the team is performing well - they’re already aligned and motivated.

Over the next few weeks we will explore four other effective leadership practices. It’s a great time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. It’s completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

View Details

Summary

Leadership begins with reflecting - taking a step back to examine broader trends to then plan for the future.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 155 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

Today we are continuing our series on essential leadership practices. Last time around we looked at the two most common leadership mistakes - Directing and Avoiding. This week we explore where leadership all begins with the practice of Reflecting.

Leadership starts with you. The leadership practice of Reflecting involves assessing the environment you’re operating in to determine a compelling vision, together with clear goals, objectives and plans. Reflecting is about two key leadership questions - where are we going and how are we getting there. It’s about developing a vision for the future.

Reflecting starts by examining the environment. We naturally tend to focus on short-term threats. These grab our attention, meaning we often miss opportunities that are right in front of us. We also fail to focus on longer-term threats and opportunities. This context is central to then developing a compelling vision for the work we undertake. Purpose and meaning matter. They guide people when things are unclear.

So to dial up the Reflecting leadership practice, take time to identify immediate and long-term opportunities and threats. Scan the environment. Speak to others. Explore economic, social and market trends. You then want to develop a compelling vision for the work you undertake. The key word here is compelling. A compelling vision should draw people in. We can then focus on clear goals and objectives. Goals are like a flag on a hill - where we are headed. Finally, we develop and share a plan to achieve goals - how we are going to get there.

While leadership starts with you, you can involve the team in the practice of Reflecting. However you should be careful with “what do you think we should be doing” as that can freak people out. They might rightly assume you should have some idea of where the team is headed.

It makes sense to use Reflecting with a new team where we are basically setting things up from scratch. It can also be a great approach in a changing environment and context - keeping an eye on the horizon to see what might unfold. Or perhaps there is a new organisational vision you need to translate into your area to make clear what it means for your people. Reflecting can also be helpful when you’re noticing misalignment and unclear priorities.

Of course, Reflecting assumes you know what you’re doing. Be cautious of Reflecting when you lack the required experience and knowledge. If you’re new into the industry or location, spend lots of time listening first before setting goals or changing too much.

Over the next few weeks we will explore five other effective leadership practices. The Leadership Practices Assessment is completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

Leadership begins with reflecting - taking a step back to examine broader trends to then plan for the future.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 155 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership.

Today we are continuing our series on essential leadership practices. Last time around we looked at the two most common leadership mistakes - Directing and Avoiding. This week we explore where leadership all begins with the practice of Reflecting.

Leadership starts with you. The leadership practice of Reflecting involves assessing the environment you’re operating in to determine a compelling vision, together with clear goals, objectives and plans. Reflecting is about two key leadership questions - where are we going and how are we getting there. It’s about developing a vision for the future.

Reflecting starts by examining the environment. We naturally tend to focus on short-term threats. These grab our attention, meaning we often miss opportunities that are right in front of us. We also fail to focus on longer-term threats and opportunities. This context is central to then developing a compelling vision for the work we undertake. Purpose and meaning matter. They guide people when things are unclear.

So to dial up the Reflecting leadership practice, take time to identify immediate and long-term opportunities and threats. Scan the environment. Speak to others. Explore economic, social and market trends. You then want to develop a compelling vision for the work you undertake. The key word here is compelling. A compelling vision should draw people in. We can then focus on clear goals and objectives. Goals are like a flag on a hill - where we are headed. Finally, we develop and share a plan to achieve goals - how we are going to get there.

While leadership starts with you, you can involve the team in the practice of Reflecting. However you should be careful with “what do you think we should be doing” as that can freak people out. They might rightly assume you should have some idea of where the team is headed.

It makes sense to use Reflecting with a new team where we are basically setting things up from scratch. It can also be a great approach in a changing environment and context - keeping an eye on the horizon to see what might unfold. Or perhaps there is a new organisational vision you need to translate into your area to make clear what it means for your people. Reflecting can also be helpful when you’re noticing misalignment and unclear priorities.

Of course, Reflecting assumes you know what you’re doing. Be cautious of Reflecting when you lack the required experience and knowledge. If you’re new into the industry or location, spend lots of time listening first before setting goals or changing too much.

Over the next few weeks we will explore five other effective leadership practices. The Leadership Practices Assessment is completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary

There are two common mistakes that leaders often make - either over-leading or under-leading.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 154 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we discuss two common mistakes leaders make.

Leadership is tough and it can be hard to know where to start. I think it’s helpful to explore what effective leaders actually do day-to-day. I call these leadership practices - sets of leadership behaviours that people apply. Over the next few weeks we are going to explore these leadership practices in more detail. Today we’re going to focus on two common mistakes leaders can make - relying on Directing or Avoiding. But first a reminder - leadership is about achieving results through people. A common mistake is when our leadership focuses too much on achieving results, and forgets there are human beings involved.

Directing as a leadership practice is driven a desire for control and compliance. The leader uses close direction, monitoring and instruction. This includes telling people how to do things, not just what to do. It’s effectively “do it this way” but without an explanation of why. The Directing practice also relies on negative consequences, such as fear of losing your job, or missing out on a promotion. The leader is watching and monitoring - excessively checking in around compliance rather than supporting people. That feels a lot like micromanagement. And what’s the impact of this approach? People are clear about tasks, but just may not care. This fear driven compliance reduces motivation and innovation over time. Eventually this approach actually reduces compliance. People leave or just give up. They become passive.

Some times Directing makes sense. That could include really simple tasks with little scope for variation. Or perhaps there are inexperienced people and high risk associated with non-compliance. Directing may make sense in emergency situations, or as a last resort for under-performer. However, it is unlikely to be regularly required.

The Avoiding leadership practice is at the opposite end of the scale. Avoiding focuses on my own role at the expense of leadership. I just do things myself. I see delegation as a risk - reducing the quality of work and taking longer, therefore not worth trying. The Avoiding leader tends to suck responsibility up, putting their job first before leading others. The end result for others is confusion, misdirected efforts, isolation, and reduced motivation. Sometimes people end up in a leadership position when they didn’t want to become a leader in the first place. Or they avoid leading because they just don’t know how to lead effectively.

Directing and Avoiding are like over-leading and under-leading. What people need instead is right-leading.

Over the next few weeks we will explore six leadership practices that are far more effective. It’s the perfect time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. This assessment covers all eight leadership practices, and provides you with a tailored 13 page report showing which leadership practices you tend to rely on, which ones you don’t use as often, along with implications for you and your people. The Leadership Practices Assessment is completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

View Details

Summary

There are two common mistakes that leaders often make - either over-leading or under-leading.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 154 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we discuss two common mistakes leaders make.

Leadership is tough and it can be hard to know where to start. I think it’s helpful to explore what effective leaders actually do day-to-day. I call these leadership practices - sets of leadership behaviours that people apply. Over the next few weeks we are going to explore these leadership practices in more detail. Today we’re going to focus on two common mistakes leaders can make - relying on Directing or Avoiding. But first a reminder - leadership is about achieving results through people. A common mistake is when our leadership focuses too much on achieving results, and forgets there are human beings involved.

Directing as a leadership practice is driven a desire for control and compliance. The leader uses close direction, monitoring and instruction. This includes telling people how to do things, not just what to do. It’s effectively “do it this way” but without an explanation of why. The Directing practice also relies on negative consequences, such as fear of losing your job, or missing out on a promotion. The leader is watching and monitoring - excessively checking in around compliance rather than supporting people. That feels a lot like micromanagement. And what’s the impact of this approach? People are clear about tasks, but just may not care. This fear driven compliance reduces motivation and innovation over time. Eventually this approach actually reduces compliance. People leave or just give up. They become passive.

Some times Directing makes sense. That could include really simple tasks with little scope for variation. Or perhaps there are inexperienced people and high risk associated with non-compliance. Directing may make sense in emergency situations, or as a last resort for under-performer. However, it is unlikely to be regularly required.

The Avoiding leadership practice is at the opposite end of the scale. Avoiding focuses on my own role at the expense of leadership. I just do things myself. I see delegation as a risk - reducing the quality of work and taking longer, therefore not worth trying. The Avoiding leader tends to suck responsibility up, putting their job first before leading others. The end result for others is confusion, misdirected efforts, isolation, and reduced motivation. Sometimes people end up in a leadership position when they didn’t want to become a leader in the first place. Or they avoid leading because they just don’t know how to lead effectively.

Directing and Avoiding are like over-leading and under-leading. What people need instead is right-leading.

Over the next few weeks we will explore six leadership practices that are far more effective. It’s the perfect time to complete our brand new Leadership Practices Assessment. This assessment covers all eight leadership practices, and provides you with a tailored 13 page report showing which leadership practices you tend to rely on, which ones you don’t use as often, along with implications for you and your people. The Leadership Practices Assessment is completely free, and you will find a link to it in the show notes. Have a great week.

Access the Leadership Practices Assessment - https://leadership.today/lpa

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Summary The workplace has changed forever. This is how teams and organisations can work out how to work.

Transcript Welcome to episode 153 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore working out how to work with your team.

Chances are your team and organisation are struggling to figure out how best to work. Are we in the office? If so, how many days a week? Who gets to decide which days? Can’t I just work from home all the time? Leaders are thoroughly confused about the best way forward.

So often this conversation happens in exactly the wrong order - we start with the location first, rather than focusing on the work that’s being completed. This leads to seemingly arbitrary decisions, such as forcing people into the office three days a week, or allowing people to never come in to the office, or not allowing people to work from home on Mondays and Fridays. Those forcing people in often focus on the importance of things like water cooler conversations, ad hoc innovation, or the need to bring energy back in to the office. Those encouraging completely remote argue that we did just fine working from home during the pandemic. With such a diverse range of opinions, it feels like there’s no way to avoid letting people down.

The first thing to accept is that you can’t figure this out alone - this is not a challenge that can be solved while locked away in a boardroom. And you can’t figure it out for all time - even if you do come up with an approach that works for now, you will probably need to change it again in the future.

Some key principles here are that we need to work with the team to figure this out and to increase acceptance. We also need to bring an experimental mindset where we can try new approaches out and measure their effectiveness. If you can’t measure productivity and performance, then you need to figure out how to really quickly.

The central challenge here is trying to decide whether work should be conducted centrally or remote. When I use the term “central”, I’m really talking about a location where people can come together. That might be your office or it may be an off-site venue.

There is a core principle that I think helps to clarify this discussion - that we need to focus on what’s best to achieve organisational objectives while offering maximum autonomy. We need to start with organisational objectives first. Jobs don’t exist to give people autonomy - jobs exist to achieve organisational objectives. But we also need to accept that autonomy is incredibly important to engagement and results - people thrive when they have freedom and autonomy. However it has to start with the organisational objectives first. Delivering results increases engagement and wellbeing. Great places to work balance challenge and support - they focus on achieving results through people.

When working out how to work, we therefore need to start with the work itself, rather than where that work is completed. Here are three key questions we need to work with our team to answer.

Question One: Interdependent or Independent.

If the work being conducted is interdependent, it suggests I need others to complete this work - I can’t do it by myself. We can then head on to the next two questions.

However, if the work is independent then we should allow that work to be completed remotely, unless some central resource is needed, or being available centrally is important for some other function. There are very few situations where a truly independent task or responsibility needs to be completed in a central location, but we force this to happen all the time. For example, providing an update to a group of people is effectively independent - the people attending the meeting aren’t required to respond. Bringing people together centrally for a one-way communication just doesn’t make sense.

Question Two: Synchronous or Asynchronous

Asynchronous work, where we don’t have to be working on something at the same time, should be remote. If something is truly asynchronous, completing it in a central location adds no value. Again, there may be an exception where that central location houses equipment or resources that are required for the task. As more and more work becomes asynchronous, it has implications for the systems we use. For example, people are likely to need the ability to edit documents simultaneously. Also, we shouldn’t be relying on email to get things done asynchronously - there are many other systems that work much more effectively when managing asynchronous work than email. The key here, again, is to experiment. Try new systems and approaches out and measure productivity and performance. Importantly, even synchronous work can often be remote. For me the key tests are the extent to which emotion, body language, gestures and shared resources are important. If these things are important, that suggests bringing people together centrally for that task or activity.

Question Three: Central or Remote

Our choice of central or remote is largely driven by our answers to the first two questions. If the work is interdependent and synchronous, assess the level of emotion, body language, gestures and shared resources required. If the task or activity is something you undertake regularly, you might want to try both centrally and remote and gather feedback about the effectiveness of each.

In a previous episode I unpacked five reasons to bring people together that aren’t just about the work - focusing on community, collaboration, culture, climate, capability. You might want to go back and review that episode. Also, I’ve recently recorded a webinar on Working Out How to Work where we go into more detail. You can find that at Leadership Today On-Demand.

Best wishes, and have a great week.

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Summary The workplace has changed forever. This is how teams and organisations can work out how to work.

Transcript Welcome to episode 153 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore working out how to work with your team.

Chances are your team and organisation are struggling to figure out how best to work. Are we in the office? If so, how many days a week? Who gets to decide which days? Can’t I just work from home all the time? Leaders are thoroughly confused about the best way forward.

So often this conversation happens in exactly the wrong order - we start with the location first, rather than focusing on the work that’s being completed. This leads to seemingly arbitrary decisions, such as forcing people into the office three days a week, or allowing people to never come in to the office, or not allowing people to work from home on Mondays and Fridays. Those forcing people in often focus on the importance of things like water cooler conversations, ad hoc innovation, or the need to bring energy back in to the office. Those encouraging completely remote argue that we did just fine working from home during the pandemic. With such a diverse range of opinions, it feels like there’s no way to avoid letting people down.

The first thing to accept is that you can’t figure this out alone - this is not a challenge that can be solved while locked away in a boardroom. And you can’t figure it out for all time - even if you do come up with an approach that works for now, you will probably need to change it again in the future.

Some key principles here are that we need to work with the team to figure this out and to increase acceptance. We also need to bring an experimental mindset where we can try new approaches out and measure their effectiveness. If you can’t measure productivity and performance, then you need to figure out how to really quickly.

The central challenge here is trying to decide whether work should be conducted centrally or remote. When I use the term “central”, I’m really talking about a location where people can come together. That might be your office or it may be an off-site venue.

There is a core principle that I think helps to clarify this discussion - that we need to focus on what’s best to achieve organisational objectives while offering maximum autonomy. We need to start with organisational objectives first. Jobs don’t exist to give people autonomy - jobs exist to achieve organisational objectives. But we also need to accept that autonomy is incredibly important to engagement and results - people thrive when they have freedom and autonomy. However it has to start with the organisational objectives first. Delivering results increases engagement and wellbeing. Great places to work balance challenge and support - they focus on achieving results through people.

When working out how to work, we therefore need to start with the work itself, rather than where that work is completed. Here are three key questions we need to work with our team to answer.

Question One: Interdependent or Independent.

If the work being conducted is interdependent, it suggests I need others to complete this work - I can’t do it by myself. We can then head on to the next two questions.

However, if the work is independent then we should allow that work to be completed remotely, unless some central resource is needed, or being available centrally is important for some other function. There are very few situations where a truly independent task or responsibility needs to be completed in a central location, but we force this to happen all the time. For example, providing an update to a group of people is effectively independent - the people attending the meeting aren’t required to respond. Bringing people together centrally for a one-way communication just doesn’t make sense.

Question Two: Synchronous or Asynchronous

Asynchronous work, where we don’t have to be working on something at the same time, should be remote. If something is truly asynchronous, completing it in a central location adds no value. Again, there may be an exception where that central location houses equipment or resources that are required for the task. As more and more work becomes asynchronous, it has implications for the systems we use. For example, people are likely to need the ability to edit documents simultaneously. Also, we shouldn’t be relying on email to get things done asynchronously - there are many other systems that work much more effectively when managing asynchronous work than email. The key here, again, is to experiment. Try new systems and approaches out and measure productivity and performance. Importantly, even synchronous work can often be remote. For me the key tests are the extent to which emotion, body language, gestures and shared resources are important. If these things are important, that suggests bringing people together centrally for that task or activity.

Question Three: Central or Remote

Our choice of central or remote is largely driven by our answers to the first two questions. If the work is interdependent and synchronous, assess the level of emotion, body language, gestures and shared resources required. If the task or activity is something you undertake regularly, you might want to try both centrally and remote and gather feedback about the effectiveness of each.

In a previous episode I unpacked five reasons to bring people together that aren’t just about the work - focusing on community, collaboration, culture, climate, capability. You might want to go back and review that episode. Also, I’ve recently recorded a webinar on Working Out How to Work where we go into more detail. You can find that at Leadership Today On-Demand.

Best wishes, and have a great week.

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We talk all things future of work and what it means for leaders with Dr Ciela Hartanov.

Ciela has a doctorate in Culture and Human Behavior and has applied that knowledge to tech organizations for almost two decades. She now runs humcollective, a boutique strategy and innovation firm.

Ciela was part of the founding team of The Google School for Leaders and Head of Next Practice Innovation and Strategy at Google, where she developed projects designed to help shape the future of work. She is a psychologist, and expert in creating organizations that are more effective, wise and future ready.

Our conversation covers her experiences at Google, the future of work, the importance of being open minded, whether we can still strategically plan for anything, and what it all means for leaders.

Learn more about Ciela and her work - Hum Collective

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Summary Background music impacts the way we work in surprising ways.

Transcript Welcome to episode 152 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at the impact of background music upon the way we work.

I remember an office I used to work in that had a radio. I know - I’m showing my age a bit here, but the modern equivalent might be putting on some headphones. At the start of the day someone would turn the radio on to a fairly bland radio station. The radio wasn’t too loud, but it was a constant presence in the background. There was always some mix of music or conversation.

I didn’t mind the radio much. For me it made the office space feel less sterile and more active. Others weren’t so keen on the constant music. But what impact did that background music have on our work performance? I would have assumed very little, but research has demonstrated that background music can indeed impact the way we work.

Researchers had participants complete a range of tasks with three different conditions - in silence, with background music at a relatively slow tempo, and with the same music at a faster tempo. The researchers found that background music resulted in people working faster but less accurately. And that effect was independent of the tempo of the music. The researchers believe the background music made people less cautious. This allowed people to work faster, but also produced more errors.

Brain processing is a limited resource. It appears that processing music can reduce the resources available for decision making. To compensate, our brain throws some of our usual caution to the wind.

The researchers did consider that perhaps it just wasn’t the right music for the participants. Maybe when you have that brilliant track you love playing it feels like you can work more effectively. What we want to aim for is music that improves our mood, but that doesn’t distract us. Familiar music could be fine. But if you’re regularly listening to new music while working, you might want to try mixing things up a bit. It could be impacting you in ways you don’t expect.

If you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you could take a minute to provide a rating and review. This really helps others to find the podcast. Have a great week.

Reference Perez Santangelo, A., Ludwig, C. J. H., Navajas, J., Sigman, M., & Leone, M. J. (2022). Background music changes the policy of human decision-making: Evidence from experimental and drift-diffusion model-based approaches on different decision tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001189

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Summary Some leaders worry working from home may limit creativity. Research partially backs this up, but there are changes we can make.

Transcript Welcome to episode 151 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the impact of working from home on creativity.

Some leaders have expressed concerns about people working from home, particularly around the risks of reduced collaboration and creativity. They argue that having people physically together is more effective when we’re aiming for creativity and innovation. The reality is it depends. It depends on the nature of work, the technology you’re using, the way you’re approaching creativity, your people and what you’re trying to achieve.

But what about individual creativity? Surely working from home doesn’t reduce the effectiveness of solitary creative work? If anything, you might expect the ability to work uninterrupted would increase creativity.

Recent research finds a surprising connection between free movement and creative thinking. They found it’s not the movement per se that helps with creativity, but rather the freedom to move. When people can freely move around, they are more creative. You can imagine how that might apply in educational settings. When people are learning from home on a screen rather than interacting and moving around freely in a room with others creativity is likely to be reduced.

But it can apply more broadly too. If you’re needing to complete creative work, sitting at a desk staring at a screen is unlikely to help. You’re better off finding a new place to work or using voice memos on your phone to allow you to move freely. That applies equally at home as it does in the office.

So, if you want to be more creative, mix things up, work somewhere new and move around.

If you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you could take a minute to provide a rating and review. This really helps others to find the podcast. Have a great week.

Research Supriya Murali, Barbara Händel. Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting. Psychological Research, 2022; DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01636-w

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Summary We explore the impact of good people doing bad things upon our assessment of others.

Transcript Welcome to episode 150 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. That’s right - episode 150. Thanks to everyone for your support on the podcast over the past four years - it is much appreciated. This week we look at the impact of good people doing bad things upon our assessment of others.

Have you ever been let down by someone? Perhaps you thought they were a “good” person, but found out they did something surprisingly bad. What impact did that have on your perception of the person?

Research demonstrates that when we evaluate someone as “good” but they then do something unexpectedly “bad”, it understandably shakes our faith in the person. However, it also makes us question our ability to judge character generally. If we were wrong about them, maybe we’re wrong about everyone else?

There are plenty of famous examples of seemingly good people doing bad things than we could cover here, whether it’s in government, the entertainment industry or in corporations. The research suggest that the immoral act of a “good” person makes the world feel more confusing. In fact, the researchers found that the larger the difference between our initial impression of the individual and their bad act, the greater the impact on our ability to make sense out of the world.

So what do we do about this?

1. We need to have realistic standards of others. No one is perfect and we are all going to let people down from time to time.
2. We need to recognise that one person’s bad behaviour doesn’t make everyone else slightly worse. We shouldn’t let it shake our faith in humanity.
3. When people do slip up, it’s helpful to demonstrate empathy. Listen to the person and understand their experience. We don’t need to endorse or agree with what they’ve done, but we also don’t need to write people off over one act.
4. We need to set up work environments where people can speak up and be honest. Maybe someone was tempted to take financial advantage of a customer, or to cut corners on a project. As their leader, I’d rather have that open dialogue early so I can coach someone away from an even worse outcome.

If you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you could take a minute to provide a rating and review. This really helps others to find the podcast. Have a great week.

Reference Guan KW, Heine SJ. When Good People Break Bad: Moral Impression Violations in Everyday Life. Social Psychological and Personality Science. February 2022. doi:10.1177/19485506221076685

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Summary Research reveals cooperation among strangers has varied over the past 60 years and the results may surprise you.

Transcript Welcome to episode 149 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how cooperation among strangers has varied over time.

It’s easy to think that society has become more individualistic and self-centred. With that, you might assume that cooperation between strangers has decreased over time. However recent research demonstrates that the opposite is true. In the US at least, cooperation among strangers has steadily increased since the 1950s.

The researchers worked through over 500 studies conducted from 1956 to 2017. This research included over 63,000 participants. In summarising the findings, one of the researchers, Van Lange, said “U.S. society may have become more individualistic, but people have not." Today we’ll explore what that means for us in a work setting.

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have contributed greatly to our understanding of human motivation and needs through their research. According to Deci and Ryan, the need for connection, belonging and support is a basic human need. They found that supporting others is also part of that need - we are motivated to help others. We want to help people and cooperate - it motivates us and makes us feel more positive.

As we have steadily moved from regional areas towards cities with more people living alone, we now meet these basic needs more through strangers. Pre-pandemic our days would include many times more interactions with strangers than would have been common in the 1950s. However, with a move towards people working from home, perhaps this trend has shifted back, if only for a few years. Maybe we will build deeper connections in our immediate area around where we live. Only time will tell.

Part of what makes work engaging is the ability to work with others - to provide and receive support that contributes to something bigger than ourselves.

This week, why not put these findings to the test. Find ways that you can support others, even those you don’t know very well. It won’t just help them, it will help you too.

If you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you could take a minute to provide a rating and review. This really helps others to find the podcast. Have a great week.

Reference Mingliang Yuan, Giuliana Spadaro, Shuxian Jin, Junhui Wu, Yu Kou, Paul A. M. Van Lange, Daniel Balliet. Did cooperation among strangers decline in the United States? A cross-temporal meta-analysis of social dilemmas (1956–2017).. Psychological Bulletin, 2022; 148 (3-4): 129

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SUMMARY Staring at yourself in a video call turns out to be a real downer.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 148 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how staring at yourself on a video call is a real downer.

Video calls can really sap our energy. Our brain isn’t very well equipped to focus on so many faces at once, making the gallery view in Teams and Zoom particularly challenging for our attention and energy levels. We can also find seeing ourselves on screen distracting. But recent research shows it’s even worse than that - staring at ourselves during a video call actually worsens our mood. Researchers found people tend to look at others more than themselves when on a video call. By tracking participant eye movements though, they found variations in how much time people spent looking at themselves. Those who stared at themselves more tended to demonstrate greater drops in their mood and emotional state across the video call. The researchers even allowed some participants to drink low amounts of alcohol during the experiment, which is usually associated with increased mood and sociability. However, during video calls these same low levels of alcohol did not increase sociability and mood. The nature of the video call dampened these typically positive effects.

So what do we do with all of that? It’s unlikely you’re drinking during work calls, so let’s just park that finding. But one practical thing you can do is to remove your self-view. Once you are setup and sure your camera is working, Zoom and Teams allow you to hide the view you have of yourself. This will help you to focus on the other person. You can also look at other settings that allow you to focus on the person speaking, rather than showing all participants at once. Some leaders I’m working with have even tried phone conferences as a way to change up the approach they take to meetings. So this week, try to stop staring at yourself. It will make you feel better.

REFERENCE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau. (2022, June 13). Staring at yourself during virtual chats may worsen your mood. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 27, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220613143249.htm

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SUMMARY Research demonstrates that becoming comfortable with discomfort is the key to progress.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 147 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore research demonstrating that becoming comfortable with discomfort is the key to progress.

Learning new things requires us to step out of our comfort zone. If we’re feeling comfortable, we’re not learning.

But it’s also natural to want to avoid discomfort. That can steer us away from new learning experiences.

New research shows that how we interpret discomfort impacts our ability to continue learning. The research by Woolley and Fishbach involved participants undertaking an improvisation class. Half of the group were given instructions for the activity and told the aim of the activity was to feel awkward and uncomfortable. The other half were also given instructions, but not instructed around feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

The researchers found that the group encouraged to feel awkward and uncomfortable spent more time actively improvising and took greater risks. They undertook more practice which gave them a greater opportunity to enhance their skills.

When we’re looking to grow and develop, we should anticipate and embrace feelings of awkwardness and discomfort. Instead of seeing these feelings as reasons to stop, we should instead see them as signs of progress and development. Changing our mindset around discomfort can help us to progress and develop.

REFERENCE Woolley K, Fishbach A. Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort. Psychological Science. 2022;33(4):510-523. doi:10.1177/09567976211044685

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  **SUMMARY** Extraverts are seen to not listen as well - what can they do about that?

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 146 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how extraverts are seen to not listen as well, and what they can do about that.

Extraverted individuals are often seen as more comfortable and confident in social situations. This might appear to set extraverts up for success at work and in leadership, but a recent study suggests there may be a downside.

Researchers, Flynn, Collings and Zlatev studied 147 business students who needed to meet each week working in groups of six on developing their leadership skills. These students rated each other on listening skills. These listening skills included things like appearing to listen when others spoke, and remembering what others had shared. They also completed a measure of extraversion.

The researchers found that extraverts were consistently rated lower on listening skills. Participants also saw extraverts as more likely to modify their approach in an attempt to shape how they were seen by others. When this impression management is obvious to others, it can impact the ability to build trust and connections. Now, this is all based on people’s impressions of extraverts - maybe they aren’t any better or worse than others at listening. But perceptions are reality in the eyes of the beholder, so it does suggest extraverts may need to modify their approach to avoid these pitfalls.

So, if you are more extraverted, what can you do about this?

1. Number one is pretty simple - listen. Listening is a skill grounded in genuine interest. If you’re not interested in others, it will show.
2. Ask open questions - be curious about what the person is sharing, listen with interest, and restate what you’re hearing.
3. Remember important details - it’s so powerful when someone remembers your name or other personal information.
4. Give people time to open up. While you might be comfortable sharing with others, it might take them more time to warm to you.

Extraversion, like other personality traits, comes with advantages and risks to be managed. If you’re more extraverted, make sure you demonstrate your listening to others.

REFERENCE Flynn FJ, Collins H, Zlatev J. Are You Listening to Me? The Negative Link Between Extraversion and Perceived Listening. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. March 2022. doi:10.1177/01461672211072815

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  **SUMMARY** Great ideas often get missed. This week we explore how to keep good ideas alive.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 145 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to keep good ideas alive.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience where someone raises a great idea and, for whatever reason, it is ignored by others and slowly dies. Equally, a confident person might share a not-so-great idea that gains traction just because of the popularity, enthusiasm or position of the person. The best ideas don’t always win.

In our teams we want to cultivate the right ideas. That means keeping an eye out for others’ good ideas and helping them to grow.

Researchers Satterstrom, Kerrissey, and DiBenigno identified five practical things leaders can do to cultivate others’ good ideas.

1. Amplifying - this involves bringing the idea up at a later time. For example - Fiona raised a great idea about our marketing in our last meeting.
2. Developing - asking clarifying to help you and others better understand the idea. For example - Can you tell me more about how that might work?
3. Legitimising - publicly supporting an idea by sharing where you’ve seen it work. For example - Company XYZ tried something like this and it was quite successful.
4. Exemplifying - performing a low-stakes test of the idea to gather more evidence. For example - We tried this approach with two customers last week and they were both positive in their feedback.
5. Issue-raising - calling out the weaknesses in an idea so they can be addressed. For example - One potential challenge with this approach is the additional time required. How might we address that?

Being a great leader isn’t always about having the best ideas. Often our role is to help keep others’ ideas alive.

REFERENCE Patricia Satterstrom, Michaela J. Kerrissey, and Julia DiBenigno, How the Best Teams Keep Good Ideas Alive. Harvard Business Review, May 18, 2022

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SUMMARY Research shows disagreement has a negative impact on our brain function, so what can we do about that?

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 144 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the impact of disagreement on our brains and how to move forward.

Our brains operate very differently where we are in agreement versus disagreement with another person.

When two people are in agreement, researchers have demonstrated harmonious patterns of brain activity, mainly focused around sensory areas such as the visual system. When we are in agreement, it’s likely we’re paying attention to social cues from the other person using our senses. We’re not having to worry too much about higher-level functions. Our brains aren’t working very hard at all.

When we’re in disagreement though, research shows our brain function shifts more towards the frontal lobe, responsible for higher-level functions like reasoning and restraint. The overall amount of brain activity also increases dramatically, using both emotional and cognitive resources. It takes a lot more conscious effort to process and work through disagreement. As a result, disagreements can wear us out.

Given disagreement takes a lot of effort, it makes sense to try to resolve it. Disagreements rarely become better with age so we want to act quickly. Here are some ways to move forward when we find ourselves in disagreement:

1. Share your desire to resolve the disagreement or at least find a way forward. It’s important to lead with our positive intent. That will help to calm both us and the other person, so the disagreement becomes less confrontational.
2. Ask open questions to understand the other person’s perspective. Disagreements often result from misunderstandings. Explore the other person’s views, interests, needs and wants. Be curious about their perspectives and respectful of their views. You may actually have more in common than you think.
3. Provide insight into your own views and opinions. Be clear about what is important to you and why. If you really explore their perspective, it becomes quite natural for them to explore your perspective.
4. Tackle the disagreement as a shared problem. I picture a disagreement as two people sitting across from each other at a table, facing off. Moving to a shared problem is like we’re both on the same side of the table, with our focus on the issue rather than each other. Here we want to focus on how we can either meet both our needs, or reach another satisfactory conclusion.
5. If you can’t reach agreement, figure out how you can still work together. It may be that you agree to disagree. It’s rarely worth losing a work relationship over a disagreement.

So next time you have a disagreement, think about these five steps. Have a great week.

REFERENCE Joy Hirsch, Mark Tiede, Xian Zhang, J. Adam Noah, Alexandre Salama-Manteau, Maurice Biriotti. Interpersonal Agreement and Disagreement During Face-to-Face Dialogue: An fNIRS Investigation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2021; 14 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.606397

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In this episode I speak with Belinda Morgan, author of the book Solving the Part-Time Puzzle - How to Decrease Your Hours, Increase Your Impact and Thrive in Your Part-Time Role. You can find our mote about Belinda and buy the book via her website - www.belindamorgan.com

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SUMMARY Research demonstrates that showing stress can lead to greater support from others.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 143 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore at how showing stress can lead to greater support from others.

Have you ever thought about why we demonstrate stress? Surely showing signs of stress to others puts us at a disadvantage. Why would we want to show weakness? And why do even the most accomplished professionals still show signs of stress?

Researchers from Nottingham Trent University and the University of Portsmouth recently reinforced what we already know - people are pretty good at identifying stress in others. As people feel more stressed, others notice more stress in them - there’s nothing revolutionary about that finding. However they took it one step further to examine the impact of those stress signs on others. It turns out that people reacted more positively to those who demonstrated signs of stress than those who didn’t. Those who demonstrated signs of stress were seen as more likeable. So why might that be the case? The researchers highlighted that human beings are largely a cooperative species - we survive and thrive by helping each other. They theorised that an honest sign of weakness may show that we are willing to cooperate, or at least that we’re not a threat.

All of this builds on a body of research that suggests being more emotionally expressive helps us to be well-liked by others and results in more positive social interactions.

Here are some thoughts based on this research that you can take and apply:

1. Show your emotions - the goal of emotional intelligence isn’t to become emotionless. In fact, showing no emotion may lead us to be seen as competitive or difficult to read.
2. Encourage others - when someone does show signs of stress, provide them with some support and encouragement. Imagine yourself in that situation and how much a kind word would help.
3. Don’t overdo it - one of the worst ways to start a speech is saying “I’m really nervous”. People want someone they can relate to, but also someone that they can be confident in.
4. Rewrite your emotions - if you feel stressed or nervous, reframe that as wanting to do a good job or being excited to present work that matters to you.

Stress isn’t necessarily bad. We can use our own and others’ stress as a way to build connections and cooperation.

REFERENCE Jamie Whitehouse, Sophie J. Milward, Matthew O. Parker, Eithne Kavanagh, Bridget M. Waller. Signal value of stress behaviour. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.04.001

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SUMMARY Diversity isn’t just great for teams and organisations - it can also help with recruitment.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 142 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at how diversity can help with recruiting.

We know that diversity in organisations produces lots of benefits when it is well managed. A well-managed diverse team will out perform a more uniform team every time.

But actively promoting the diversity of an organisation also appears to help its attractiveness to job seekers. Recent research has found that disclosing key diversity scores in job advertisements increased the click-through rate of jobseekers, particularly for those organisations with higher diversity scores. Applicants were even willing to look at lower paying jobs where the employer had better diversity scores. Follow up research found this approach was particularly effective for women and people of colour who were more likely to see a diversity score as useful in deciding which jobs to apply for.

So let’s assume that you’ve made the effort to improve the diversity of employees within your organisation. Here are some ideas of what you might do next based on these findings:

1. Think about diversity diversely - I always encourage clients to look beyond the more obvious diversity dimensions to also explore differing personalities, thinking styles and other factors.
2. Promote the diversity in your teams - if you have actively built diversity in your team or organisation, celebrate that and promote it to others inside and outside your organisation.
3. Diversity helps build even greater diversity - this research suggests that building and promoting diversity in your organisation will help attract more diverse candidates.

Diversity isn’t just a nice-to-have - it leads to real benefits for organisations, even extending to our ability to attract stronger candidates.

REFERENCE Choi, Jung Ho and Pacelli, Joseph and Rennekamp, Kristina M. and Tomar, Sorabh, Do Jobseekers Value Diversity Information? A Mixed Methods Investigation (April 25, 2022). SMU Cox School of Business Research Paper No. 22-04, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4025383 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4025383

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SUMMARY Mind wandering might actually be useful after all.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 141 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how mind wandering can help us at work.

Mind wandering is usually viewed negatively. We typically view mind wandering as a failure to maintain focus, taking us away from something to which we should be paying attention. However, mind wandering may not be quite as bad as we thought. As I’ve shared before, it’s often in those mind wandering states that we come up with out best ideas. We’re not really designed to operate for long periods of time with extreme focus on one thing. Research by Wong, Willoughby and Machado published just this month helps to shed more light on how mind wandering tendencies might help us.

Researchers found those with higher spontaneous mind wandering could handle forced switching between tasks far more effectively, transferring their attention to the new tasks faster than others.

We know human beings are pretty bad at multitasking on similar tasks. So while we can probably walk and chew gum, we are less effective at having a phone conversation while scrolling our Instagram feed. What our brain does instead is to switch between tasks, moving attention back and forth between the two activities. That takes time and energy. If we’re constantly switching, there’s going to be a drop in productivity.

As a result, we might try to focus on one thing at a time. But there are moments in every day that require us to shift our attention rapidly for reasons outside our control. For example, someone might come to us with an urgent query. Being able to shift rapidly from one task to another is called cognitive flexibility, and that’s exactly what those with mind wandering tendencies appear to be better at.

Focus serves a purpose, and so does allowing our mind to wander. Perhaps we need to think about mind wandering as a skill that can be developed. Scheduling some down-time for your brain to wander across a range of spontaneous ideas could well help you to switch between tasks more effectively.

REFERENCE Yi-Sheng Wong, Adrian R. Willoughby, Liana Machado (2022) Spontaneous mind-wandering tendencies linked to cognitive flexibility in young adults, Consciousness and Cognition, Volume 102, July 2022.

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SUMMARY Variety may be the spice of life, but it also helps with personal development.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 140 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we discuss how variety can help with learning and development.

You may have heard the expression that variety is the spice of life, but variety also turns out to be important for development and learning. Research shows us that learning in a broader and more variable setting ultimately helps us to do three things:

1. It helps us to better identify which elements are relevant
2. It helps us to make broader generalisations
3. It forces us to reconstruct memories - getting us out of the ruts that might otherwise trap us

Let’s take an example from the research. If an infant is learning what a dog is as a category, it’s quick and easy to just show them one type of dog. Show them that exact dog, and they will tell you that it is a dog. It takes longer to learn what a dog is if we expose that same infant to multiple types of dogs, however they’re then much better at generalising that learning to a new type of dog. If I’ve only ever seen one type of dog, I may not correctly identify a new type of dog as a dog. If instead I learned what a dog is by seeing lots of different examples, I’m much better able to correctly identify a new type of dog.

The same principle applies for adults learning a new sport. One option if I’m learning tennis would be to practice one shot over and over again. Another way could involve learning and practicing lots of different shots. The second way takes a lot longer to get us to the point where we can hit the ball over the net, but it is going to be much better in the unpredictability of a tennis match than the first approach to learning.

So variety and variability in learning is harder, but it leads to better generalisation.

The researcher Raviv highlights a great example of this relating to face recognition.He shares that “face recognition is affected by whether people grew up in a small community (fewer than 1000 people) or in larger community (over 30,000 people). Exposure to fewer faces during childhood is associated with diminished face memory." So even in social skills like face recognition, we’re better off learning with variability and variety.

Other research highlights that even incidental exposure to something new primes us to learn more about it. There’s something about allowing ourselves to be exposed to new experiences and things that sets us up for learning.

So how much variety is there in your job? How often in the average week are you trying things for the first time?

We all know that learning is hard - it takes effort. But if we want to maximise our learning and ability, it’s important to remember that variety is the spice of development.

REFERENCES Limor Raviv, Gary Lupyan, Shawn C. Green. How variability shapes learning and generalization. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.03.007

Layla Unger, Vladimir M. Sloutsky. Ready to Learn: Incidental Exposure Fosters Category Learning. Psychological Science, 2022; 095679762110614 DOI: 10.1177/09567976211061470

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Dr Kim Hazendonk shares the neuroscience of leadership. Find out more about Kim and her work at www.positivebrain.com.au

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Summary Have you ever received the feedback that you need to “be more strategic”? We pick apart what this might mean for your development.

Transcript Welcome to episode 139 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore what it means to be more strategic.

As I coach and work with a range of people, it’s amazing how often people share they’ve received feedback that they need to be more strategic. They’re typically no more clear about it than that - just that they’ve been told to be more strategic.

If this sounds like you, the first advice I give is to setup time with the person who provided the feedback to better understand what they meant. In a non-challenging way, ask for examples. Have them describe what being more strategic would look like in your role. This is likely to draw out a clearer picture of what you should be working on and the impact it is having on your performance.

I believe there are four main areas where we can all be more strategic. That being strategic is about time horizon, breadth of focus, interpersonal consideration and openness to new ideas. Let’s take a look at each of these.

1. Being more strategic could be about the time horizon you bring to your work. We can all end up not looking far enough into the future, particularly when we’re under pressure. We all have a tendency to focus on immediate threats, rather than longer-term threats and opportunities. Take time to look and plan further out into the future.
2. Being more strategic could be about the breath of your focus. Sometimes we can become too narrowly focused on our own interests or areas of expertise. Take the time to look more broadly beyond your specialisation. What are people doing in other industries or geographies? What broader trends are playing out in business and society? A great way to do this is to read more widely. If you find yourself reaching for the same kind of reading material, branch out. Ask for recommendations from others. Meet with people with different professional backgrounds and speak to them about emerging trends they are seeing.
3. Being more strategic could be about Interpersonal consideration. Sometimes we don’t take enough time to take others’ needs and interests into account. We can then end up blind-sighted when our brilliant plan is opposed. Build connections across your organisation and run your ideas past others to gather their views and feedback. Ask for advice. You don’t have to just take on everything they say, but it’s much better to be genuinely interested and informed.
4. Being more strategic could be about openness to new ideas. Those who are seen as not being strategic can often be caught up in the past or the current way of doing things. They may oppose change, even when the change is inevitable or likely to be beneficial. A great quality and practice here is curiosity. Rather than seeking to respond to others’ ideas right away, stay curious and ask lots of questions.

Take some time this week to examine how strategic you’re being across these four areas. Have a great week.

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Summary Research shows the way we interpret emotions in men and women differs, where we’re more likely to see men as angry and women as happy or sad. We look at ways to challenge this to make sure we understand where people are coming from.

Transcript Welcome to episode 138 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at the way we interpret emotions in men and women.

It turns out that we are more inclined to associate anger with male faces, and happiness or sadness with female faces. Research shows it can work both ways - the emotion we see encourages us to perceive someone as more male or female, but also whether someone is male or female influences the emotions we see.

While this field of research is still expanding with these findings published in Emotion just recently, it builds on the idea that we don’t always get it right when we try to guess at someone’s emotion and how they’re feeling. This can lead to all sorts of confusion and interpersonal challenges in the workplace.

Here are three tips for counteracting this tendency:

1. The first tip is really simple - just ask how people are feeling. Rather than guessing or interpreting what we are seeing, a simple question such as “how do you feel about that?” can make all the difference. It can also help the person to consider how they are feeling. So often we are not tuned in to our emotional state. We can help others to check how they are feeling.
2. The second tip is to check your biases. We all have biases - there’s no point trying to pretend we don’t. Rather take some time to review your areas of bias. Is it about gender, or age, or nationality? It’s a fine line, but we want to recognise and celebrate diversity, while not letting it drive the way we act towards others.
3. The third and final tip is to watch your language. Are there words that you use exclusively with one gender and not the other? I found that I would occasionally describe female colleagues who I admired as “feisty” - a word I would never use to describe a man. Instead, now I’m trying to use words like “determined”, “clear” and “confident” - words I could use equally with men and women. And it may not just be gender, it could be words you use with people of different ages or nationalities. Take some time to pay attention to the words you use.

Understanding our biases around interpreting emotions can help us to pause, reflect and change the way we respond. Take some time this week to reflect on your approach.

Reference Sebastian Korb, Nace Mikus, Claudia Massaccesi, Jack Grey, Suvarnalata Xanthate Duggirala, Sonja A. Kotz, Marc Mehu. EmoSex: Emotion prevails over sex in implicit judgments of faces and voices.. Emotion, 2022;

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Summary

Research demonstrates five surprising differentiators of high-performing teams. How does your team stack up?

Transcript

Welcome to episode 137 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at five surprising differentiators of high-performing teams.

The last few years have placed enormous pressures on teams. What leads some teams to collapse under the pressure while others thrive? Research by Ron Friedman and colleagues has uncovered five things high-performing teams do differently to other teams. Some of them may surprise you.

1. People in high-performing teams make more phone calls. Bizarre I know. Surely we live in a time when making a phone call is outdated. But Friedman found those on high-performing teams made, on average, 10 phone calls per day versus 6 in other teams. Speaking over the phone is far more personalised and connecting than a text message or email. If you want to improve the performance of your team, stop typing that email and pick up the phone.
2. High-performing teams have greater discipline around meetings. Meetings are perhaps more universally hated than any other aspect of our work life. While fewer meetings is generally better, Friedman found that high-performing teams had much greater expectations around meetings - both for those setting up the meeting and those attending. High-performing team meetings were more likely to require pre-work, more likely to have an agenda, and spent more time checking in with others around progress. If you want to increase the performance of your team, meetings and meeting disciplines are a great place to start.
3. Members of high-performing teams don’t just talk about work. It may be tempting to think that these high-performing teams are 100% focused on work and efficiency, but they actually take more time to discuss non-work topics. High-performing teams create opportunities for people to connect in genuine ways. Don’t see this as a waste of time, but be intentional in connecting with others, and in connecting others together.
4. People in high-performing teams express and receive more appreciation. We know informal recognition from leaders matters. Many surveys place this higher than salary on the list of things employees want. But in high-performing teams it’s not just top-down appreciation, but also appreciation between peers. If you want to increase team performance, model showing appreciation to people. Look through a list of those in your team and think about who you could show appreciation to more.
5. Members of high-performing teams are more genuine and comfortable being themselves. Interestingly high-performing teams don’t just have greater demonstrations of positive emotions. They also have negative emotions on display more often. People can be celebrating successes, but also expressing frustrations. People are more real in their interactions, making it easier to know how people really feel and where you stand.

More phone calls, greater meeting discipline, non-work-related connections, more appreciation, and people being themselves at work? That sounds like a great place to work to me. Note down one thing you can try this week to move towards being a high-performing team.

Referenece

Ron Friedman, October 2021. 5 Things High-Performing Teams Do Differently. Harvard Business Review.

https://hbr.org/2021/10/5-things-high-performing-teams-do-differently

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Summary

It turns out that designer labels and other signs of social status can get in the way of collaboration.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 136 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at the impact of perceived social status on collaboration.

Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people who show off signs of social status, like fancy accessories, designer labels and high-end cars, are perceived to care more about self-interest than helping others. As a result, they are seen as less willing to collaborate and more competitive. When I came across this research there were a few examples that stand out in my mind.

The first was a leader who stood at the front of the room, talking to his team about innovation. At the end of his talk he said “speaking of innovation, why don’t you all come out to the car park”. He led the team out to show them his brand new Tesla, taking the next 30 minutes or so to show off every feature of the extraordinarily expensive car. He later received feedback that members of his team found him hard to relate to.

The next was a meeting with a General Manager. In her office I noticed she had a hand bag awkwardly placed on the table where we were meeting - almost like it was on display. I kept wondering why she didn’t take it off the table to give us more space. As we left, my colleague asked me if I noticed the bag. It turned out to be a luxury handbag worth many thousands of dollars. Her peers confided that the General Manager was aloof and not connected with her team.

The third was a meeting I heard about but wasn’t involved in. It was between the CEO of a trucking company and one of his lawyers at a restaurant. The lawyer was in a perfect suit, while the CEO wore functional if slightly dated clothes. At the end of the meeting as they left the restaurant, the CEO saw one of his company’s trucks coming down the road. He waved the driver over and hopped up into the cabin, asking if he and the lawyer could catch a ride back to the head office. Despite owning hundreds of trucks, he knew the driver by name. Apparently this was a regular occurrence. His employees absolutely loved him.

While we don’t want to obsess about our image, it pays to be selective in signs of wealth and social status if your objective is to build collaboration. Be wary of things that might come between you and your people.

Reference

Shalena Srna, Alixandra Barasch, Deborah A. Small. On the value of modesty: How signals of status undermine cooperation.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2022; DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000303

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Summary

We all suffer from bias. Here’s how to manage bias more effectively.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 135 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at ways to manage bias.

If you ask people to picture in their mind a doctor, most will automatically assume that the doctor is male. If you ask the same people to picture in their mind a nurse, most will automatically assume that the nurse is female. It’s true - more doctors are male, and more nurses are female. When we guess at someone’s gender based on their profession it’s like we’re using approximations and rules of thumb. We are guessing at what’s most likely. But our guesses can be wrong, and based on faulty assumptions. All of that can lead us to have biases that shape our behaviour. If I’m hiring a doctor, do I tend to dismiss female candidates? If I’m hiring a nurse, do I put males further down the list? My beliefs and assumptions then become a real problem - they can lead to bias and prejudice. Understanding how this occurs can help us to identify and manage our biases more effectively.

A helpful framework for this is the Ladder of Inference from Chris Argyris. Here we picture a ladder that we’re climbing.

• The ladder starts with what we observe. That’s the first rung of the ladder.
• We then select data from what we observe.
• We then add meanings, both cultural and personal, to that data
• We make assumptions based on those meanings
• We draw conclusions based on those assumptions
• Those conclusions shape our beliefs about the world
• We take action based on our beliefs
• All of this loops back to influence what we observe

This process is natural and can be helpful - we need beliefs to guide us through the wealth of data and information coming our way. But it can also be problematic when it ends up with prejudice and unfair treatment. So what can we do?

First, we need to accept that we all have biases. No one is ever bias free, and it is extremely difficult to eliminate a bias completely. But we can reduce bias and we can minimise the impact of bias. To do that, we need to challenge our beliefs. How do we do that? Here are three ideas:

1. Pay attention to who you spend time with. Most people tend to spend time with people who are similar to them. Start by going back through your calendar and noting who you’re spending time with.
2. Actively seek to work with people who are different to you. Broaden out your inner circle. Look around for the people who are most different to you, whether that’s culture, profession, age, gender or any other factor.
3. Become curious about other people. Be genuinely interested in other people and their perspectives. Just listen to understand. You don’t have to agree with everything they say, but you also don’t need to argue back.

Our workplaces will be far more positive if we can effectively manage bias, and it all starts with us.

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Summary

In this episode we explore how to create customer value in our roles and why it matters.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 134 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to create customer value in our roles and why it matters.

Creating customer value is central for any successful organisation. If we aren’t creating value for our customers, we are bound to fail. Customer value is also at the core of improvement methodologies such as Lean. At its heart, Lean is a set of improvement methodologies that puts customers and our people at the centre. It is focused on delivering value to customers in the most efficient and effective way possible, using fewer resources and producing less waste. Lean pursues perfection - until we have reached perfection, we can always do better. It also recognises that engaged and motivated people are essential for delivering great outcomes. By relentlessly removing waste and increasing value, we can deliver even better results for our customers. Furthermore, we can achieve this in a way that looks after our people.

Sometimes people struggle to identify their customer or customers. A simple way to do this is to ask - Who uses what we produce? While those people may not be called ‘customers’ within or by your organisation, they are your customers from a value-creation perspective.

In order to create and increase value for our customers, we need to understand what they value. Rather than guessing at their needs, it’s often simplest to have a discussion with them.

We could include open questions like:

• What challenges do you face?
• What matters most to you in the product or service we provide?
• What doesn’t matter?
• What do you like the most about what we provide?
• What do you like the least?

Importantly the conversation needs to focus on them, not just on our product or service. Such open conversations can often highlight new opportunities to add value.

So this week, spend some time getting to know your customers and their needs better, then focus on ways to increase the value you offer them.

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Summary

Excessive pride can lead to a range of problems. We can avoid this by practicing humility.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 133 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the importance of practicing humility in order to avoid excessive pride.

We’ve all heard the expression, pride comes before a fall. Being proud of our achievements is fine. The issue is when we elevate ourselves above others or think we are infallible. So whenever there is a track record of success, pride can become a problem.

So what’s the issue with pride? There are three main issues when people become too proud:

1. The need to be an expert. Pride can make it hard to say “I don’t know”. This may lead people to make poor decisions based on incomplete information or faulty logic.
2. They receive less feedback. If you think you have it all together, people aren’t likely to tell you otherwise. This can reduce the amount of feedback received.
3. This combination of a lack of feedback and overestimated ability makes a fall more likely to occur, and even more difficult to take.

So how do we ensure we keep excessive pride in check. The key is to practice humility. Here are five things to try:

1. Become aware of your weaknesses, not just your strengths - if you can’t identify any weaknesses, then you are at risk
2. Listen to others - genuinely value their input and perspectives
3. Be willing to say “I don’t know” - it’s perfectly fine to not have all the answers
4. Ask for help when you need it - everybody needs help and support at different points
5. Actively seek specific feedback - don’t just ask “how am I doing?” but ask for feedback about specific areas (for example, “I want to improve the way I present - what’s something specific I could improve?”)

Pride doesn’t have to become a problem. If we want to avoid a fall, we can practice humility.

Reference

https://hbr.org/2021/09/dont-let-power-corrupt-you

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Summary

We can so often end up worrying about decisions that we don’t even need to make yet. Here’s how scheduled decisions can help.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 132 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we look at how scheduled decisions can reduce worry.

Have you ever dreamed about leaving a job? Things become challenging so you start to scroll through employment websites, just to see what else is out there. Before you know it your spare time, commute to work, lunch break and other opportunities are punctuated by a quick job search.

Or maybe there’s another type of significant change you need to make at some point. Perhaps this change doesn’t need to happen for a while, but you find your thinking looping back on it repeatedly.

As humans we have an exceptional ability to find things to worry about. There are some things we can’t control or influence where worrying is entirely futile. But there are other things that we do have some control or influence over where worrying can still become a problem.

Here’s a simple technique that I believe can really help. I call it scheduled decision making.

Let’s take the job search example. The problem here is that we haven’t actually decided to leave our current job, so the constant job searching just leads to distraction and dissatisfaction. We haven’t decided to make a decision, so we end up just gathering more and more information as we ruminate on whether we should change jobs.

When coaching people in these sorts of situations, the first question we explore is whether now is the best time to make a decision. Often times now isn’t the best time to decide. There may be a lot going on so the person doesn’t have capacity to work the issue through, or they may not have all the information they need to make the decision, or their decision might just be a reaction to current circumstances. If that’s the case, then we explore a time in the future when they will likely be in a better position to make a decision. Here I ask people to actually choose a date. I then suggest they schedule the decision making process for that date.

In the job search example, let’s say we schedule the decision for two months in the future. That helps us to feel confident we will address the issue - it’s in our calendar. It also makes all that job searching far less important, so we can better focus on today’s challenges. At the two month mark they will make their decision about whether to leave their job or not.

So this week, think about things you are worrying about at work. Is there an opportunity to schedule your decision making for a future date? You might just find it helps you to focus on the present, and leave future problems for a better time in the future.

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Summary Starting a new role can be challenging. In this episode we explore how best to succeed when you’re starting in a new position.

Transcript Welcome to episode 131 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how best to succeed when you’re starting in a new position.

Starting a new role can be really challenging. There is so much to get your head around. What am I accountable for? How do the systems work? Who’s in my team? We want to set ourselves up well, but what do the most successful people focus on in those first few weeks and months?

Researchers Cross, Pryor and Sylvester found those who are most successful in new roles build broad, mutually beneficial connections right from the start. This helps these so-called “fast movers” to be more engaged, productive and innovative. So how do they do this?

The most effective new starters quickly identify key leaders and influencers across the organisation who are willing and able to help them get things done. Fast movers build these connections quickly, looking for ways they can provide help and support. The key here is that the relationships are mutually beneficial. They don’t just go out asking for help, but look for ways to assist others. Over time this means people come to them to offer advice, support and ideas.

Fast movers think about where they add value through their strengths, while also identifying people who can assist with their gaps. They use their connections to help diagnose their strengths and what they may need to work on in relation to their role.

Fast movers tend to work across the organisation, moving across silos and boundaries. This is incredibly beneficial to organisations that so often struggle to work between different areas and departments. It’s like the glue that holds the organisation together, and that’s part of what makes these fast movers so valuable. Their broader perspective really helps fast movers to stand out from the people who stick to their own area.

So, whether you’re new to a role or not, there are many benefits to be gained by broadening your network across the organisation. Look for ways you can support others while also gaining support. You might start by asking your manager and colleagues for people they rate highly. Schedule some time to meet with these people to find out more about their role and part of the organisation. Look for ways you can assist others across the organisation. It will help you to succeed in your own role.

Reference https://hbr.org/2021/11/how-to-succeed-quickly-in-a-new-role

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Summary

Deadlines can help us, but they can also take us away from what’s most important. This week we explore when to set a deadline.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 130 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are looking at when to set a deadline.

Deadlines can be really helpful if we use them well. I’ve spoken before about the mere urgency effect - that we tend to focus our attention and efforts towards tasks with a deadline over and above other far more important tasks that don’t have a deadline. Deadlines attract our attention and energy. So if we set deadlines for things that aren’t important, they will draw out attention and energy away from the things that really matter.

But we can use this effect to our advantage. There are plenty of things in life that are important but never really urgent. Things like planning, rest and recovery, exercise, connections with others. We need to schedule these things into our calendar - effectively giving them a deadline.

Here is one example from my own business. Every Monday at 8.30am I review progress against a range of targets for my business. That includes the usuals like sales and delivery, and things like podcast and app downloads. But it also includes exercise, social connections, and time spent away from my family, which I try to keep within a tight range. It’s a routine - a not negotiable. Having a deadline on this helps draw my attention and energy. I can then look at these measures and schedule any actions needed over the coming weeks. It helps me to remain proactive and focused.

So this week, think of the important things in your life that you may have been neglecting. Put them in your calendar with a deadline.

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Summary

If you needed help, who would you turn to? The amount of support we receive depends on how well those people are interconnected. Community multiplies support.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 129 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are exploring how community multiplies support.

If you needed help, who would you turn to? Most of us have a few friends or work colleagues that we can turn to for help. But how supportive do you think these people would be?

It turns out that how much these colleagues and friends know and like each other has an impact on the level of support we feel we receive. The more those we seek support from are connected with each other in community, the greater the support we experience.

Researchers describe this as network density - the extent to which individuals in the network are interconnected in positive and supportive relationships.

David Lee from the University of Buffalo describes it this way - "The more cohesive, the more dense this network you have, the more you feel you can rely on them for support. It matters if your friends can depend on each other, just like you depend on them.”

Jonathan Stahl, another member of the same research team, put it this way "You can have two friends who are both very supportive of you, but if they are both friends with each other, that makes you feel even more supported.”

So it’s not just the number of connections that matter, but also how much those connections are in community with each other.

We know that connections and feeling like we belong matter at work. This research shows that as we build community and connections in the workplace, there is increased potential for people to feel supported by others.

As a leader, you can strengthen your team by investing in team building. Help those in your team to build connections with each other and provide support. Being in a community multiplies support.

Reference

David S. Lee, Jonathan L. Stahl, Joseph B. Bayer. Social Resources as Cognitive Structures: Thinking about a Dense Support Network Increases Perceived Support. Social Psychology Quarterly, 2020; 019027252093950 DOI: 10.1177/0190272520939506

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Summary

Generating more options increases the chances of better outcomes, particularly when faced with uncertainty. That’s the power of options.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 128 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are looking at the power of options.

Options are powerful. One characteristic of those with high levels of hope is a focus on multiple pathways. When they’re faced with a challenge or obstacle, those with hope quickly determine options to still reach their goals.

But what about you? When you’re faced with a challenge or problem, how many options do you typically come up with?

When we encounter a challenge, most of us tend to generate one option and then run with that. We generally go with the most obvious idea that first crosses our mind. What are the chances of that being the best option? Pretty slim.

I once heard someone say that the best idea is number 2.5. What did they mean by that? Well, idea one is rarely the best. Idea two is usually better than idea one. Idea three is often a little too far out to be practical. So the best idea is 2.5 - combining idea two and idea three as a new option. The principle here is that we are far better off generating multiple options, then choosing the most appropriate even if that means combining some ideas.

Yet in those moments our brains are desperate for certainty and conclusion. That’s why we so often stop at option one. Here are a few tips to help.

1. Recognise that option generation and option evaluation are two distinct steps. If we are trying to evaluate our options while we generate them, we will often throw out too many options that could have merit. Instead, spend time generating multiple options before evaluating them.
2. Use a coach. I’m a big fan of peer coaching and include it in every leadership program I design. Having someone asking you for further options and guiding you towards new areas is extremely helpful.
3. Consider where you come up with your best ideas. Most people develop their best ideas when they’re relaxed, maybe having a shower or going for a walk, and when they’re interacting with others. Make sure you give your brain time to relax and consider options, and bring others around you to bounce ideas off.

So options are powerful. Don’t get stuck on option one, but always take the time to explore other alternatives.

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Summary

In teams we can take either a challenging or a supportive role, but they’re even better together.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 127 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are exploring how challenge and support are better together.

When working in teams, there are two main roles we can take to improve performance and build cohesion. The first is the challenging role. This is where we focus on new ideas and efficiency, while also challenging the way things are currently done. This helps the team to find new ways and implement improvements, but it can also be confronting for those who would rather leave things the way they are which, let’s face it, is most people. The second role is supportive. Here we focus on strengthening team bonds, building trust and increasing friendly interactions within the team. This helps the team to get along and work well together, but isn’t necessarily focused on performance and improvements.

People can take on either a challenging role or a supportive role. Some even manage to take on both. But who do we really want on our teams?

A recent study In the Journal of Management looked at both the challenging and supportive roles people took on, and their likelihood of being chosen for new teams. The study used MBA students who had worked on team projects together and asked them to then select who they would most like to work with in a future team. Who do you think were the most popular choices?

When people were choosing between those taking on what researchers described as a challenging voice or a supportive voice, it was the supportive people who were selected most often. As the researchers described “Having a positive reputation for good work goes a long way, but so does just being a good person. People want to work with those who they feel comfortable with.” In fact, people are willing to sacrifice performance to work with people who are trustworthy and friendly.

The most desired team members were those who combined challenging and supportive roles. They are able to focus on new ideas and improvements, while still bringing the team together towards these goals. This combination helps with unity and performance.

How do we apply this research?

If you’re new to an organisation or team, it is helpful to be open in your desire to support others and build cohesion. If you lead with the supportive role, it’s much easier to then take on a challenging role in the team.

Perhaps you’re already great at building the team and supporting others. You might want to explore how to increase the challenging role.

Or maybe you love being the devil’s advocate, constantly challenging old ways of doing things. This research suggests you will be even more effective if you also seek to support others and build team work. This will help others to listen to and accept your ideas.

So this week, try to support and challenge - they’re better together.

Reference

Daniel W. Newton, Melissa Chamberlin, Cynthia K. Maupin, Jennifer D. Nahrgang, Dorothy R. Carter. Voice as a Signal of Human and Social Capital in Team Assembly Decisions. Journal of Management, 2021; 014920632110313 DOI: 10.1177/01492063211031303

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SUMMARY Attention is a limited resource, but clear goals and regular feedback can help us to stay focused.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 126 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are exploring how clear goals and regular feedback can help us to stay focused.

Attention is a limited resource. It can be hard to maintain your attention on one task over an extended period of time. You can think of attention like a tank that is gradually depleted over time. Even when people report that they are engaged with a task, the research demonstrates that their attention will wane. The person may not even notice this happening, but their thoughts and attention will start to drift to unrelated areas. This is particularly a problem in activities that require sustained attention where missing a rare event can lead to significant negative outcomes. This includes jobs like air traffic control and security screening. These jobs require individuals to always focus on the task at hand, but can also become repetitive and boring over time. But there are some ways leaders can help their people to maintain engagement and attention, as highlighted by recently published research from the University of Texas.

Researcher Matthew Robison and team put participants through their paces on tasks that required high levels of attention. They varied the clarity of goals and level of feedback received. The researchers found that while people maintain attention better with clear goals, it is regular feedback that really makes a difference. Combining clear goals and frequent feedback appear to help people to maintain their attention over a longer period of time. This worked even more effectively than offering cash payments. Feedback by itself was helpful in reducing task-unrelated thoughts, leading to less distraction.

As a leader, this yet another example of how clear goals and regular feedback help. But there are limits. The researchers caution against setting up jobs and tasks that require sustained human attention. We need to design work that allows for reduced attention over time with frequent breaks and task variety. Have a great week.

REFERENCE https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211028143651.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmind_brain%2Fneuroscience+%28Neuroscience+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

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  **SUMMARY** Sat through a bad meeting recently? There are three stages we need to get right in any meeting to make it effective.

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 125 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we are exploring how to make meetings more effective by concentrating on three stages.

When people complain about meetings, it’s usually about how they are run rather than the meeting itself. Ineffective meetings often end up leading to even more meetings. Being able to plan and run an effective meeting is a core skill for any leader. Recognising the three key stages in any meeting can make a huge difference.

Every meeting should have three clear stages - opening, exploring, and closing. As I describe these stages, think about any that you are already great at, and any that you tend to overlook.

Let’s start with the opening stage. Here we are clarifying why we are here. What’s the purpose of this meeting? What’s the range across which we are working? What freedom and authority do we have? What are the expectations for those attending? This stage opens up the discussion by laying out the playing field. Wherever possible, the purpose and structure of the meeting should be shared with participants beforehand. Everyone should know why they are there and how they can contribute.

Next comes the exploring stage. Here we are staying within the range we have established, but being creative. We are exploring the issues from all angles and generating new ideas.

During the closing stage, we make and note decisions, work out next steps, and clearly note who is accountable for what.

Consider what happens when these stages are missing or not managed well. Without an effective opening, people may be unclear about their role and how they should contribute. Without an effective exploring stage, people may feel like their ideas and contributions aren’t valued. They might wonder why the meeting couldn’t have just been an email. Without an effective closing stage, the team may fail to capture decisions and next steps. They may be left with lots of ideas that are leading nowhere.

Okay - time for a quick self-assessment. Which of these three stages do you tend to do well, and which might you neglect? I always need to be conscious of the closing stage. I tend to cover the opening and exploring stages quite well, but sometimes rush over the decisions and next steps. So now I ensure I’ve dedicated enough time and attention to closing. Having a clear agenda helps remind me to cover these final details.

Try thinking about the three stages for your next meeting.

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Summary When we’re faced with an obstacle or opportunity, it’s important to change the plan, and not the goal.

Transcript Welcome to episode 124 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we’re considering why, when we’re faced with an obstacle or opportunity, it’s important to change the plan, and not the goal.

We face change every day of our lives. In leadership roles it can be hard to know how to handle ongoing change and uncertainty. When change occurs one of the criticisms leaders might face is that they’re constantly moving the goal posts. People might feel like things are shifting all the time and therefore become confused and demotivated. There are some simple ways to avoid this criticism and, more importantly, help people remain clear and motivated.

One of the issues is that leaders often confuse goals and plans, using the terms interchangeably. As a result, people can feel rightly confused about what they should be doing. A simple way of thinking about a goal is that it’s like a flag on a hill. It’s the end point that we are heading towards. Just like getting to a flag on a hill though, there are multiple pathways that we might take. A plan is like one of these pathways - it’s the approach we have chosen to reach the goal. Our organisations and teams are constantly faced with opportunities and threats. These might block some pathways or make new pathways available. Great leaders are attuned to these changes. They are willing to change the plan to allow for these opportunities and threats. After all, there’s little point trying to stay on a pathway that is blocked. But great leaders also try to keep the goal constant. They explain how any changes to the plan are to help the team reach the ultimate goal. They are also clear upfront - they don’t confuse or combine the goal and the plan.

Less effective leaders keep shifting and changing goals when faced with opportunities and threats. If the plan doesn’t work, they also throw out the goal. This confuses people, as it requires a new goal and plan. It also makes all the work performed to date feel like a waste of time.

So next time you are faced with an opportunity or obstacle, focus on any changes required to the plan while reinforcing that the goal has remained unchanged. Your people will thank you.

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  **SUMMARY** Our brain has an amazing ability to learn at double speed. Maybe we should use it more.

TRANSCRIPT Hello and welcome to episode 123 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we’re looking at our brain’s amazing ability to learn at double speed.

No doubt you’ve listened to a podcast or audio book at double speed. Maybe you’re even doing it now! Our ability to still absorb information when it is coming at us twice as fast is quite amazing. But surely there’s a drop off in how much we’re actually taking in. Well, according to a recent study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology, apparently not.

The researchers split participants into different groups to watch videos at normal speed, 1.5 times, 2 times and 2.5 times. Participants were then tested on their knowledge immediately following the videos and one week later. Surprisingly, the 1.5 times and 2 times groups performed just as well as those participants that watched the video at normal speed. Only the 2.5 times group showed a drop in performance.

The researchers then examined what happened if you watched the same video at 2 times speed twice. I’ve run the maths here, and that’s the same overall commitment of time as watching the video once at normal speed. When participants viewed the video twice at double speed, their performance on a comprehension test increased, particularly when the second viewing was immediately before the test. Their performance was about the same as participants who watched the video at normal speed first then double speed the second time. Even though participants believed watching the video at normal speed first would be better, it made no difference to watching it double speed.

Perhaps you’re like these participants and think “surely I can’t take information in that quickly”. Why not experiment with it this week. You might start by listening or watching the same content at double speed twice.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

REFERENCE https://digest.bps.org.uk/2021/12/21/watching-a-lecture-twice-at-double-speed-can-benefit-learning-better-than-watching-it-once-at-normal-speed/

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Summary

It’s easy for leaders to confuse feedback and coaching, but they are quite different.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 122 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we’re looking at the objectives of feedback and coaching, and why it’s important to understand how best to apply them.

Feedback and coaching are two core skills that all leaders need. However, we can often confuse the goals of feedback and coaching. As a result, we may be unclear about the type of conversation we’re having, confusing those we are speaking with.

When we are providing feedback, the main goal is to increase awareness. This usually includes making someone aware of the impact they are having on others, either positive or negative.

When we are having a coaching conversation, the main goal is development. It isn’t primarily about the impact a person is having, but rather about ways they can become even better.

We need awareness before development. It’s almost impossible to develop if you don’t believe there is an opportunity to improve. But raising awareness, in and of itself, is not development.

Here is where things can sometimes go wrong. A leader might frame a discussion as if it is coaching, when really they just want to provide feedback. Or the leader might offer someone feedback, when really they just want to tell the person what to do differently next time.

Feedback can be a powerful tool to demonstrate progress and to identify strengths the person doesn’t see in themselves. Feedback might be something that encourages a person to continue developing and improving. Feedback can lead to an opportunity to coach someone, but feedback and coaching are different types of conversations.

If you’re going to have a conversation with an individual, try to keep it either focused on feedback or on coaching depending upon the goal. Combining or confusing the two often reduces the effectiveness of the conversation.

So keep in mind - the goal of feedback is to increase awareness, while the goal of coaching is ongoing development. Be clear about what you are providing and why. Think about things from the perspective of the other person - what do they need from you? What is going to help them to progress?

And the most important take-away is that great leaders provide lots of feedback and undertake lots of coaching conversations. The really great leaders seek out feedback and coaching for themselves. Have a great week.

Go to leadership.today for further information.

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Summary In this episode we explore how the language we use can either help or hinder our achievement of goals.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 121 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. Firstly, welcome to 2022! It’s great to be back with you after a short break. I hope you and your loved ones are keeping well. I’m expectant about what 2022 holds for leaders. We’re making lots of progress when it comes to flexible working. The global pandemic has really forced us all to stop and think about what we’re trying to achieve and the best way to get there.

How are those New Years’ resolutions going? If you’re like most people the goals you set are probably starting to slip. Given we know so much about goal setting, why is it that we just can’t seem to follow through with our goals? I believe one of the key issues we face is the language we use when setting goals. The way we express our goals has a flow on impact to our motivation and commitment.

Consider the following goal. This year I want to finish work by 5pm each day. That seems, on the surface, to be a pretty well constructed goal. It’s clear, measurable and is probably achievable. The catch is the use of the word “want”. When we say we want to do something, we’re indicating a preference rather than a commitment. If I want to finish work by 5pm, but I have lots of work on, it’s pretty easy to push this preference to one side. And when we’ve done that once, it’s easy to keep letting the goal slip again and again until the goal is long forgotten.

Compare that with the same goal, but this time using the word “will”. This year I will finish work by 5pm each day. Using the word “will” turns the goal into a commitment and not just a preference. The wording indicates that we have decided to make this change. Imagine sharing that goal with a friend or colleague. The commitment then is clear.

Think about the goals you have set in the past that you’ve struggled to keep. Was the commitment clear in the way you expressed the goal?

It might sound like we’re just playing words here, but expressing your goals as a commitment rather than a preference makes a big difference.

This week, try to express a new goal as a “will” not a “want”. See you next week.

Head to leadership.today for more information.

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In this episode we speak with Shane Hatton, author of the book Lead the Room. Shane works with individuals and teams around leadership, communication and culture. During the interview we explore:

• What it means to lead the various ‘rooms’ in our life and leadership
• Making a difference in the moments that matter
• Leading in a remote and virtual context
• A leader’s role in building and shaping culture
• Managing the ‘busy-ness’ that so often overtakes our day

You can find out more about Shane via his website - https://shanemhatton.com/

You also will want to check out his podcast, Phone Calls with Clever People, wherever you get your podcasts.

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I speak with Ellen Jackson who is a psychologist, writer, speaker, consultant and coach. Her business, Potential Psychology, helps leaders and teams to thrive and flourish. She is also the host of the Potential Psychology podcast which recently featured its 100th episode.

In this discussion we cover:

• How positive psychology is relevant for leaders

• What place negative experiences and hardships have in positive psychology

• Some of the tips she has applied after interviewing 100 experts

• The challenges and opportunities in community leadership

Go to www.potential.com.au to learn more about Ellen.

A quick note - there are a few audio issues and a barking dog, but welcome to the joys of podcasting!

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In this episode we speak with author, speaker and facilitator Dr Maria Church about her concept of Love-Based Leadership. During the interview we explore:

• Where the idea for Love-Based Leadership came from
• What it means to lead with love
• How we can demonstrate Love-Based Leadership from a distance
• Implications for culture and innovation

You can find out more about Maria via her website - drmariachurch.com

Dr Maria Church is author of the book Love-Based Leadership: The model for leading with strength, grace, and authenticity. She works with a broad range of individuals and organisations around organisational culture, change agility and leadership development. Her latest book is A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Power, Love and Influence.

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Summary In this episode we look at why a philosophy of leadership is important, and how you might develop your own philosophy.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 120 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. In fact, this episode marks three years of the Leadership Today podcast. Thanks so much for being a part of that. The podcast has reached tens of thousands of people and I always appreciate your feedback and input. In this episode we look at why a philosophy of leadership is important, and how you might develop your own philosophy.

Whether we recognise it or not, we all have a philosophy of leadership. It’s the lens through which we view leadership. There are aspects of that philosophy that you have no doubt consciously developed, but there will also be parts that are more accidental in their origins. Why does our philosophy of leadership matter? Because it shapes the way we think, feel and act about issues of leadership. For example, if you believe people are born leaders, then you probably also believe that others aren’t born leaders - that will influence your decisions and actions. If you believe leadership is just about managing people downwards, that will also influence your decisions and actions.

I’m going to share my philosophy of leadership with you. I don’t expect you to necessarily agree with all of these points. In fact, it’s great if you don’t! Particularly if that helps to shape your own philosophy of leadership that you apply to you and others.

I will start with the definition of leadership that we use at Leadership Today, which is “achieving results through people for good”. That’s what leaders do. I firmly believe that leaders leave the world a better place. Leadership is for good - the good of the people we serve, the organisation where we work, but also for the communities and families around our organisations. Inherent in that definition of leadership is a balancing act. Leadership is absolutely about achieving results - if you’re not achieving results you’re not leading. And leadership is absolutely about people - leaders deliver through people. If we become unbalanced, that’s where the problems start. If you focus just on results and forget about the people, you’re not going to achieve results for very long. Equally, focusing just on people and paying inadequate attention to results is ultimately not good for the people you serve. Creating a nice, soft environment with low expectations and standards is actually awful for people. We need to focus on both parts - “achieving results” and “through people”, and always link that to the good.

I believe that we can all be leaders. That leadership is about the influence we have on others in the pursuit of results for good. Therefore if you have influence, then you are a leader. Sure, leadership can be downwards, but it can also be across, and up, and ever outside our organisation. Leadership isn’t just what we do at work.

In balancing the ‘achieving results’ and ‘through people’ components, we are best placed if we dial up both challenge and support. People often misunderstand psychological safety - thinking that it’s just about supporting people and making the workplace safe. It’s also about providing a challenging and stimulating place to work. Just as being over-stressed is bad, so is being chronically under-stressed. It’s far better to increase the challenge as you also increase the support. That’s what leads to growth in others.

The way we balance results and people is through aligned motivation - that’s the vehicle of leadership. In a perfect world we have a group of people who are motivated and heading in the same direction. There’s no point having a motivated team if they are all heading in different directions. Equally there’s no point having an aligned team that clearly understand the desired direction, but aren’t motivated to get there.

The catch is that we can’t motivate anyone directly. I can’t force someone to be motivated. And I can’t motivate someone just through personal enthusiasm in a hope that some of my motivation might rub off. Instead, as a leader I need to create an environment and conditions that align with and unlock the motivations of individuals. You can’t do that without understanding your people.

The research I’ve undertaken suggests there are six practices that outstanding leaders undertake - reflecting, inspiring, developing, connecting, delegating and clearing. If you’re interested in those, you can check out our online course at Leadership Today On-Demand that explores each of these in more detail. Chances are that there are two daily practices you are great at, two you are okay at, and two that you tend to neglect.

I believe that everyone is a born leader. That we all have a head start in some area of leadership, and that we will always need to work on other areas of leadership. As a leader you never stop learning.

And, finally, I believe that leadership needs to be sustainable. There’s not much point being a great leader for a month or two and then collapsing in a heap. We all need routines that allow for challenge, ongoing development and times of recovery.

So that is my philosophy of leadership, gained through research and experience. Can I encourage you to bullet point out your own philosophy of leadership? You can use mine as a starting point if you would like - it’s all in the show notes. But, better yet, why not just list yours out first. Knowing our philosophy of leadership shapes both the way we lead and how we interact with others.

If you have been following Leadership Today for a while, you will also know that my philosophy of leadership development is driven by your challenges and areas of interest. Our Leadership Today App is a great way to undertake your leadership development in your own time. Just go to your App Store and search for Leadership Today. There you can sign up for a monthly or annual subscription, or take our 30 day free trial. I encourage you to then take a look around and dip into the topics that are most interesting and relevant to you. Have a great week.

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In this replay of our 11th July 2020 episode, we find out that learning isn't quite 70/20/10.

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Summary Many people claim there is an epidemic of rudeness in our organisations. Is that true, or is it a case of a few bad apples ruining the bunch?

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 119 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. In this episode we find out whether there really is an epidemic of rudeness at work, or just a few bad apples ruining the bunch.

Some have described rudeness and incivility in our workplaces as an epidemic. I’m sure each of use can share anecdotal stories of angry and rude people. These examples do tend to stick in our minds. But is it really an epidemic?

In a study just published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers measured the level of rudeness between employees. The research included a diverse range of office, manufacturing and restaurant environments. On first look at the results, it’s easy to see why people refer to an epidemic of rudeness. In fact, the researchers found 70% of people experienced rudeness at work. That’s a pretty extraordinary figure. However, the same research demonstrated that rudeness was a characteristic in just 16% of relationships. So while many people observe and experience rudeness at work, it’s a much smaller percentage of people contributing to this rudeness. Their research suggests that a relatively small number of people being rude has a disproportionately large impact on others.

This finding makes a lot of sense. Even if you’re not on the receiving end of rudeness, it still impacts you. I vividly remember a senior leader who would routinely berate and belittle others both behind their back and to their face. He was extraordinarily rude. So even though I wasn’t on the receiving end, the rude behaviour had a dramatic impact on my assessment of the individual and also the organisation. There seemed to be little interest by other senior leaders in the issue or any attempt to tackle the behaviour. Ultimately people left the organisation while the rude leader remained.

Given the toxic impact of rudeness, organisations need to have a zero tolerance for rude behaviours. And when I say ‘organisations’, I really mean leaders at all levels. Not only do leaders need to be role models of positive behaviours, they also need to confront negative and rude behaviours immediately. It could be that the person being rude doesn’t have a sense of their impact, so swift feedback may well help them to avoid sabotaging their own career.

However a great work environment isn’t just one that lacks rudeness. You don’t create a great workplace by just removing negative behaviours. We need to also encourage positive behaviours and interactions. We need to foster kindness, respect and inclusion.

So, an epidemic of rudeness? Probably not. However, the latest research clearly demonstrates that a few bad apples can definitely spoil an organisation.

References Shannon G. Taylor, Lauren R. Locklear, Donald H. Kluemper, Xinxin Lu. Beyond targets and instigators: Examining workplace incivility in dyads and the moderating role of perceived incivility norms.. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2021; DOI: 10.1037/apl0000910

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Summary Resilience programs are okay, but true resilience starts with leadership. We explore the research and what it means for leaders in this week’s episode.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 118 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. In this episode we discuss why resilience starts with leadership.

I think there is a problem with a lot of resilience training that is undertaken in our organisations. It’s not the valuable skills and techniques that worry me - of course, we can all work on our resilience. However the undertone in most resilience training is that you are the problem - that it’s solely your responsibility to become more resilient. But sometimes it’s not the level of an individual’s resilience that’s the problem. Sometimes it’s the job, the work environment or the leadership that’s the problem. If we fix those external issues, that might reduce the amount of resilience people need to get through their day.

I appreciate this is a balance. However I think in far too many organisations, we effectively blame the individual for not being resilient enough without first examining the work environment around them. Instead this approach is all too common - “if you’re struggling with the demands of your job and work environment, here’s a resilience program”.

So what’s an alternative approach?

Researchers Kyle Brykman and Danielle King found that leaders play an important role when it comes to resilience, particularly within teams. They studied 48 tech startup teams to identify what made a difference when it came to resilience and learning.

They found a key element in team resilience is having a leader who is focused on learning and not solely on short-term performance outcomes. The most effective leaders rewarded a learning mindset, even when the person made a mistake. They recognised that learning requires mistakes. So if something goes wrong, the focus from the best leaders is immediately on learning from the experience.

Where leaders encouraged their people to take risks, contribute suggestions and learn from the experience, teams ended up being more resilient and effective. They created a culture with openness, learning and a focus on development.

If you’re considering a resilience program, here are four steps you might start with instead:

1. Start by creating a work environment that is equal parts supportive and challenging. Help people to feel comfortable to speak up, but also to stretch themselves and occasionally fall short.
2. Examine your attitude to mistakes. What is the language used around mistakes? What are the first things we say when things don’t work out?
3. Ask people how they’re feeling. Radical, right? But think back over your career. How many managers ever asked you how you were feeling? Our feelings towards our work provide an insight into our emotional state and the level of resilience we are needing to demonstrate each day.
4. Remove frustrations. Frustrations soak up will power. As my own research has found, the more frequently you face frustrations at work, the greater the likelihood that you also experience significant negative work-related stress. Wanting to do a good job and being blocked by frustrations is terrible for people. No amount of resilience training can overcome the negative outcomes of unaddressed frustrations.

So, this week, remember that resilience starts with leadership.

This month we have some very exciting news. Our Leadership Today video on-demand service is now available as an app on Android and Apple iOS devices. You can take all of our video content on the road using your phone or tablet. You can even switch between the web and any of your devices to pick up right where you left off and bring your watch lists with you. The app even lets you download content to watch offline. We have partnered with Vimeo to build this app over the past few months and couldn’t be happier with the end product. To find out more go to our website at leadership.today or search for the Leadership Today app in Google Play or the Apple App Store.

SIGN UP FOR A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL OF LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND References Kyle M. Brykman, Danielle D. King. A Resource Model of Team Resilience Capacity and Learning. Group & Organization Management, 2021; 105960112110180 DOI: 10.1177/10596011211018008

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610173947.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmind_brain%2Fbehavior+%28Behavior+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

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Summary In this episode we explore why 10,000 hours of practice isn’t perfect, and how we can make practice better.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 117 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. In this episode we explore why 10,000 hours of practice isn’t perfect, and how we can make practice better.

“Practice makes perfect” - at least that’s how the old saying goes. In fact, you’ve probably also heard that 10,000 hours of practice makes you an expert or master. The 10,000 hours figure was popularised by one of my favourite writers, Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. While the general principle is right - that practice is an essential part of becoming an expert - the exact number of hours is at best arbitrary. The quoted figure is based on the work of Alders Ericsson who observed that the most accomplished violin students he studied had put in, on average, 10,000 hours of practice by the time they were 20 years old. Importantly, 10,000 hours was an average rather than a minimum standard. Ericsson found that some violin students had practiced significantly more, and some significantly less, than 10,000 hours to achieve that level of expertise. Even at that point they still all had room to go to truly become experts.

And, as Ericsson noted, not all practice is created equal. Undertaking mechanical repetition - just doing the same thing over and over - doesn’t improve performance much at all. Undertaking deliberate practice - where we focus on making changes and trying new things to move us towards a goal - is much better. Not every hour of practice is equal.

We also start from different points. If I put 10,000 hours into practicing a 100 metre sprint at this point in my life, I’m still highly unlikely to reach a truly competitive level. I will improve, for sure. But I won’t become what would be considered to be an expert or master.

To illustrate this point, cognitive psychologists Campitelli and Gobet, found that reaching a master level in chess took some people up to 16,120 hours of practice. For others the same level of accomplishment came after just 728 hours. There is a wide range and people clearly don’t start from the same point. When trying to come up with a figure, they estimated the amount of deliberate practice required to reach a master level is closer to an average of 3,000 hours.

Recent research also shows that it’s not just what we do when we’re practicing that helps us to improve. A study published in Cell Reports just this week demonstrates that short rests while practicing improves performance. For example, they had participants practice a short piano note sequence for 10 seconds. When they introduced a 10 second rest period between practice periods, performance improved markedly. Their study showed that the brain effectively kept replaying compressed versions of the task during the break. In fact, the ‘neural replay’ was 20 times faster than the physical activity itself. They found this effect most pronounced when the rest periods were between periods of practice, rather than just at the end of the practice. It’s as if the brain is virtually rehearsing the finger movements extremely quickly in our heads when we provide the chance for our hands to rest. The whole article is a great read if you have an interest in neuroscience. As always, the reference is in the show notes.

So, whether you’re learning something yourself or teaching others, here are some tips:

1. Start with the ‘why’ of practice - what is the broader goal we are working towards? This helps people to focus and sustain effort.
2. Make the practice deliberate. What is the goal of today’s practice? What are we going to vary or try out? Don’t become stuck in mechanical repetition.
3. Learn from a range of people. Sometimes the way one person explains something may not work for you. It’s always good to get tips from a few people.
4. Take breaks. Give your brain a chance to rehearse and consolidate what you are learning.
5. Keep reading Malcolm Gladwell. Sure, the whole 10,000 hours thing was a bit overstated, but he is brilliant at extending your thinking into new areas in an entertaining way. Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

Have a great week.

References Ethan R. Buch, Leonardo Claudino, Romain Quentin, Marlene Bönstrup, Leonardo G. Cohen. Consolidation of human skill linked to waking hippocampo-neocortical replay. Cell Reports, 2021; 35 (10): 109193 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109193

Campitelli, G. J., & Gobet, F. (2011). Deliberate practice: Necessary but not sufficient. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(5), 280-285. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721411421922

Gladwell, Malcolm, (2008). Outliers : the story of success. New York :Little, Brown and Company.

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We’ve made it to day five of the Growing Gratitude challenge. Over the week we’ve looked at the case for gratitude, then focused on people, nature and tailwinds. Today is about extending what we’ve learned beyond the week.

Clearly it’s best if we can turn gratitude from a state, something we experience from time to time, into a trait, an ongoing set of habits and way of looking at the world.

Now, I can provide you with a list of options, but you really need to reflect on what works best for you.

First, spend some time looking back over what we have covered across this week. Are there any activities that worked particularly well for you? How might you build those in to your daily or weekly routine?

Here are a few additional ideas to try:

Three gratitudes - this one is simple and the research shows that even 21 days has a positive impact on our mood and outlook. All it involves is writing down three new things each day that you are grateful for. You can use a notes app on your phone or a notebook - whatever works best for you. The challenge is thinking of three new things each day - particularly over that first week. But, over time, you will find that you notice positive things to be grateful for - that you change your perspective about that ratio of positive to negative in your life to tilt it more towards the positive.

Daily exercise. Can I suggest that if you struggle with exercise, you mix things up a bit. Aim for something you enjoy and pair exercise up with that. Perhaps you love a particular podcast - why not listen to the podcast while going for a walk? Maybe there’s a friend you like spending time with - why not enlist them to go for a walk or a quick work out together? And aim for the morning if you can. I recently profiled some research that suggests we are even less likely to exercise after a challenging and stressful day. So, instead, aim for the morning, even if it means going to bed a little earlier to then wake up earlier.

Hang out with positive people. Draw around you people who tend to be grateful, kind and generous. It will inspire you to focus more on the positives.

Write a quick thank you note each day. By way of example, we purchase coffee machine pods from a small business that roast their own coffee and put them in biodegradable pods and packaging. I’ve been a customer for three years and we love their products. So I just wrote them a short email to let them know how much we appreciate their products and business, and to say thank you. It really made their day and only took me one minute. Imagine if we did something like that each day.

Thank you for joining me on this challenge - I hope you found it helpful. Can I encourage you to share it with others? Perhaps your kind act today will be to share the word and get others to join you in focusing more on gratitude. Have a great week.

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It’s day four of the growing gratitude challenge.

As human beings we have a natural tendency to become caught up with the negatives and challenges in life. Researchers Gilovich and Davidai describe this as the headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry - what they characterise as a tendency to focus far more on barriers than on blessings. This can lead to a sense of unfairness - a perception that we have it harder than most other people. It also leads us to underestimate the benefits we have received that have contributed to positive outcomes in our lives. This tendency runs counter to a sense of gratitude. It’s very difficult to feel grateful at the same time as feeling like you’ve had it tougher than most people. But that’s exactly why gratitude can be so helpful - we can use gratitude to rebalance the asymmetry.

So today we are focusing on the tailwinds in our life - those things that have helped to bring us forward. We’re also reflecting on the headwinds that others face that perhaps don’t impact on us.

It’s interesting how the working definition around privilege is changing. We used to think about privilege as having an advantage - and that’s something that most people find hard to accept. After all, I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today - it’s not fair to say I’m privileged is it? But another way of thinking about privilege is the absence of impediments. As a white male growing up in a middle class household, I wouldn’t necessarily think of my life as privileged. But as I become aware of the barriers and challenges others have faced by virtue of their ethnicity or gender or just the household they were born into, it’s easier for me to see the relative lack of headwinds I have experienced. My tailwinds have far exceed the headwinds I have experienced.

My mother provided me with great advice - if you’re ever feeling down, look for someone else to help.

I recall an interview with Michael J Fox, the actor who received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease as a young adult while at the peak of his acting career. During the interview he was asked if he ever felt sorry for himself. Michael replied that there was a long list of people to feel sorry for, and that his name wasn’t on it.

Again, this isn’t about being overly positive or ignoring the hard times, rather it’s about putting those hard times into perspective and also seeking to help others through their challenges.

I think it’s also helpful to understand others’ experiences. A great challenge is to think of who, in your community, is least like you in terms of their circumstances and background. For me, it might be the Iranian asylum seeker, or the homeless person I see in the city. For a period of time I set myself a challenge to stop whenever I saw someone homeless and ask if I could buy them something - a coffee or a snack or maybe some lunch. Yes - it was inconvenient. In fact, on some occasions, I was really tempted to cross to the other side of the street. But I connected with some amazing people whose life was really different to mine, but were generous with their time and allowed me to appreciate how I might be able to help them. I encourage you to do the same, and then find some way to connect with that person and just find out more about their story.

Today in your workbook, I’d like you to:

List the tailwinds in your life. What have been the circumstances that have helped you to progress and become the person you are today?

Acknowledge the headwinds. What are you finding more challenging and what is holding you back?

What might you do today to take control when it comes to headwinds? You might not be able to remove the headwind altogether, but how might you reduce the negative impact of headwinds?

Who is that person that is least like you in terms of their circumstances and background? How might you connect with them today to learn more about their story? Perhaps you can also offer to help them in some meaningful way.

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Welcome to day three of the growing gratitude challenge.

We’ve long known about the benefits of exercise, but there’s also evidence of increased positive outcomes by just being in nature. Peer reviewed research studies have found that green areas, parks and forests are particularly beneficial. There’s something about greenery and foliage which helps. The studies have found that increased time in nature can elevate your mood, reduce stress, increase creativity, boost memory, build team cohesion, help physical health and even reduce mental illness. These studies are careful to control for things like over-crowding and socio-economic status. There’s something special about nature.

But there’s a difference to being in nature and actually taking time to be grateful for the experience of being in nature.

Today’s challenge is pretty simple. I’m just asking you to take some time in nature to reflect and appreciate what you have, even in your immediate area. That might involve going for a walk, sitting on a park bench, or dusting off that bicycle to go for a ride. Perhaps the weather is conspiring against you. If that’s the case, then even taking time to look out a window at nature can help. If you can’t do that from your workplace or home, perhaps go for a quick drive to somewhere you can observe nature.

In your workbooks you can write down what you are noticing and how it is making you feel. Also, reflect on your overall mood and positivity. It’s likely you will start to see some changes even after three days of focusing on gratitude.

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Day two of the Growing Gratitude challenge is focusing on people.

It’s helpful to think about what the purpose of gratitude might be. Part of the function of gratitude is to form new social connections and build existing connections. Gratitude is like glue in relationships - helping to strengthen connections and support. Gratitude is often focused towards people - people we value and who have helped us in some tangible way. What we should aim for is to be someone that others can be grateful for - to pay it forward.

So there are three things that we can focus on when it comes to gratitude and people. We can be grateful for people - that gratitude will help us. We can express that gratitude to people - that will help us and them. And we can undertake acts of kindness for others. That will help others to be grateful for us, and will help us in the process.

Some research that I often quote involved a workplace where people were asked to perform kind acts for others. The kind acts were definitely appreciated by those on the receiving end. But what is most striking in this research is that those undertaking acts of kindness rated their life satisfaction and job satisfaction higher a full month after the intervention finished. Being kind to others had a lasting impact on those undertaking the kind act. In addition, those on the receiving end of kind acts also tended to pay that kindness forward to others. The research really confirms what we would hope to be true - that kindness multiplies and has lasting impacts.

Today I’m challenging you, not just to spend some time reflecting, but to take action.

First, think about people in your life for whom you are grateful. List as many names as you can.

Next, spend 15 minutes sending people quick notes of appreciation and gratitude. It could be an email or a text, or you might even call someone up. It might even mean reconnecting with someone from years ago that you have really appreciated but potentially never thanked.

This next one might be challenging, but today I’d like you to express appreciation to a stranger. It might be the person who made your coffee, or the person who packed your bag at the supermarket, or the delivery driver that dropped off a package. Look out for an opportunity to appreciate someone and let them know.

And, finally, undertake a kind act for someone. It might be to deliver a small gift or perhaps it’s helping someone out.

Across the day, monitor your mood and emotions. Think about the impact of these acts of appreciation on you and others.

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Welcome to day one of the growing gratitude challenge.

So why, as leaders, would we spend a week focusing on gratitude? To answer that, we need to think about what gratitude is.

From a psychological perspective, it’s best to think of gratitude as having two elements. The first element is recognising the good things in our life. Most people would agree with that definition. The second element though is often overlooked, and that is appreciating that many of these good things are due to other people and factors other than ourselves. Much of what we can be grateful for in life is a gift from others rather than a reward for our own actions. Gratitude only really makes sense in the context of community - whether that’s the community around you at work, where you study, where you live, or with your family and friends.

Gratitude is both an emotional state and an ongoing trait or disposition. We can feel gratitude in a moment. But we can also develop a grateful outlook to our life. We can actively seek out things to be grateful for through daily practices. Equally, we can seek out things to be disappointed or negative about. Much of gratitude is in the outlook we bring and where we choose to focus our attention and efforts.

So why does gratitude matter? The research into gratitude outlines a range of benefits. For the individual the benefits of gratitude range from improved physical and mental health, elevated mood and happiness, increased life satisfaction, and reduced burnout. By way of example, patients recovering from heart failure who completed a gratitude journal had reduced signs of inflammation after an 8 week period. Other research showed people reported better and longer sleep, and improved overall physical health by increasing their practice of gratitude.

For groups and organisations, research has demonstrated that gratitude can increase generosity and kindness, while helping to build stronger relationships and improving work climate. Gratitude is like the glue for society that binds people together. If someone is generous towards you, you’re likely to feel grateful and, in turn, do something nice back for them or for someone else. Gratitude multiplies.

So on day one of this challenge, I would like you to think about the current balance of negative and positive inputs into your life at the moment. What are you feeding yourself? Where are you focusing your attention?

By way of example, I recently found myself becoming absorbed in true crime documentaries on Netflix. Before long, the world around me seemed to be filled with art thieves and serial killers. I had let the ratio of negative to positive inputs become out of balance, and it changed my outlook on the world. So we start this challenge with two simple reflections:

What people, activities or habits feed your disappointment or discouragement? What is bringing you down at the moment?

What people, activities or habits feed your gratitude? What is elevating you up at the moment?

Note down your thoughts in your workbook.

Download the workbook at Leadership Today or via Leadership Today On-Demand

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Hi everyone. The Leadership Today podcast is going to be a little different over the next week as we undertake what I have called the Growing Gratitude Five Day Challenge.

It’s all too easy in the busy-ness of life to become caught up in the negatives - the obstacles, complaints and risks. We’re hard wired to identify threats. However, this obsession with the negatives in life comes at a cost. The Growing Gratitude challenge is all about restoring some balance and capitalising on the benefits that a more positive mindset brings. This isn’t some overly-optimistic wishful thinking - it’s about bringing an evidence-based approach to increasing our performance and well-being through gratitude.

The challenge is running live from 14th to 18th June 2021 at Leadership Today On-Demand and via the Leadership Today podcast.

Each morning starts with an introduction to the challenge for that day. These are backed up by a workbook that includes a range of activities. You can download the workbook via our website - leadership.today. Links are in the show notes.

I’m looking forward to working with you across the week.

Download the workbook at Leadership Today or via Leadership Today On-Demand

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Here's a replay of our 27th June 2020 episode titled Turning Criticism into Feedback and Growth.

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Summary Are you less interested in exercise after a hard day at work even though you know it will make you feel better? You’re not alone. And research has discovered why.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 116 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. In this episode we’re looking at why a stressful day at work makes us even less likely to exercise, despite that being exactly what we need.

If you have a stressful job chances are you already know that exercise will help. Exercise is a great antidote for stress. Exercise effectively burns through stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. In addition, exercise can stimulate production of endorphins which boost our mood and also reduce pain.

But perhaps you have also had this experience: It has been a hard day at work. You know that a quick visit to the gym or walk will make you feel better. But you’re even less motivated than usual to exercise. You know exercise will help you to feel better, but still you don’t do it.

Recent research suggests that the design of our job can have an impact not just on our stress levels at work, but also on the actions we take outside of work to reduce stress. It turns out that the more demanding our day at work, the less likely we are to exercise.

The research involved setting up a call-centre environment where the demands of the job and level of individual control could be varied. The researchers initially set up two versions of a call-centre job - one with greater demands and one with lesser demands placed on the individual. After their shift, participants were then invited to exercise. Those with the more demanding versions of the job undertook less exercise. Having just experienced a demanding job reduced the exercise they would have otherwise have undertaken.

Researchers then repeated the experiment, but this time some participants were allowed greater freedom and control over the job. They found initial evidence that greater autonomy and freedom positively impacted the individual’s sense of control outside of the job, which in turn could influence the amount of exercise they chose to undertake.

So it appears that job characteristics such as demands and autonomy impact exercise. Our work spills over into the rest of our life.

However, there are things we can do to help change this pattern.

1. Exercise at the start of the day - this will help to buffer you against stress and also increase sense of control
2. Make exercise a habit not a choice - remove obstacles to exercise by laying out your gym clothes the night before
3. Focus on how you will feel at the end - starting exercise can be painful, but you almost always feel great after a workout - focus on that feeling to get you over the initial hump
4. Vary the demand level in your job and build in breaks - chronic stress is terrible for us, so mix up your day to include breaks and recovery time

So this week, get moving even when you don’t feel like it. Focus on the benefits and remove the obstacles. Have a great week.

SIGN UP FOR A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL OF LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND Reference Abdel Hadi, S., Mojzisch, A., Parker, S. L., & Häusser, J. A. (2021). Experimental evidence for the effects of job demands and job control on physical activity after work. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 27(1), 125–141. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000333

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When have you learned the most at work? I bet it wasn’t sitting in a training course. In this week’s replay we look at the four best ways to learn at work.

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Summary This week we explore how showing the right amount of emotion can improve the impact you have on others and their willingness to invest in your ideas.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 115 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. In this episode we’re exploring eight steps to effective delegation.

There are a whole host of reasons why people don’t delegate. Perhaps they are worried about quality of the results. Or they just don’t have the time to delegate. Many have had bad experiences with delegation going wrong in the past. However, effective delegation is at the core of great leadership. The rate we delegate sets the pace at which we progress.

Let’s start by with five initial questions to answer before you even start delegating:

1. Does it need to be done? Organisations are generally great at starting new things and terrible at shutting down old things. So before you even delegate, consider whether you can eliminate the task altogether.
2. Does it need to be done by me? There are some things which you can’t fully delegate. This can include financial approval limits or performance management accountabilities. But, truth be told, you can probably delegate more responsibilities than you expect.
3. Does someone else have capacity? If there is no one with capacity to delegate to, then you either need to free up capacity or keep doing it yourself. Rather than just stopping here, I encourage you to work with each of your people to make sure they are focusing on the right things and have the resources they need to be efficient. This might just free up the capacity that you need to delegate.
4. Does someone else have capability? It could be that no one in your team currently has the skills required to take on the accountability you’re seeking to delegate. That’s not necessarily a reason to stop, but rather speaks to the fifth initial question.
5. Do I have the capacity to develop their capability? You may think you don’t have sufficient time to train someone up to your standard. But, by way of example, let’s take an accountability that you currently invest 30 minutes a week into. Across a year that is around 24 hours. So, even if it takes you an entire day of concerted effort to train that person up and review their work, you’re still a full two days ahead in the first year, and then three days ahead every subsequent year. Delegation is an investment.

So hopefully you’ve worked through these initial questions and you’re still keen to delegate. Here are eight simple steps to follow to make that delegation work as well as possible.

1. Match their interests. Delegation is so much more effective if you match the interests of the person you are delegating to. Help them to answer “why me?” when you delegate. Perhaps the new accountability aligns with their development plan. Or perhaps you’ve noticed a skill that they can apply in a new way. Whatever it is, help the person to see how this opportunity aligns with their interests.
2. Detail the desired outcomes. It’s really helpful for people to see clearly what you’re after as an end result. That could mean providing an example of a report or other output. Or, if it’s delegating attendance at a meeting, you might invite that person along to a few meetings first with you so they can see what is expected.
3. Outline why this work matters. People really appreciate knowing what their work is contributing to. Understanding the broader purpose of what you are delegating also helps them to make better decisions about their approach to the new accountability.
4. Detail the support available and check-in points. Delegation requires support. One of the traps I fell into when first delegating work was not setting up check-in points. As a result, a week goes by, I haven’t heard anything about how things are progressing, so I drop by the person’s desk to see how it is going. Then a week later I do the same thing again. The problem being that checking in that way feels a lot like micro-management and a lack of trust. How different it is to establish check-in points up front in consultation with the person you’re delegating to. Then the check-ins don’t feel like micro-management, rather they feel like support.
5. Outline the constraints. A risk when we delegate is that the person tries to achieve an outcome exactly the same way we did it. Often the person being delegated to feels like there are more constraints on the activity than there actually are. Occasionally people may not recognise an actual constraint and step outside of what is possible. Either way, we need to let people know what limits are in place.
6. Review what has been agreed. When you ask someone “do you have any questions?”, 99% of the time they will say “no” even if they do have questions. Why? Because they are concerned that having a question might reflect badly on them or badly on you. Badly on them because they clearly didn’t understand, and badly on you because you didn’t explain it well enough. So they just say “no - no questions here”. Instead, you could ask “what questions to you have?”. That sets an expectation that they will have questions. Then ask them to describe what it is that they are delivering in their own words - not as a test, but rather to confirm clarity all round.
7. Provide direction, encouragement and check-in as agreed. Basically, follow through on what you said you would do. A great way to do this is simply to set aside 15 minutes each week at a particular time to catch up about what has been delegated. That way the person can store up any questions or concerns. Maybe you don’t need the catch up every time, but it is really helpful for the person when they do need it.
8. Review learnings and celebrate success. People often underestimate just how much they have learned and developed. So when we delegate, it is great to celebrate the person successfully taking on that new responsibility.

I hope you found that approach to delegation helpful. All the steps are detailed in the show notes which you can access at our website Leadership.Today - and while you are there, why not sign up for our upcoming webinar called Delegation Without the Drama on the 27th or 28th of May depending on where you are in the world. There’s a link to register in the show notes. Have a great week.

SIGN UP FOR A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL OF LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND

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Summary This week we explore how showing the right amount of emotion can improve the impact you have on others and their willingness to invest in your ideas.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 114 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how showing the right amount of emotion can improve the impact you have on others and their willingness to invest in your ideas.

A common misunderstanding of Emotional Intelligence is that it’s all about holding back our emotions. This is certainly a part of Emotional Intelligence. After all, yelling at someone in the lunch room at work for not putting their cup in the dishwasher is probably not going to win you an employee of the month award. But Emotional Intelligence is not just about holding back emotions that might have a negative impact on others. It’s also about harnessing our emotions to have a more positive impact on others. Our ability to understand our own emotional state and how to manage our emotions is crucial, as is being able to empathise with others and build effective relationships. The goal of building Emotional Intelligence isn’t to become emotion-less. Rather it’s to acknowledge and use our emotions to improve our impact and performance.

However, showing too much emotion can also be off putting to others. We need to be able to read the situation. It ends up being the classic Goldilocks scenario, where we need to demonstrate enough, but not too much, emotion.

This has been backed up by a recent study. Researchers used facial analysis software to scan through around 500 Kickstarter promotional videos. Kickstarter is a platform that allows people to gain funding for their prototype ideas with people committing funds to buy the product, but only being charged once the product is produced and shipped. Sometimes there’s enough funding to go ahead, and sometimes there isn’t. It was relatively easy for researchers to measure the effectiveness of each Kickstarter campaign through the funding it received. Meanwhile, the facial analysis software examined each frame of every pitch video to determine the emotion being demonstrated.

What the study found was fascinating. The pitches that included facial expressions moving through a range of happiness, anger, sadness and fear ended up being more successful in terms of funding. It seems like the range of facial expressions and the emotions they convey has a positive impact on those choosing to invest or walk away.

Their qualitative analysis showed that effective pitches involved initial signs of happiness as the entrepreneur introduced themselves, followed by anger to demonstrate their determination to overcome a problem, followed then by fear as they talked about the risk and challenge.

Those who were less successful tended to use a more consistent emotional expression - perhaps smiling the whole way through or demonstrating little overt emotion.

There are limits to this approach though. Showing too much of one emotion too often though was associated with less funding received.

So this week, feel free to show a little more emotion at work. Express your hope for the future, your determination to succeed, your excitement at working with your colleagues. Above all though - be yourself and harness your emotions. And while we’re talking about improving your leadership, just a reminder that we have an upcoming webinar called Delegation Without the Drama on the 27th or 28th of May depending on where you are in the world. There’s a link to register in the show notes. Have a great week.

SIGN UP FOR A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL OF LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND Reference Benjamin J. Warnick, Blakley C. Davis, Thomas H. Allison, Aaron H. Anglin. Express yourself: Facial expression of happiness, anger, fear, and sadness in funding pitches. Journal of Business Venturing, 2021; 36 (4): 106109 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2021.106109

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The use of remote and hybrid teams has accelerated over the past year. But does this way of working actually work? What might be some of the benefits and drawbacks? And how do we best lead remote and hybrid teams? This week we're joined by Gina McCredie, an organisational psychologist who founded Impactful Work - working with individuals, teams and organisations to tackle challenges just like this.

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Summary It turns out that smartphone use is associated with shorter-term thinking and a focus on quick wins. The more you use your smartphone, the less likely you are to pursue longer term achievement of bigger goals. So this week we ask the question - Is your smartphone killing your dreams?

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 112 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we’re looking at whether your smartphone is killing your dreams. Pretty dramatic.

I’ve picked up my smartphone 32 times already today. Now, how do I know that? Because pickup number 32 was to check how many pickups I had used today. My average pickups per day is 86. I have no idea if that’s good or bad, or how you might compare. Either way, smartphones have become an integral part of how we work, how we socialise and how we relax. There are few parts of our lives that smartphones haven’t managed to invade.

You might suspect that all that smartphone use is making us more reactive and impulsive. That ‘ding’ or vibration from your pocket can easily steal your attention, if only for a split second. Our brains are notoriously bad at handling this. Once something has grabbed our attention, it takes a while to get back to what we were initially focusing on.

Recent research shows that those who spend more time on their smartphones also tend towards chasing smaller and more immediate rewards. They tend to steer away from longer-term rewards that require greater effort. They are more impulsive. This effect is particularly pronounced for those who use gaming and social media apps.

Is smartphone use causing this impulsivity, or is smartphone use a measure of impulsivity? It’s hard to say and look it probably goes both ways.

Now, you might say, I’ve heard social media apps are addictive, so maybe it’s not my fault. It’s definitely a mixed picture when you look at the research, but the most recent articles suggest it’s unlikely that social media apps are addictive. They are distracting, absolutely. They fight for your attention, for sure. But they’re not truly addictive in the way that cigarettes might be, or gambling or drinking might be for some.

Instead, this research suggests that smartphone use and impulsive decision making go hand in hand. When we take a short-term focus we can end up missing out. Our smartphone can be a diversion for our time, but it can also be a diversion from our goals.

You can use the screen time data on your smartphone as a measure of your impulsiveness. Take a look now - see what you have been up to over the past week. Greater discipline with your smartphone use could well extend into other areas of your life. Even if the smartphone isn’t making you more impulsive, it’s a great way to tackle your impulsiveness.

Part of the value we bring as leaders is a long-term focus. It’s our ability to look beyond what’s immediately in front of us to the emerging opportunities and threats that helps us to add value to those we lead. In order to take a longer-term view, we really need to understand what an impulse is and how we can fight it. An impulse is effectively an urge - something in the moment that compels us to do something. An impulse can be physical, mental or emotional, or a combination of all three. Here are a few tips for dealing with those impulses:

1. Be aware of the impulse - acknowledge it. It’s the classic “name it to tame it” approach. Acknowledge that you’re really tempted to pick up your phone and dive into whatever distracting app is your preference. That will help you to avoid the impulse.
2. Ride it out. This applies to many psychological challenges that we face. If you’ve tried to quit smoking, no doubt you were taught this technique. And why not? It works really well. In the moment it feels like an impulse is just going to build and build and build, so we may as well just give in. But there will come a point where any impulse passes. Ride that wave with a confidence that it will become less of a challenge over time.
3. Fix it at the source. Use screen time and other apps to limit phone usage. Turn off notifications that distract. Use the technology to help you.
4. Be more intentional. I’ve spoken before about planning for self-control. Will power in the moment is notoriously bad. Instead, we need to plan for the times when these impulsive time wasters tempt us the most. So, for example, in the evening I read books on a Kindle rather than on my iPad. Not only is it far easier on my eyes, there’s absolutely nothing on that Kindle to distract me, except perhaps another book.
5. Change your mindset. It can often feel that avoiding an impulse is losing or missing out. Instead, it is something you should reward yourself for. Watch how your ability think longer-term increases, and as those distractions become less distracting - reward yourself for the progress you’re making.

So this week, take a quick look at your smartphone screen time, and the extent to which your goals and dreams have become smaller.

SIGN UP FOR A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL OF LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND References https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201118141844.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmind_brain%2Fsocial_psychology+%28Social+Psychology+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

K. Thomson, S. C. Hunter, S. H. Butler, D. J. Robertson. Social media ‘addiction’: The absence of an attentional bias to social media stimuli. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2021; DOI: 10.1556/2006.2021.00011

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Summary Is becoming more mindful automatically better for us and our well-being? And does being more mindful help those around us? The research is really clear - more mindfulness is not always better. Thankfully we also know how to avoid these mindfulness downsides.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 111 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore whether it’s possible to overdose on mindfulness.

Mindfulness has seen dramatically increased popularity in recent years, particularly within Western organisations. And why not? Mindfulness has repeatedly demonstrated lots of personal benefits for individuals. As a result, mindfulness almost automatically appears in leadership development training with the typical recommendation being that people should just do more.

But can you have too much of a good thing? Let’s take optimism and curiosity as an example. Both are generally positive. However the research shows us that you can absolutely be too optimistic and you can also be too curious. Not only can having too much optimism and curiosity have negative impacts for the individual, it can also have negative impacts on those around them. Does mindfulness demonstrate a similar pattern? And does mindfulness encourage people to help others more?

It’s important to appreciate that mindfulness is not one thing, so let’s take a look at some of the research around specific types of mindfulness.

There’s mindful attention which focuses on mind–body awareness and perception of what is going on for us mentally and physically in the moment. The research shows that mindful attention is positive up to a point, but too much can lead to worse mental health outcomes. As the researcher Amit Bernstein highlights, this includes increased rates of depression, anxiety, dissociation, and substance abuse, along with decreased ability to tolerate pain. These negative outcomes can be somewhat decreased when the individual is being non-judgemental and non-reactive. Mindful attention works best when we are observing rather than responding. But that’s easier said than done.

Research demonstrates that mindful meditation can help increase the amount and depth of sleep up to a point. But once people get beyond around 30 minutes of mindful meditation a day, people actually demonstrated decreased quality of sleep in both depth and amount.

Then there’s mindful emotion regulation where we seek to gain greater control over our emotions, increase our emotional regulation and accept what we are experiencing. Again, this can have lots of positive impacts, but in excess research demonstrates it can lead to emotional blunting - where people experience fewer positive and fewer negative emotions. As a results life can become flat and dull.

It is better to think of mindfulness like many other things in psychology as having an inverted U relationship to well-being. Up to a point mindfulness can absolutely increase wellbeing. But as someone continues to increase the amount of mindfulness, there will be a point where well-being actually declines.

So for the individual you can have too much of a good thing. But what about the impact on others? What’s the impact of mindfulness on what us psychologists call ‘pro-social behaviour’ - effectively, doing good things for other people.

Research about to be published in the journal of Psychological Science shows that mindfulness can make some people more selfish - that is, they do fewer good things for others than they otherwise would have as a result of mindfulness. This is the case for those participants who had more of an independent outlook to start with. Increased mindfulness for those who tend to be more independent resulted in them undertaking fewer prosocial behaviours than a control group - mindfulness resulted in them becoming even more independent in their actions. However, for those who viewed themselves as interdependent, mindfulness increased prosocial behaviour. When it comes to mindfulness, it’s important to recognise where you start and the outlook you bring.

Let’s put all of this in a cultural context. Most mindfulness practices that are being used in organisational settings have been derived from East Asian and particularly Buddhist traditions. In East Asian cultures people tend to be more interdependent in their outlook - on average, people tend to focus more on others and their contribution to a broader society rather than on themselves. The recent research we just explored suggests that in these cultures mindfulness will increase this focus on others, and lead to greater prosocial behaviours. In Western countries however people tend to be more independent in their outlook. Mindfulness may increase that independent focus and reduce the amount of prosocial behaviour that otherwise would have been demonstrated. There is a risk when we rip a practice like mindfulness out of its cultural and spiritual context hoping to just get the upside impact. So in our Western business context should we abandon mindfulness altogether?

It’s true that becoming more mindful is not automatically better for individuals and those around them. It depends both how the mindfulness is set up and how self-aware and mindful the individual already is. It’s perhaps better to think of mindfulness in the way we think about exercise and sleep. Clearly exercise and sleep are both helpful and necessary for wellbeing and health. But just telling everyone to do an hour more exercise a day, or to sleep two hours longer every night is not great advice. You can end up having too much exercise and too much sleep. It all depends on what they the individual is currently doing.

The research by Poulin, Ministero, Gabriel, Morrison and Naidu that I quoted earlier shows that you can vary the outcomes of mindfulness by initially increasing people’s interest in others. When the researchers primed people for interdependence, they saw a 40% increase in the likelihood of volunteering for a not for profit organisation following mindfulness. When people were primed for independence, they were 33% less likely to volunteer after some mindfulness practice.

At work, we can help people appreciate the role they play in building an interdependent culture. As leaders, we can help our people to think of the role they and the organisation play in their community. If we do this, practices such as mindfulness are more likely to then lead to greater individual and social outcomes.

When it comes to mindfulness, it’s important to recognise we all start from a different base. More is not always better. When we are being mindful, we need to not just focus on ourselves, but also on how we can be a benefit to others.

As always, the research I have referred to is in the show notes with a big thanks to ScienceDaily who continue to serve up great research in my email inbox each day. Have a great week as you look after yourself and others.

SIGN UP FOR A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL OF LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND Research Michael Poulin, Lauren Ministero, Shira Gabriel, Carrie Morrison, Esha Naidu. Minding your own business? Mindfulness decreases prosocial behavior for those with independent self-construals. Psychological Science (forthcoming), 2021 DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/xhyua

University at Buffalo. "Mindfulness can make you selfish: A pioneering new study examines the social effects of mindfulness." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 April 2021. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210414100147.htm

Willoughby B Britton Can mindfulness be too much of a good thing? The value of a middle way. Current Opinion in Psychology 2019, 28:159–165 https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/sites/britton-lab/files/images/Britton_2019_Can%20mindfulness%20be%20too%20much%20of%20a%20good%20thing.pdf

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This week we have a replay of our 25th April 2020 episode on four ways to build hope. We will be back with a brand new episode next week. See you then!

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This week we have a replay of our 4th April 2020 episode on how to avoid micromanagement. We will be back in two weeks with a new episode.

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Summary Is it possible we are approaching learning and development the wrong way? What if we allow people to fail early before we even teach them the basics? This week we explore research around the counterintuitive idea of productive failure.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 110 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore research around the counterintuitive idea of productive failure.

How do you think about failure? For most people, failure is something to be avoided at all costs. However, failure and mistakes are usually a critical part of learning. In fact, if we want to learn and develop, we probably need more productive failure. Failure that pushes us forward and leaves us better off.

I know that seems counterintuitive, so let’s look at some research that illustrates the point.

How do we normally teach people something new? Well, in schools, universities and colleges around the world the process usually goes like this. First we walkthrough the concept and provide an example. Then we give people a chance to apply what they have learned through a practical activity. Then we provide feedback to people based on how they performed during the activity. Learning complete. And we’ve reduced the likelihood of failure in the practical activity by making sure people understand the theory first. But what if we varied the order of those elements in the learning process?

Researchers explored precisely that using students in an undergraduate biology course. Some students followed the traditional method I just outlined. However, the researchers also took some students through a very different process. In that instance they started with an activity where students could problem solve without instruction. The students then received feedback about how they went. And, finally, there was a walkthrough of a model expert approach to explain the concepts. Basically this approach forced students to get things wrong and receive feedback early. The students had almost no chance of getting the initial activity 100% right. That provided a rich opportunity for feedback. After all, everyone was likely to have failed the activity in some way. Following that feedback, the students were primed to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts at play in the activity. But did this alternative approach work?

It turned out that the students following the non-traditional approach of productive failure had an average result that was five percentage points higher than the group using the typical approach. That’s pretty impressive. However, the most impressive increases came for students who typically struggled to learn. Those students saw even greater increases in their scores as a result of being allowed to productively fail, receive feedback, and then understand the theory.

So, how does your workplace view failure? What kind of reaction do people receive when they get things wrong? How many opportunities are there for your people to safely, but productively, fail while learning something new? Maybe it’s time to change the way we think about failure and how we develop our people.

Well I hope you enjoyed this episode. As always, the research referenced in this episode is in the show notes. And we’ve got a really exciting opportunity for groups to learn on our Leadership Today On-Demand platform. If you do want to try that out with a group just get in contact at our website www.leadership.today or send an email to info@leadership.today for more information. I look forward to signing up some more people for a trial and I will see you next week.

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Research Sunita G. Chowrira, Karen M. Smith, Patrick J. Dubois & Ido Roll (2019) DIY productive failure: boosting performance in a large undergraduate biology course. npj Science of Learning volume 4, Article number: 1

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Trust is an essential part of effective leadership. This webinar explores practical ways to build and maintain trust within and beyond your team to improve engagement, openness and performance.

Want more similar content? Start your free 30 day trial of Leadership Today On-Demand here: https://leadershiptoday.vhx.tv/browse

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Summary Community really matters, but can be hard to build when we’re in a hurry. In this episode we discuss the single best question to build community (at least the best I’ve come across!).

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 109 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we discuss the single best question to build community.

I’ve spoken before about five things research indicates are difficult to build when we’re not all in the same place at the same time. They are:

1. Community
2. Collaboration
3. Culture
4. Climate
5. Capability

Today we’re focusing on the first one - community. Building community in our teams and organisations is extremely important, both from an employee experience perspective, but also for performance. This is true whether you are currently working remotely, are back in the office or, more likely, some mix of the two.

The catch now is that we are often needing to build community and connection at speed. Research shows us that the shift to online meetings has resulted in more meetings with more participants per meeting, but shorter meeting times. You’re also far less likely to have all of your team in the same place at the same time, so the opportunities to build connections are fewer and further in between. We therefore need to be intentional about building community. We can no longer leave such a central part of workplace culture to chance now that the proverbial water-cooler discussions have all but disappeared.

Community is about what we have in common - that’s where the word comes from. It’s about shared characteristics, beliefs and interests. We build community when people share things about themselves with each other. As leaders, we want to give people a chance to learn what they have in common. This can be challenging though. We want people to be personal, but also to feel safe. We don’t want people to feel as if they’re being forced to share too much at work. But it also needs to be inclusive. If you ask people to talk about their children or a favourite pet, what happens for the people who have neither?

I was working with a team recently, and one of the members shared about how hard it was in that team if you weren’t into sport, as most of the non-work conversations would revolve around football. What was a well intentioned effort to build community by talking about something non-work related left several team members feeling out of place.

As a result, I’m sure you have come across some great ‘get to know you’ questions. Here are a few that I think are quite good:

• What career did you want to have when you were a child?
• What's one thing about you that surprises people?
• What’s something you want to become an expert in?
• What qualities do you value in friends?

As I said, these are all quite good questions, but you can only ask them once. If you keep asking about dream jobs as a child people will check out of the conversation, or think that you’re not listening to them in the first place.

Recently I came across what I think is the single best question to build community. As is often the case, it’s not my idea - a participant shared it during a workshop about building trust in a remote context.

In every team meeting they would ask each person to provide a five star recommendation. What is one thing that they would recommend to others? Now, importantly, the recommendation can be for anything. It can be a recipe, a car, an event, a restaurant, some music, a book, a holiday destination, a product - the options are almost endless. The question works so well because it’s 100% inclusive, and it’s what I would call evergreen - you can ask it every week and people can come up with something new to recommend. Plus, it’s interesting to hear people answer the question. After all, who doesn’t love a new five star recommendation?

So - remember the question - What is your five star recommendation? I would love to hear how you go using it in an upcoming meeting - I’m planning to use it on Monday.

Speaking of five star recommendations, if you’re enjoying the podcast, how about providing a rating and review? It really does make a difference in helping people to find the podcast.

If this episode interested you, then our upcoming webinar on (Re)Building Trust will also be worth joining. Go to the Leadership.Today website to sign up, or you can watch a recording after 19th March via Leadership Today On-Demand. There are links in the show notes. Have a great week.

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Summary This week we explore three keys to dealing with defensiveness.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 108 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore three keys to dealing with defensiveness.

I am sure, like me, that you have needed to work with a defensive person before. Perhaps they just don’t want to hear some feedback that is being provided. Or they quickly blame others when something goes wrong. Maybe they are resistant to new initiatives and changes. All of this defensiveness can make a leader either escalate things or just try to ignore the person.

The most important thing to appreciate is that defensiveness is functional. It serves a purpose. When we have done something wrong, defensiveness is an effort to minimise the perceived harm to ourselves and others. How does that work? Well, let’s say you come to me with a problem that I have caused. I might defensively respond that it is no big deal. That’s because I genuinely hope that it is no big deal. I’m even trying to convince myself that it’s no big deal. So I argue back, resist accepting feedback, misrepresent what happened, or even misremember what happened. That’s right - we can be so defensive that we actually change our memories of the event to protect ourselves. While those responses may protect me in the short term, it doesn’t change that what I have done may indeed be a big deal.

Research demonstrates that defensiveness has a broad range of negative impacts. Team unity and collaboration suffer. The defensive individual’s connection with the workplace suffers. A key part of psychological safety is feeling you belong. The defensive individual reduces that sense of belonging through their actions. In addition, when faced with someone who has done something wrong, we tend to push them to one side and to exclude them. This makes the person even more defensive and takes us even further away from a resolution and progress.

Researchers Wenzel, Woodyatt and McLean found that defensiveness is strengthened by negative social responses. Our natural reactions to the defensive person makes the situation even worse. We enter a cycle of increased defensiveness. But thankfully their research also indicates three keys for dealing with defensiveness:

1. Help people to belong. As people feel more respected, valued and secure in the group, their defensiveness tends to fall away. After all, you don’t need to be defensive if you know that you will still be accepted and supported even if you make a mistake. You can value the person even if you disagree with their opinions or actions.
2. Normalise apologies. Saying ‘sorry’ is not a sign of weakness, rather it shows a strength of character to admit when you’re wrong and apologise for the impact on others.
3. Talk about values. Wenzel and colleagues found that having people share their values reduced defensiveness. If I value honesty and openness, reminding myself of those values will make me less defensive.

Try these three approaches out this week to reduce the level of defensiveness amongst those in your team. As always, details of the research referenced in this podcast is in the show notes, and a big thanks to Lauren Staveley who did the research on this one.

Now for a quick moment of celebration. The Leadership Today Podcast has just passed through 100,000 downloads. When I kicked this podcast off in July 2018 I had no idea the global reach and impact it would have on so many people. And so, can I ask you to do me a favour? This week, please tell three colleagues or friends about the podcast and help them to track it down. And, for bonus points, take a minute to provide a rating and review wherever you download this podcast. That all helps to spread the word. Have a great week.

Reference Michael Wenzel, Lydia Woodyatt, Ben McLean. The effects of moral/social identity threats and affirmations on psychological defensiveness following wrongdoing. British Journal of Social Psychology, 2020; 59 (4): 1062 DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12378

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It is day five of the radical reflection challenge - well done! Today we are reflecting on reflection. I know that sounds like we are just about to disappear into ourselves, but hear me out. Hopefully this week has shown you just how powerful reflection can be when we make it a regular practice. And while we would all agree that reflection is important, it is rarely urgent. As a result reflection will always be pushed down to the bottom of our priority list unless we prioritise and schedule it. My challenge for you today is to identify how you will continue reflection beyond the challenge.

We started the week thinking about our values. Without reflection it’s easy for our lives to drift away from those things which matter to us most. On day two we considered what success means to each of us. It’s all too easy to take on someone else’s definition of success and find ourselves chasing that down. But by reflecting on what success means to us, we can set goals for the various seasons of our life that will help us to feel a sense of fulfilment and purpose. On day three we explored learning and growth. We often overlook just how much we have learned, so can feel stuck. I believe growth needs to be intentional, so pushing ourselves into new areas is important. And yesterday we focused on gratitude. Hopefully you have had a chance to try out some of the gratitude techniques we discussed.

One simple thing you can do to continue reflection is to schedule a time in your calendar to complete this challenge again in 3 or 6 months from now. That is a clear goal you could easily set and achieve.

I also think that building reflection as a habit is really important. This is going to be far more effective than bursts of reflection a few times per year.

So today I am asking you to reflect over various time horizons. Often we end up focusing on too short a time horizon, usually measured in weeks and months rather than years and decades. A quote attribute to Bill Gates sums it up well - “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

I think it’s important to identify your focus for the decade. What is the season you are in? Where do you hope to be in 10 years? Make it a clear picture. What will it look and feel like? Now you can always revisit that - I’m not asking you to set it in stone - in fact you should revisit it. That’s the same for every other level of reflection. So we start by thinking abut a decade, and then work back from there.

• Focus for the year. What is the theme for this year? What are a few key words to sum up this theme?
• Focus for the quarter. What is the one thing that will make the biggest difference this quarter? What is a key theme for the quarter?
• Focus for the month.
• Focus for the week.
• Focus for the day. What can I do today to make progress?

I think we can keep this really practical. For example, at the end of the week you can take 15 minutes to look back at what you have achieved over the week, and set your focus for the following week. That’s a simple routine you can schedule into your calendar so it becomes a habit.

To round out this week of radical reflection, I’m asking you to reflect across these various time frames. When you first do this it will take some time. But when you have done it once, it is then about week to week maintenance. Schedule time for regular reflection to return to those areas of focus.

I hope you found this week’s challenge helpful. I encourage you to check out all of the other resources we have at Leadership Today On-Demand. The link is in the show notes, or just go to leadership.today to learn more. There’s something new every week to help you to become an even better leader. We will be back to our regular podcast episodes from next week.

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Welcome to day four of the radical reflection challenge. The week is flying by. I hope you have found the three topics to date helpful. As a reminder, we started with values, then moved onto success, and yesterday we looked at learning and growth.

I believe today’s focus on gratitude can have a fundamental impact on your optimism and well-being. Gratitude is both a trait and an emotion or state. It’s an outlook we bring to life, and it’s also something we experience at a point in time.

We can practice gratitude - that is, we can actually take time out of our day to be grateful. Researchers have shown a regular practice of gratitude improves sleep, physical health, relationships with others, mental health and life satisfaction. It also reduces the risk of burnout. So, if I had a pill to sell you that did all of that I would be a billionaire. Thankfully gratitude is completely free, however it is also often elusive.

Taking the time to consider things to be grateful for changes our outlook on life. We start to seek out the positive things and focus our attention on those. And, just like a muscle that can be developed with exercise, we can develop our muscle of gratitude. We can shift it from something passing to something that characterises us - from a state to a trait.

The focus of the reflection in your workbook today is all about gratitude. I’ve included a few activities you can try out in the coming weeks to build gratitude. The first is a gratitude journal. It’s a really simple process but research shows some significant benefits after even short periods of three weeks. The idea is to identify three new things each day that you are grateful for, and note them down - either using a notes app or in a physical journal. The second is a gratitude letter. This involved writing a letter expressing your gratitude to someone, typically someone that you haven’t fully thanked to date. The third idea is an act of kindness. To each day intentionally do something nice for someone else. It could be someone you know, or even someone you come across in your day. Try one or more of those gratitude building ideas out today.

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Welcome to day three of the radical reflection challenge. We are at the midway point of our challenge, so it’s a great opportunity to think about how you are doing. You might want to consider what’s working well or not so well for you in this challenge. Perhaps you might mix things up and try moving your reflection and review to a different time of day, or vary the location.

Today’s focus is on learning and growth. I love the quote from John Henry Newman who says “Growth is the only evidence of life”. I would go so far as to say that growth is the purpose of life. Without growth we cease to truly be living.

The catch with growth and learning is the discomfort they create. Learning new things means making mistakes, falling short and occasionally bruising our knees. Learning something new creates uncertainty and, generally speaking, we hate uncertainty.

You have probably come across the Johari Window before. It’s a simple framework that compares what we know about ourselves versus what others know about us. There are some things we know about ourselves that others also know - that’s the arena that is on display. Then there are things we know about ourselves that others don’t know - that’s the things we mask. There are things others see in us that we don’t see in ourselves - that’s the blind spot, which could either be good or bad. That leaves one more option - those things we don’t know about ourself that others also don’t know. That’s where the greatest opportunity for growth occurs. It is where we try genuinely new things. So today’s questions in your workbook ask you to consider your learning and growth over the past year, but also challenge you to look forward to new challenges and opportunities for growth. Take a deep breath and dive in. I will see you again tomorrow.

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It is day two of the radical reflection challenge. Yesterday we explored our values and the need to reassess our lives against these values from time to time. Today we are focused on success.

Success is a tricky topic to cover for a range of reasons. Success is different for different people. Society tends to portray certain things in the context of success - whether that be wealth, fame, beauty or anything else. There is a risk of chasing others’ definitions of success. It is all too easy to adopt someone else’s view of what success should be, rather than having our own definition of success.

Here are a few key thoughts about success:

1. You can and should define what success means for you. If you don’t define success, then someone else will. It is all too easy to climb a ladder only to discover it is leaning against the wrong wall - don’t let that happen to you. You define success for you.
2. It’s okay for your definition of success to change over time. It is sometimes easier to think of success relating to seasons of your life. For example, your idea of success might be different when you’re studying, early in your career, in the middle of your career, later in your career, and in your retirement. Sure, your values may be consistent, but it is fine to change your definition of success to reflect the season you are in.
3. Success is accomplishment. It is completing or achieving something. It is a point in time - a moment when you know you’re successful. So if you want to be successful, you need to set goals. And once you have been successful, you need to set some new goals.
4. Success can feel pretty pointless by yourself. We are created as social beings. Are there people you can team up with in pursuit of success? Are there people you can cheer on? Then why not partner up with them.

You will find some questions to help you reflect about success in your workbook. Make sure you note down some thoughts.

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Welcome to day one of the radical reflection challenge. I am looking forward to working with you across the next five days. Each day starts with a brief introduction just like this one, followed by an activity in your workbook which you can complete at any point during the day. If you haven’t downloaded the workbook as yet, you will find it at leadership.today/radical or follow the link in the show notes.

We are starting our challenge by examining our values. Perhaps you already know what you value and hold to be most important in life. Maybe you haven’t given your values much thought, or perhaps it has been a while since you reflected on your values.

Values are central to who we are. They influence what we do, how we do it and, most importantly, why we do it. However it’s easy to lose sight of our values. Often times we find ourselves balancing competing priorities. For example, you might really value time with your family and friends, while also valuing financial security. Your quest for financial security may lead you to work longer and longer hours, reducing the time you have available to spend with family and friends.

In this way, I don’t believe values are something we set and forget. It’s important to assess and re-assess what we value. Our values may change over time. It may be that things that used to be really important to us are now less important. I’m sure you know someone who has had a health diagnosis that caused them to question their values in fundamental ways. Maybe you have had a similar experience that caused you to reassess.

I know for me the loss of a parent when I was in my 20s caused a radical shift in my values. Things that I had placed my hope and confidence in were revealed to be less secure than I thought. It made me reconsider what really mattered to me.

I believe reflecting on our values regularly, whether that’s once or twice per year, provides a foundation for deeper reflections on our life. It’s very easy for our life to drift off course away from the things that matter to us most. Reflecting on our values is a great check of how we are directing our focus, our time and our energies.

In your workbook you will find a simple values questionnaire. Read through the list of values, then choose the ten that appeal to you most. You can then reduce that list down to a top three. I then want you to reflect on your life at present, and the extent to which it aligns with those values. In what ways are you currently aligned? In what areas might your values be challenged currently?

As well as completing the reflection in the workbook, I encourage you to grab a friend to complete this week’s challenge with. It’s always better to learn with others.

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Hi everyone. The Leadership Today podcast is going to be a little different over the next week. We are going to be undertaking what I have called the Radical Reflection Five Day Challenge. I believe most leaders are suffering from what I call reflection deficit, so this challenge aims to tackle that head on. 

The challenge is running live from 22nd to 26th February 2021 at Leadership Today On-Demand, which is our video-based subscription service. You can always sign up for a 30 day trial to get involved that way. The other option is to go to leadership.today/radical to learn more and download the workbook.

So what are you signing up for here? Each morning starts with a brief introduction to the challenge for that day. The workbook then includes a range of reflection activities to support your reflections. I’ve included all of the links in the show notes. I’m confident this challenge can make a huge difference for you personally and in your leadership. I’m looking forward to working with you across the week. 

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Summary Stretch goals are incredibly popular for individuals and organisations. But are they effective? It depends. This week we explore how to know when to set a stretch goal.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 107 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to know when to set a stretch goal.

Stretch goals are incredibly popular for individuals and organisations. But are they effective? Well, that depends.

The modern application of stretch goals can most likely be attributed Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. They coined the term Big Hairy Audacious Goal in their book Built to Last. The book encourages people to set extraordinary stretch goals. But, importantly, these goals are typically set across a long-term time frame of 10 to 25 years. By way of example, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen first started Microsoft they talked to each other about having a computer on every desk and in every home decades before that became reality. That all sounds great - I set myself or my organisation a Big Hairy Audacious Goal for 20 years into the future and chase after it. The problem is that people are applying this approach to one year goals, which was never the intent. Microsoft did not have a one or two year goal to have a computer on every desk - that would have been ridiculous. Instead they used that ambitious goal to draw them forward through years of steady progress.

Shorter-term stretch goals are not always right. The work of Sitkin, Miller and See is really helpful for us to understand when a stretch goal might make sense.

In their 2017 HBR article the authors outline two conditions that are important to consider before setting a stretch goal:

1. Recent performance. Are you coming from a recent history of success and performance, or of failure and underperformance? Recent success provides the mindset and motivation required to apply to the challenge. This is particularly important.
2. Excess resources. Do we have additional resources available that aren’t already committed? Is there some slack in the system? Stretch goals require committed resources, not just business as usual.

The perfect time to set a stretch goal is when you have recently been successful and you have available uncommitted resources. People will have the motivation, mindset and capacity to chase that stretch goal. Even if you have been successful, if you don’t have the required additional resources you are setting people up for failure.

But hang on - so if I don’t have recent success, are the authors saying I shouldn’t set a stretch goal even if I have available resources? Where there are available resources but not a recent history of success, the authors suggest running more modest experiments that you can afford to fail. Rather than setting stretch goals, it is better in these situations to work on quick fail experiments. Here you try new things that aren’t huge bets, and celebrate giving things a go. As these experiments begin to work, you will build that track record of success needed to then set stretch goals.

If you haven’t recently been successful and lack spare resources, then stretch goals are not your friend. Instead the authors suggest you should chase small wins - taking those small steps forward until you do have a track record of success. Then your people will feel more confident to reach out towards a stretch goal.

A stretch goal needs a recent track record of success and dedicated resources. Too often people set a stretch goal as a last gasp opportunity for redemption - that’s exactly the wrong time. So, yes, absolutely dream big for the 10 to 25 year future. But then consider the kind of goals you set based on your performance to date and the resources you are willing to commit.

I hope you found that helpful. As always, a link to the reference used is in the show notes.

If you want to become an even better leader, then I’m sure Leadership Today On-Demand can help. It’s where we have all of our online courses, recorded webinars, and quick hits on a broad range of topics, all available with one subscription. Go to leadership.today and follow the on-demand link to sign up for a completely free 30 day trial.

Have a great week.

Reference The Stretch Goal Paradox by Sim B. Sitkin, C. Chet Miller, and Kelly E. See. Harvard Business Review (January-February 2017).

https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-stretch-goal-paradox

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Summary What we think about people has an impact not just on how we personally perceive them, but also on their actual behaviour. There’s power when we believe in someone’s potential.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 106 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the power of belief in potential.

What we think about people has an impact not just on how we personally perceive them, but also on their actual behaviour. It’s an example of selective attention bias with some expectancy bias thrown in for good measure. If you think that someone is lazy, you will notice everything that they do that appears lazy. You will also ignore anything they do that is energetic and active. So, over time, we just end up thinking that they’re more and more lazy. But, on top of that, we will also modify the way we work with that person. This in turn will lead to them acting in ways that appear even more lazy. We might give them less work to complete, so they end up having more spare time. They might become less engaged, and so seem more lazy. In short, the actions we take can make the other person end up being more lazy.

A recent study demonstrated this impact in a college environment. Through some laboratory and field studies, the researchers discovered that a professor’s mindset about student learning had remarkable positive and negative impacts on those students. For example, when a professor had lower expectations that people could develop and grow, their students demonstrated lower class attendance, reduced engagement in class, less end of semester interest in the subject, they felt more like an impostor in the class, and they even delivered lower grades. So if a professor (who is effectively the leader of learning) thinks you’re not likely to learn, then you, in turn, will actually be less likely to learn. In contrast, if the leader thinks you have potential to learn and grow, you’re much more likely to learn and grow.

In a work context, we often inherit a perspective about a person we lead. “This person is a trouble maker” or “this person doesn’t deliver”. The risk is that we perpetuate and multiply this perspective through our behaviour towards that person.

Here are five ways to challenge our thinking and demonstrate belief in others’ potential:

1. Reset your expectations. Think about how you see others and give them another chance. Let’s expect that people can improve, grow and develop.
2. State your positive expectations. It’s what you say that matters. If you think someone is fantastic but never say it, they may completely miss it.
3. Challenge negative appraisals you might make. Is it more about you than them? What evidence might you have to the contrary?
4. Challenge negative appraisals others make about people. If you hear others perpetuating negative beliefs about people, appropriately challenge them.
5. Challenge negative appraisals others make about themselves. Sometimes people perpetuate their own limiting beliefs. Why wouldn’t others believe the person? Use the opportunity to challenge people who consistently run themselves down.

As leaders, what we think about others matters. It shapes not only our perceptions, but also their behaviour. Think about ways you can demonstrate a greater belief in others’ potential.

Well that’s the end of this week’s episode. As always, the reference used is in the show notes.

A quick reminder that our brand new Leading Through Change and Uncertainty online course is now available at Leadership Today On-Demand. It’s video based so you can go at your own pace and work through the content in any order. Just go to Leadership.Today website and follow the On-Demand link to find out more and to sign up for a free 30 day trial. We also offer a 25% discount for groups, so it’s a great option for your team and organisation. Take a look at Leadership Today On-Demand - it’s just like online fitness training for your leadership.

Have a great week, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

Reference Muenks, K., Canning, E. A., LaCosse, J., Green, D. J., Zirkel, S., Garcia, J. A., & Murphy, M. C. (2020). Does my professor think my ability can change? Students’ perceptions of their STEM professors’ mindset beliefs predict their psychological vulnerability, engagement, and performance in class. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(11), 2119–2144. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000763

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SUMMARY How do you plan when the future is uncertain? Strategic foresight is a great approach to figuring out how to think about the future.

TRANSCRIPT Hello and welcome to episode 105 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore strategic foresight and how to think about the future when things are uncertain.

It’s a classic challenge - how do we lead others through times of uncertainty when we’re not clear ourselves? Perhaps our industry is going through significant change. Or perhaps you report into a leadership team that haven’t provided a clear strategy and direction. We can’t just make things up - that’s not fair on our team - so what do we do?

What we need is strategic foresight, which is outlined in a great Harvard Business Review article with the intriguing title - Learning from the Future.

The author of the article, J Peter Scoblic, says of strategic foresight that the “aim is not to predict the future but rather to make it possible to imagine multiple futures in creative ways that heighten our ability to sense, shape, and adapt to what happens in the years ahead. Strategic foresight doesn’t help us figure out what to think about the future. It helps us figure out how to think about it.”

He outlined the following six stage process for Strategic Foresight - invite, identify, imagine, inhabit, isolate and implement:

• The first stage is INVITE - we need to invite the right people to participate. Senior leaders don’t have exclusive rights to think about the future. Rather than just involving those with the greatest responsibility, it is often better to involve those with the greatest vision. That might include some people closest to your customers, or people who have joined from other industries. We really want to bring together a group of people that are diverse in their thinking and experience, and open to new possibilities.
• The second stage is IDENTIFY - here we think about assumptions that we might be making as an organisation. We also explore the key drivers for our organisation and any uncertainties in the market.
• The third stage is called IMAGINE. This involves imagining what Scoblic describes as plausible, but dramatically different, futures. So let’s take my business as an example. We’re focus on helping people to become even better leaders. I could imagine a few different futures - where leadership development was only face-to-face, only online, some mix of the two, only live, only on-demand. From that diverse range of potential futures, I could then take the three that were most plausible.
• The fourth stage is to INHABIT each of those futures. Here we want to really experience what each future could be like, and what that might mean for us. You could encourage your team to describe what each future looks like, how people might respond, and what might or might not be possible.
• The fifth stage is to ISOLATE strategies that will be useful across multiple possible futures. Again, with my business, running through a range of options back at the end 2018 showed me that online delivery and content development was something I should focus on. It was a strategy that would work across a range of likely futures.
• The final stage is IMPLEMENT. This is where we take those strategies and put them in place.

Why not undertake a strategic foresight activity with your team. Here are some questions to help:

• What trends do you see in your market? What are the emerging opportunities and threats?
• What are some likely futures for your organisation and team? What are the three most likely futures?
• What does each future look like? What are the implications for you and your team?
• What might be common in those different futures for you and your team? How might you prepare for each of those futures?
• Is there one future that you want to actively pursue? Why? What might you do now to prepare for that?

It is great to be back for 2021 with a brand new episode, and I hope you found it helpful. I must say that 2021 feels a little bit like 2020 part 2, so I do hope you’re keeping safe and well.

I have two exciting new things to tell you about. Our Leading Through Change and Uncertainty online course is now available. If you enjoyed today’s episode then you will love this course. It’s video based so you can go at your own pace and work through the content in any order. It’s all part of Leadership Today On-Demand, so current subscribers will see it there. If you haven’t subscribed as yet, why not take our completely free 30 day trial. Just go to Leadership Today and follow the On-Demand link to find out more - or you can follow the link in the show notes. We also offer a 25% discount for groups, so it’s a great option for your team and organisation.

I see Leadership Today On-Demand as just like online fitness training for your leadership. So I’m really excited to let you know about our very first multi-day challenge. It runs from 22nd to 26th of February and the focus is on Reflection. I believe most leaders are suffering from what I call reflection deficit, so this challenge aims to tackle that head on. Each morning starts with a brief video introducing the challenge for that day. These are backed up by a workbook that includes a range of reflection activities. It’s just like bootcamp, but with far less active wear. Check out the Radical Reflection Challenge at Leadership Today On-Demand for more details.

Have a great week, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

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In the last of our replays, we look back to our 15th February 2020 episode titled A Leader’s Role in Removing Frustrations.

We're back next week with a brand new episode. I look forward to speaking with you then.

ummary

Aaarrgghhh! This week we look at the leader’s role in removing frustrations.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 66 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at a leader’s role in removing frustrations.

When you think about the role of a leader, it’s easy to focus primarily on their ability to manage upside potential. That upside potential might include providing meaning and purpose, clarifying roles and expectations, and providing development opportunities. We tend to first focus on the leader’s ability to tap into the motivation of their people. Each of these areas are really important, however an equally important and often overlooked part of leadership is reducing the things that get in the way of performance. That includes removing frustrations and other barriers to success for individuals and teams.

Let’s take IT as an example. As I work with a broad range of organisations it always amazes me the variety of IT setups people end up using ranging from cutting edge through to museum-grade antiques. Even when things look brilliant to me as an outsider, few people rave about their IT systems. However I’ve heard plenty of complaints about long boot up times, tricky remote login processes, slow response times, clunky data entry, and systems that don’t speak to one another. As the technology we use at home continues to leap forward, people have increasingly high expectations of the technology they interact with at work. And if the technology gets in the way of delivering work, it quickly impacts job satisfaction. In fact a study released just this month shows that workplace IT satisfaction accounts for 38 percent of the variance in job satisfaction. If IT is getting in the way for your people, there’s a high chance that it’s impacting the way they experience their job and the organisation.

Broader research on frustrations at work beyond just IT demonstrates a clear link to the risk of burnout. This is particularly the case when people see their frustrations impacting clients and customers. Recently I made a simple purchase of one item and watched as a great employee who had been really helpful wrestled with the point of sale system. While they remained professional, the frustration for them was real. What should have taken less than a minute stretched on for several minutes as more customers joined the queue. It’s easy to see how working with that system day after day would impact an otherwise motivated and engaged employee, particularly when that person cared about providing a great experience for customers.

And it’s not just about that employee - research also shows a link between frustrations and negative work behaviours such as aggression towards coworkers. What frustrates the individual ripples through the organisation. If people aren’t being civil to each other in your organisation, I can almost guarantee there are unresolved frustrations.

Research suggests there are three conditions that magnify the impact of frustrations:

1. When they don’t feel heard about the frustrations and their impacts
2. When they don’t feel a sense of control over the frustrations
3. When they feel isolated - like they’re the only ones having a problem

Leaders are the ones best positioned to help with these three conditions.

Here are a few tips when seeking to reduce and remove frustrations for your people:

• Accept that frustrations are normal - there’s no such thing as a completely frustration-free work environment.
• Recognise that frustrations can get in the way of both personal and organisational goals - while the frustration may be primarily impacting the person, it’s likely to be flowing through to team and organisational performance.
• All frustrations can be reduced - you may not be able to completely remove a frustration, but there are always creative ways of reducing the impact.
• Provide an opportunity for people to discuss frustrations and be heard - start with your own people and simply ask them “What frustrations are getting in the way of you doing your job well?”
• Allow people to connect with others - as you seek to remove frustrations it’s helpful to see how others are dealing with and working around the frustrations.
• Equip people to continuously improve - give people the authority to make changes and improvements that will reduce frustrations for themselves and customers.

Hopefully you found this episode helpful - if you did, remember to share it with others. I’ve listed the three references used in the show notes. Remember to head to the Leadership.Today website for other episodes, to connect via our monthly newsletter, and there’s even a link to follow me on the social media equivalent of a sensible family car - LinkedIn. Have a great week.

References

Lewandowski C. (2003) Organizational Factors Contributing to Worker Frustration: The Precursor to Burnout. 30 J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 175

Suzy Fox Paul E. Spector (1999) A model of work frustration–aggression. Journal of Organizational Behaviour Volume 20, Issue 6

Wei Wang, Yi Wang, Yi Zhang, Jing Ma (2020) Spillover of workplace IT satisfaction onto job satisfaction: The roles of job fit and professional fit. International Journal of Information Management

Volume 50, February 2020, Pages 341-352 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026840121831257X

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During December and January we are replaying some of our more popular episodes from over the years. This week's replay is from 2nd November 2019 and is titled Curiosity: Bad for Cats, Good for Business.

Summary

Curiosity is rarely encouraged at work. In fact, leaders and organisations often actively discourage being inquisitive. This week we explore the benefits of curiosity, and four ways to encourage it in your team.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 58 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at the benefits of curiosity, and how to encourage it in your team.

The word “curiosity” often conjures up negative connotations. If I asked you to tell me a popular saying about curiosity, it would most likely be “curiosity killed the cat”. This fear of being inquisitive translates into our organisations. Surely if people become curious at work they’re going to neglect their day jobs and start venturing into distraction. And won’t this lead to conflict, reduced productivity and a lack of clarity?

However, research on curiosity demonstrates that these concerns are unfounded, and that curiosity provides a range of benefits for individuals and organisations.

Here’s just a sample of what the research tells us about the benefits of curiosity:

• Curiosity helps us to become more accurate in our decision making. When we are curious, we seek out more alternatives. This helps us to avoid stereotyping people and selectively choosing information that supports our viewpoint.
• When people are encouraged to be curious, they share information with others more readily and listen more attentively to their perspectives. This helps us to build empathy and insight.
• Curiosity actually reduces conflict. It encourages people to consider alternative perspectives and what it would be like to be in the other person’s shoes.

For a great summary of the research, check out the Why Curiosity Matters spotlight series in Harvard Business Review. I’ve provided a link in the show notes - https://hbr.org/2018/09/curiosity

It appears we’re hardwired as humans to be curious, but our education systems and organisations often don’t reward this natural and helpful drive to explore and discover. However, as leaders, there are simple steps we can take to encourage curiosity amongst our people. Here are four ideas to start with:

1. Encourage questions. I’ve worked with organisations where asking a question is equated with being negative and stepping beyond your role. It was debilitating for the organisation and for the people, taking away initiative and discretionary effort. Make it safe to ask questions. Role model the inquisitive use of questions with your team.
2. Build alternatives. Always go beyond the first and most obvious option to explore other alternatives. So often we stop at option one, when the best idea might be a combination of option two and option three.
3. Provide time for exploration. Curiosity takes time, and that time needs to be pressure-free and self-directed. This podcast is driven by the questions I ask myself, combined with the time to explore the answers. When I was working in management consulting there was very little time to be curious which, ironically, was often what clients valued the most.
4. Pursue learning. Ongoing learning builds the capability of the individual and the capacity of the organisation. Encourage and fund your people to undertake additional learning they’re interested in, even if it isn’t obviously linked to the work. Sometimes the connections people can draw between what they’ve learned and the organisation’s needs will surprise you.

So this week I encourage you to invest time in being curious, and allow the same for your people as well. You might be surprised at the benefits that result.

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During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This week's replay is from 9th November 2019 and is titled Approach or Avoidance - It Comes Down to Your Personality.

Summary

A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Transcript

Hey there. Welcome to episode 59 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Motivation can be divided into two main categories - avoidance and approach. This isn’t a new idea. In fact, Greek philosophers spoke about these two forms of motivation as far back as 400 BC. But research has demonstrated that our preference for one type of motivation over another may come down to our personality.

Avoidance motivation, as the name suggests, is about trying to avoid a negative outcome. Avoidance goals relating to health might include not eating unhealthy food or giving up smoking. These avoidance actions may indeed make me less unhealthy, but they probably won’t make me healthy. As numerous people have expressed it, the absence of disease is not health.

In contrast, approach motivation is about pursuing something positive - working towards a positive outcome or possibility. Approach goals relating to health could include adding healthy foods to our diet or undertaking regular exercise. These goals don’t just move us away from being unhealthy, but actively increase our health.

The primary function of our brain is to keep us alive - to survive. That makes avoidance motivation pretty attractive as a default position for most people. It aligns with the base level need to avoid things that have potentially negative consequences for our survival. But our brains are also about reward. We seek out opportunities to experience pleasure and positive outcomes.

Researchers have found that the balance between avoidance and approach motivation can be linked to our personality - that some people have an approach temperament while others have an avoidance temperament - that we either lean towards self-protection or towards self-enhancement. Those with an approach temperament tend to be more extraverted, have positive emotionality, and a bias towards action. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to be less emotionally stable, experience negative emotionality, and have a bias towards restraint (or not acting).

This bias flows through to the types of goals we set. Those with an approach temperament tend to set mastery goals. For example, “I want to master the material in this class”. A mastery goal is about me - I’m the benchmark of success and progress. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to set goals related to others. For example, “I just want to avoid doing badly in this class” or “I just want to do as well as most people”.

A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. Like almost every aspect of leadership, it starts with the way we think, feel and act. And we can always change the way we think, feel and act, even if it takes some effort.

Here are four ideas to move you towards an approach temperament:

1. Connect with people. Meeting our basic human need for connection to others helps to build a more positive mindset.
2. Note down experiences that provide you with positive emotions and build these experiences into your routine. Going for a run each morning makes me feel positive, so I’ve built that into my daily routine.
3. Anthropomorphise negative emotions. What the heck is this one about. You might be familiar with the Disney Pixar movie Inside Out. In the movie the various emotions the young girl experienced were represented by characters inside her head. Researchers have found there may be some benefits to thinking about negative emotions in this way. For example, they found conceptualising sadness as a person, for example as a girl walking slowly with her head down, helped people to feel more detached from their sadness and actually made them feel less sad. It sounds bizarre, but give it a go. I now have Barry, who is my go to character when I’m feeling discouraged. Importantly, you want to only use this approach with negative emotions. The researchers found that thinking of happiness as a person also made people feel less happy.
4. Run your own race and stop comparing. Aim to become better at things that matter to you and track your progress against yourself, instead of comparing your capability to others.

This week I encourage you to focus on approach goals and building a positive bias for action in your team. As always, if you’re interested in the research check out the show notes at the leadership.today website. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

References

Andrew J. Elliot and Todd M. Thrash. Approach–Avoidance Motivation in Personality: Approach and Avoidance Temperaments and Goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 82, No. 5, 804–818

http://qglw.personality-project.org/revelle/syllabi/classreadings/psp825804.pdf

Fangyuan Chen, Rocky Peng Chen, Li Yang. When Sadness Comes Alive, Will It Be Less Painful? The Effects of Anthropomorphic Thinking on Sadness Regulation and Consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2019;

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003103515.htm

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During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This episode is from 30th November 2019 and is titled Can't We All Just Get Along?

Summary

Our workplaces can easily move towards what researchers call incivility. So what are the benefits of being nice to one another, and what can we do as leaders to get there?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 62 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore why being nice to one another is so important for business performance.

I was working with a client recently and discussing their culture. He said “as a psychologist you have the opportunity to work with lots of different organisations - I bet you walk in and get a pretty quick sense of the mood and culture”. It’s true - I find it easy to gain a quick read on the mood and culture of an organisation. Compare these two workplaces I recently visited. In one organisation I noticed people frowning, staring at screens, no conversation or laughter, and lots of sighs. In another the atmosphere was bordering on joyful - people warmly greeting one other, big smiles, people saying “hello” to me as I walked past even though they had no idea who I was. It was hard in the first organisation not to be dragged down, and it was equally hard in the second organisation not to be lifted up.

But it’s not like being able to read the mood and culture of a workplace is some special power granted only to psychologists and consultants. It’s a special power we all have that comes with being human. We all read a room quickly at a subconscious level. However we become familiar and used to the rooms where we spend the most time. The cultural quirks that hit us on day one at a new organisation fade by month three. We rapidly soak up the standards we see around us. We quickly understand what’s tolerated and what isn’t. If the culture is great, then that’s fantastic - we absorb it and maybe even become a better person. But if the culture is toxic, even the best of us will either lower our standards to fit in, or exit stage right to another organisation.

In some workplaces people aren’t very nice to each other. It might be that most people are 5 to 10 minutes late to meetings, setup their laptops and just continue their work. They interrupt others, they talk to the person next to them while someone else is presenting. They make demands of their colleagues in other departments. They gossip and spread rumours. Before you know it, the place quickly becomes toxic. This is so common that some researchers specialise in looking at what they call incivility. Perhaps the best known researcher in the field is Christine Porath. Her TED talk “Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business” has racked up over 2.5 million views. As people rightly note in the comments below her video, do we really need a TED talk to convince people to be nice to each other? Apparently we do.

Her research demonstrates that incivility lead to 66% of people cutting back their efforts, 80% of people being distracted from their work, and 12% of people leaving their job. In a laboratory study where people witnessed a fellow participant, who was actually setup, being berated for being late, there was a 25% reduction in performance, and 45% fewer ideas generated by the group. Christine argues that incivility is like a virus that we can catch and transmit. As a result people operate out of fear and try to remain invisible. Innovation plummets - after all, why would you risk sharing a new idea when people aren’t being nice to each other?

So why do people end up being mean, unthoughtful, rude, aggressive or passive aggressive towards each other? Here are some reasons that I’ve observed:

1. It works - taking on an aggressive, belittling style may, in the short term, help people to get things done, particularly where there is a lack of clarity and standards.
2. Feedback free environment - people may not actually recognise what they’re doing, or at least the impact that it is having on others.
3. Excessive stress - people are unlikely to be on their best behaviour where they are experiencing high levels of stress.
4. Role models - in some organisations, taking on an aggressive style is modelled and rewarded by more senior leaders.

We can change this. An example Christine shares is a health organisation where they introduced what they called the 10-5 way. The guidance they gave to staff was to make eye contact and smile when they were within 10 feet of another person, and to say ‘hello’ when they were within 5 feet of another person. That sounds incredibly prescriptive and it’s hard to believe it worked, but they saw both patient satisfaction and referrals increase. As we raise our kindness towards others, we’re more likely to be seen as leaders, and we’re more likely to produce better results. This aligns with a wealth of research that shows people are much more effective when they’re in a positive mood, versus being neutral or negative in their mood.

As a leader I suggest the following:

1. Role model being nice towards others. Civility is contagious. You see it when a positive team member enters the room - they lift the mood, people start smiling and laughing, there’s a sense of energy. It really doesn’t take many people to change the culture, and leaders are the ones people look towards to set the emotional tone.
2. Connect with others. Take the time to understand the day to day work and experiences of those within your organisation. You might be surprised at some of the frustrations and obstacles they face, and how easy it may be for you in a position of leadership to remove these.
3. Help others to connect. It’s really difficult to bully people that you know, like and respect. It’s also really hard to bully someone that has strong connections with their colleagues - the weight of numbers makes the bully the odd one out.
4. Look after yourself, and help others to do the same. Think about activities you can encourage that focus on the classic wellbeing areas of exercise, diet and sleep.

So let’s think this week about ways we can encourage others and lift them up. The relatively small acts that we take as leaders on a daily basis can have a huge impact on those we lead and the cultures we create.

I have included links to Christine Porath’s TED talk and book in the show notes - make sure you check them out. And for those listening in the United States, a big Thanksgiving holiday greeting for the week that has just passed. I trust it has been a great time to connect with family and friends to reflect on all the great things we have in our lives that we so easily take for granted. Have a great week.

References

Christine Porath’s TED Talk - Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY1ERM-NIBY

Christine Porath (2016) Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Civility-Manifesto-Christine-Porath/dp/1455568988/

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During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years.

This week's episode is from 16th November 2019 on how Great Teams Manage Task, Process and Relationships.

Summary

Great teams manage task, process and relationships. They ask key questions to ensure clarity is build and conflict is addressed in all three areas. This week we look at some key questions you can use to audit your teams and build their effectiveness.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 60 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. Episode 60 is quite the milestone, so a big thanks to everyone who has shared the podcast with others. I love reading your reviews and hearing stories about how the content has been helpful. This week we’re exploring how great teams manage task, process and relationships.

Research demonstrates that there are three main things teams need to manage - the task (what outcome needs to be achieved), the process (how we’re going to achieve the outcome), and the people (how we’re going to work together as human beings). Failing to manage each of these three elements almost inevitably leads to conflict and reduced performance.

There are three common traps that teams fall into:

1. The most common trap is a tendency to focus immediately on the task, neglecting the process and relationships. This results in a flurry of activity but it may well be the wrong activity. We fail to think about the relationships between the people in the room which can result in interpersonal issues and complaints. I often see this trap during leadership programs. You can teach all the theory and techniques in the world, but it all goes out the window once there’s a time sensitive task to complete. People move straight to the task and ignore process and relationships.
2. The second most common trap is to become caught up with interpersonal issues, and lose sight of the task and process. People end up avoiding the team, progress stalls, and the team often falls apart as people question what the purpose is of meeting in the first place.
3. The third common trap is to focus so much on the process that we neglect the task and relationships. I see this regularly in projects where there’s a huge amount of up front consultation with little consideration of how to make decisions or deal with differing perspectives. We gather lots of data but don’t know what to do with it.

The impact of conflict in task, process and relationships in teams has varied between different theories, with some frameworks encouraging conflict in these areas. However research into over 6000 teams suggests that task conflict, process conflict and relationship conflict all negatively impact on team performance. The only exception is for decision-making teams, where task conflict can sometimes have a small positive impact. Contrary to earlier theories, none of the three types of conflict reliably lead to innovation.

I’ve previously shared research about the team stages model by Tuckman. In the model he outlined teams get together and are polite during the Forming stage. We descend into disagreements and conflict during the Storming stage as people seek clarity that isn’t there yet. By agreeing standards and ways of working we reach Norming. And that as we combine the strengths of individuals with the strengths of process and relationships we reach Performing. Teams do indeed seem to follow these stages of development, except that storming can occur more frequently and at any point as the team is impacted by outside forces. Conflict about task, process and relationships doesn’t get solved in one neat stage, but rather needs to be continuously monitored and managed.

So the research suggests we need to actively recognise, manage and reduce task, process and relationship conflict. We can’t afford to ignore it or to leave it unmanaged. Conflict is effectively a symptom that somethings needs to be addressed in one of these three.

Here are some questions that might help for both new and established teams:

• Task - What is our purpose as a team? What is the task we’ve been asked to achieve? What’s the problem we’re needing to solve? What can we uniquely contribute to the organisation?
• Process - How are we going to get there? What’s the plan and order of activity? What’s the division of workload and responsibilities? How are we going to make decisions? How are we going to measure our performance? How will we hold each other accountable? How are we going to monitor and respond to changing needs and circumstances?
• Relationships - What does each person bring to the team? What are the individual strengths and weaknesses? What experiences have we had that might be helpful? What commitments are we making to each other? How will we provide feedback to each other? How will we manage disagreements?

Actively managing task, process and relationships is a key part of any team’s success. Why not undertake a quick audit of all three with the teams you lead?

Reference

Thomas A. O'Neill , Natalie J. Allen & Stephanie E. Hastings (2013) Examining the “Pros” and “Cons” of Team Conflict: A Team-Level Meta-Analysis of Task, Relationship, and Process Conflict, Human Performance, 26:3, 236-260, DOI: 10.1080/08959285.2013.795573

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During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This is from 5th October 2019 - Entrance Interviews Beat Exit Interviews

Summary

Entrance interviews beat exit interviews any day of the week. In this Leadership Today podcast cover some questions to draw on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 56 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at the power of entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Last week we explored ways to improve exit interviews. However, it’s important not just to focus on those leaving our organisation - after all, they’ve already decided to move on. We need to also capitalise on those who are newer to our organisation and the fresh perspectives they bring.

Think back to the last time you joined a new organisation. In those first few weeks you were hyper aware of what was different or unusual about the organisation - the positives, the negatives, and the just plain weird. The security access seems really tight, but people hold the door open for others all the time. People make an effort to introduce themselves and make others feel welcome. Meetings always start 10 minutes late. Most people setup their laptop and work on emails during meetings. There’s a buzz of excitement around the office. Or, it’s like a dentist waiting room in here - all I can hear is typing.

Wouldn’t it be great to capitalise on these unique perspectives as people join your organisation? Like exit interviews, entrance interviews are a great opportunity to learn. But they’re even better than exit interviews because you can still course correct. You might even pick up some frustrations and reduce unwanted staff turnover along the way.

I suggest undertaking entrance interviews at two points in time - 30 days and 90 days after joining. 30 days gives enough time to process what’s unique about the organisation before becoming fully entrenched. And 90 days provides additional time to experience some things for the first time.

I think the two-up manager, the leader two levels above the person, is in a great position to undertake these interviews. It helps that leader to remain close to the experience of new people, while also building relationships and connections. They’re also a step further away from the day-to-day which may bring a different perspective to the discussion. The person’s direct manager could also be well suited to undertake the entrance interview.

It’s important to frame the entrance interview as not being a test. You’re not putting the individual on trial here, and there aren’t right or wrong answers. This is genuinely an exercise to learn from their experiences and fresh perspective, and to make the organisation an even better place to work.

Here are some questions I suggest for the entrance interview:

• What is unusual about this organisation? Here we’re trying to get at the unique attributes, both positive and negative.
• What’s exciting about working here? These are the aspects that could motivate and engage our people.
• What’s frustrating about working here? This allows us to identify potential impediments to performance.
• What surprised you about the role? Surprises aren’t always bad, so we want to draw out both the positive and the negative.
• How would you describe the culture? What does it feel like to work here? Listen carefully to the words used and the extent to which they align with your desired culture.
• What does it take to succeed here? What is rewarded? You might be surprised at what people see. You might think hard work is rewarded, but the new person sees friendships and connections as the way to get ahead.

I think entrance interviews are a fantastic learning opportunity for leaders and organisations. They signal your interest in listening and improvement. Why not trial an entrance interview this week and let me know how you go.

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During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This is from 28th September 2019 - Why Exit Interview Stink And Seven Things To Do About It.

Summary

Exit interviews often stink. They end up being overly positive or overly negative. This week we explore seven ways to radically improve your exit interviews.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 55 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at seven ways to radically improve exit interviews.

Exit interviews are one of those things that vary in popularity and application. Some organisations use them every time someone leaves. Other organisations may have been burned in the past or not seen the value. The idea is great - let’s find out from people who are leaving the organisation why they’re leaving and what we can do to make the place better for the people who still work here. We can do that using a structured interview just before they depart to whatever exciting opportunity comes next in their career.

In application though, the interviews tend to either be really positive or really negative. As a colleague of mine once wisely noted, you’re never more popular or better at your job than on your last day. We tend, rightly, to celebrate those who have contributed to our organisations on the day they are finishing up. We bring together a summary of their achievements, list all the great things we love about them, and talk about how much they will be missed. Friends come to the person and question how the place will ever be the same without them. All of that primes the person to say positive things in their exit interview. It turns into a “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation. The exit interview may well highlight lots of positives about the organisation, but probably understates the challenges and areas for improvement.

On the other hand you have people leaving the organisation where something has gone wrong. They may be angry or frustrated. The exit interview for them is a way to be heard. In those exit interviews the tone is more “it’s not me, it’s you - and, by the way, I’ve set the stationery room alight”. Those exit interviews end up highlighting a shopping list of problems and complaints, often more about that person than the organisation.

Whichever way the exit interview goes, there’s a risk that what we are hearing is not accurate. It seems like a missed opportunity to improve. If only we could source more honest feedback.

Well, help has arrived. Here are seven tips for dramatically improving your exit interviews.

1. Never on the last day. It’s best to conduct your exit interview as close to the time when the person tells you that they are leaving. At that point their thinking is usually clear. They will be ready to provide honest answers about why they’ve chosen to move on.
2. Split the conversation into two. During the first discussion you can focus on the reasons for leaving. It’s helpful to schedule a second conversation that’s focused on improvements. That provides the person with more time to think about suggestions for improvement rather than putting them on the spot.
   • What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the most?
   • What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the least?
3. Balance the discussion. We can tend to dive into the negatives or try to pull out too many positives. Balance the conversations with questions such as:
   • What could be improved about the role for the next person to fill the position?
4. Focus improvements on the role. This focus on the role helps people to be more open about improvements without feeling like they’re being overly critical about their experiences. You could ask:
   • Are there particular skills or abilities you have that could have been used more effectively?
   • How long did you intend to stay versus what you actually stayed for?
   • What will be different in the next role that your present position hasn’t been able to provide?
5. Explore missed opportunities. Discuss the areas where the organisation failed to draw the best out of the person:
   • What was your experience of the role and its responsibilities? Was it what you expected?
   • How clear were the goals and accountabilities associated with your role?
   • Was the induction and training provided sufficient for you to perform the role? How could it be improved?
6. Perform a clarity check. Clarity of purpose and role is critical to success, and the following questions can help with that:
   • Would you work for us again in the future? Why or why not?
7. Keep the door open. If the person’s departure is genuinely a loss to the organisation, why not leave open the opportunity of them returning one day. You might ask:

Applying these tips will help you to get the best out your exit interviews, while also making the process more positive for you and the person leaving.

Keeping all of that in mind, wouldn’t it be great if we could gain some of the benefits of an exit interview earlier in the process? Next week we’re exploring entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of those who are newer to our organisations.

As you might know I’ve recently launched my three week Boost Your Assertiveness course. I’m offering the course to podcast listeners for 30% off, taking the course cost down from $149 US to the weirdly precise $104.30 . Check the show notes for the link - NOTE - THIS COURSE IS NOW AVAILABLE VIA LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND WITH A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL.

Have a great week.

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Summary As we draw the year to a close for the Leadership Today podcast, we pause and take a look back over the five most popular episodes based on downloads.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 104 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. What a year, hey? A one-in-a-hundred year pandemic sent us all scrambling to figure out how to lead effectively through a truly global crisis. Nearly every organisation around the world ended up with the majority of their people working from home. We grappled with Zoom meetings, lockdowns, uncertainty and confusion. And as we draw the 2020 to a close for the Leadership Today podcast, we pause and take a look back over the five most popular episodes based on downloads. I think they provide an insight into what leaders have been focusing on, and what has been the most helpful.

Number 5. Way back in mid-February in episode 66, we explored A Leader’s Role in Removing Frustrations. We learnt that frustrations aren’t just bad for the individual, but can increase negative workplace behaviours. A key role for leaders is to help people to remove frustrations. We do that by accepting frustrations are normal, and recognising that they can always be reduced either at the cause or point of impact. While our impulse might be to avoid talking about frustrations, we are far better off encouraging people to raise them, provided we take a continuous improvement focus.

Number 4. At the start of March we discussed Five Key Leadership Challenges for 2020 and Beyond. I highlighted a reflection deficit, flatlining trust, internal competition, reluctant leaders and transactional engagement as emerging issues. It is also when I introduced the six daily practices leaders can undertake to engage and get the best out of their people. That turned into our most popular online workshop for the year - The Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership. Check out episode 69 for more details, or you can even complete our Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership course as part of a free 30-day trial for Leadership Today On-Demand. Links are in the show notes.

Number 3. While I may not have seen the pandemic coming in early 2020, I did have a great episode back at the start of February on The Four Core Skills for Leading in a Crisis. Episode 65 drew on research around crisis management to show the importance of identifying, acting, communicating and reviewing when it comes to a crisis. The research reminded me of the importance of identifying what we have learned once the crisis subsides. Perhaps that’s a good thing to keep in mind as we progress into 2021.

Number 2. In July we explored Ten Great Questions Leaders Ask. Being a great leader isn’t about having all the answers - it’s often about asking the right questions. And research shows that asking questions helps build both liking and learning through connections and trust. Take a look at episode 84 for a list of questions you will find helpful in your leadership.

And at Number 1 it’s probably not a surprise that our most popular episode was Ten Tips for Leading Others through the Coronavirus Pandemic. Episode 70 came on on 14th March, just as the virus was really taking hold globally. My tips were to keep informed and prepared, turn up each day, provide as much clarity as you can, remain calm, demonstrate genuine interest in others, provide meaningful work, check in regularly via video, invite others to connect, don’t miss the opportunities and don’t do it alone. It was pretty good advice, and worth reviewing. The only other thing I would add with the benefit of hindsight is to remember to check that you’re not on mute.

So that was our five most popular episodes of 2020. I will be hosting some episode replays through the remainder for December and into January 2021. It has been a privilege to share over 40 new episodes with you this year. When I started this podcast back in July 2018 I had no idea just how helpful it would be in formulating my thinking around leadership by incorporating the latest research. A big thanks to our researcher Lauren Staveley who has really helped lift the level of the podcast and the rest of the work that we do here at Leadership Today. We now have a truly global audience with just 31% of you being from my home country of Australia, and it’s a delight to see which random country the podcast might be charting in each week.

If you have found the podcast helpful this year, you know what to do - leave a rating or review and tell a friend. I look forward to sharing brand new episodes with you in February 2021 - who knows what the world will look like then! Until then, keep working on your leadership through Leadership Today On-Demand. Just go to the Leadership.Today website and follow the On-Demand link. There is hours of video-based content. If you like the podcast, you’re going to love it. I will be back to host a replay next week.

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Summary Empathy seems to be essential for effective leadership, but can it be overdone? This week we explore empathy in leadership, and whether it’s underrated or overrated.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 103 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore empathy in leadership, and whether it’s underrated or overrated.

The topic of empathy in leadership can lead to some really interesting conversations. Many leaders will talk about empathy being absolutely essential to leading others effectively - and they’re right. Others will talk about the risk of empathy leading to burnout as we take on the concerns of others - and they’re right too. So is it just a trade off? Is being empathetic to others and the impact on my own well-being just something I need to accept? Or might there be a different way of thinking about empathy altogether.

Dr Paul Ekman was the co-discoverer of micro-expressions and inspiration for the TV series Lie to Me. He describes three types of empathy - cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and compassionate empathy.

Cognitive empathy is being able to see someone else’s perspective and understand what they might be thinking. So when a new person starts with your organisation, cognitive empathy might help you appreciate that they’re unlikely to know their way around the office. You might offer to show them around or leave them hanging. Cognitive empathy is just about perspective taking - putting yourself in their shoes to see the situation from their perspective.

Emotional empathy involves feeling what someone else is feeling. For example, if a colleague’s computer crashes and they lose a document they have been working on for an hour, emotional empathy allows me to understand that they might be frustrated and upset. After all, if I was in the same situation, that is what I would be feeling. Again, I might offer to help or try to console them, or I might just leave them to have their moment.

Compassionate empathy involves having a genuine concern for the other individual. If I’m demonstrating compassionate empathy, I don’t just understand how the other person is thinking and feeling, but I also want to help.

It’s more than likely you’ve heard someone describe the neurological basis for empathy - that we have mirror neurons that fire up when we see another person experiencing an event, and they’re the same neurons as the other person. There’s pretty good evidence for mirror neurons amongst primates. If I pick up a piece of fruit, a nearby primate might have neurons in regions associated with that movement also activate. However, the jury is still out on whether this extends to humans at an emotional level. That could well be the case but, beyond the initial excitement in the press, the jury is still out.

What is more certain is our brain’s ability to empathise with someone else’s emotions being separate from our ability to see a situation from another person’s perspective. It appears that cognitive empathy and emotional empathy have differing underlying neurological bases. Cognitive empathy appears to involve areas of the brain associated with remembering the past or fantasising about the future. Emotional empathy involves processing of things like facial expressions and speech patterns. As a result, it is entirely possible for me to demonstrate one kind of empathy without the other. For example, I could see you trying to restore that lost document and intellectually get what you are doing, but not be able to appreciate just how much that frustration is impacting your emotional state.

A great leader is able to appreciate both thoughts and feelings - to use both cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. To sustain that, the leader needs to be selective in compassionate empathy. There are times where it makes sense to get in and help - where you can see a team member is upset and needs comforting and assistance. However, in my experience, the leaders that struggle with the burden of being too empathetic over apply compassionate empathy. They’re too quick to try to solve others’ problems. They take on the fear, anxiety or sadness of others as their own. That can become crippling. It can get in the way of us making good decisions. It may even make things worse for the person we’re trying to help. As leaders, I believe we need to primarily focus on cognitive empathy and emotional empathy - to figure out how the person is thinking and feeling. Then we can determine what, if any, help we want to provide - we can choose to use compassionate empathy.

So, empathy - it’s difficult to overrate its importance to our leadership. But I think compassionate empathy can become overrated for some leaders, particularly if it means they can’t continue to be there for their people.

As always, there are links to the references that Ive used in the podcast in the show notes. A big thanks to both the British Psychological Society for their excellent research digest, and also to the team at Science Daily. I use both of those to keep across the latest research. Have a great week and I look forward to speaking with you next week.

References https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/03/25/there-is-only-weak-evidence-that-mirror-neurons-underlie-human-empathy-new-review-and-meta-analysis/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110090427.htm

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This week we feature a replay of our 21st September 2019 episode - Five Tips to Level Up Your Listening.

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This week we have a replay of our 31st August 2019 episode - Confidence in Action.

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Summary Collaboration and cooperation have never been more important. However, people can naturally tend towards self-interest at the expense of the greater good, particularly when they believe they personally have the resources they need. This week we explore how people cooperate more effectively when they can’t solve something on their own.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 102 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how people cooperate more effectively when they don’t have the resources to solve something on their own.

Imagine you’re living in a small community located beside a river. Everything has been great so far, however there has been recent heavy rain, and now flood waters predicted to arrive the next day. Without action, everyone in the community will lose their home to the rising flood waters. People in this small community have sand bags to help either shore up their own house, or contribute to saving the entire community by building a larger wall of sandbags to protect everyone. The catch being that everyone needs to cooperate to have enough sand bags to save the community. How do people respond to this threat to their town and household?

Recent research demonstrates that the response largely depends on the resources the individuals have at their disposal. Jorg Gross and colleagues setup a range of conditions for participants to respond to, all reflecting a similar scenario to the community at risk from a flood. Each person had some resources, equivalent to the sand bags, that they could either contribute to the community in an attempt to protect everyone, or keep in an effort to protect themselves.

The research found that when people didn’t have enough resources to save themselves individually, they were most willing to contribute to the collective effort. There was still some risk here as people could act in a self-interested way, and therefore the overall community may fail. But in most cases, where everyone had the same level of resource and not enough to save themselves, they successfully cooperated to help the broader community.

As the researchers varied the resources available to individuals, behaviour changed dramatically. Those who had enough resources to save themselves started to withhold resources from the community effort, even when that led to others failing. Similarly, those who didn’t have enough resources and could only rely on community cooperation tended to lose out as the inequities in the community increased over time. Inequality increased as the rounds continued. People began to stock pile resources at the expense of others’ immediate needs.

What’s the lesson here? If people feel they can do something on their own and don’t need others in order to succeed, they are likely to act from a position of self-interest, and are also unlikely to help others out. This continues even when others are at risk of failing or missing out. This finding has obvious implications for public policy, but also applies within our organisations.

Most organisations survive through cooperation. Despite the silos that so often emerge, every organisation needs good will and cooperation to succeed. In most instances if my team “wins” and your team “loses”, then the overall organisation loses. Cooperation acts like conduits between the silos, helping to share around resources and knowledge. As I’ve presented before, the challenge here is the increasing identification of people with their immediate team rather than the organisation as a whole. That creates conditions where people are less likely to collaborate and cooperate across teams. When we’re focused on our own team, other teams become either a threat or a distraction.

As leaders, it is more important than ever to help people to see the broader role they play within the organisation, not just within the team. We need to put additional effort into communicating the purpose of the organisation in a way that demonstrates the need for cooperation in order to succeed. It’s really helpful to develop a narrative about how different parts of the organisation work together to achieve the broader purpose. Individual leaders can then share that with their teams. If purpose is defined as individual teams winning, then be prepared for more competition than cooperation.

Thanks for joining me today, and remember to check out Leadership Today On-Demand. That’s how you can access all of our recorded webinars and online courses, along with weekly quick hits on a range of topics. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial by going to our website, leadership.today, and follow the on-demand link. Have a great week.

Reference Gross, J., Veistola, S., De Dreu, C.K.W. et al. Self-reliance crowds out group cooperation and increases wealth inequality. Nat Commun 11, 5161 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18896-6

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Summary With the shift to working from anywhere, many people have questioned why we still need an office. For others, getting everyone back into the office is seen as mission critical. In this episode we explore five reasons why you still need an office.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 101 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the five reasons why you still need an office.

There has been a lot of debate and discussion about the need for offices. The global pandemic revealed just how possible it was for many people to work from anywhere. This has been combined with challenges moving people back into offices, while also maintaining a safe work environment. All of this is likely to lead to a shift in thinking about the need for, and role of, offices.

Most surveys reveal a mix of people who can’t wait to get back into the office, people who never want to go in to the office again, and a larger group in the middle who want a mix. It’s easy to foresee a challenging road ahead as organisations and individuals negotiate a seemingly endless range of options for people. Some organisations will no doubt declare it all to be too hard and push most people back into the office. Others will jump at the chance to save on prime real estate and reduce their office footprint significantly if not entirely.

But much of this debate and discussion misses the core question - what do we actually need an office for? And, to be clear, this is really about why we need to get our people together, whether that’s at an office or some other venue.

Research suggests there are five main reasons to get people together:

1. Community - As people were forced to work from home, this was one of the most cited reasons why people missed the office. We are social animals and long for connection with others. Video conferencing doesn’t match the connections people can build face-to-face.

2. Collaboration - While collaboration software and platforms can help, they fail to allow the kind of constructive conflict needed to truly collaborate and generate new ideas. To be clear, I’m not saying that all collaboration needs to happen face-to-face, but there are efficiencies provided by being in the same room at the same time when deeper collaboration is required.

3. Culture - “How we do things around here” is difficult to establish and sustain when we’re not in an office together. Communicating strategy and direction, celebrating milestones and achievements, establishing agreed ways of operating - these are all much easier when we have a group of people in a room together. Without being physically together, it becomes much harder to build trust. People then tend to create identity with their team rather than the organisation. This can lead to conflict between teams and competing interests, rather than trying to work together to better the overall organisation.

4. Climate - It’s difficult to generate a consistent experience of “how it feels to work here” when people are having such diverse experiences of the workplace. Getting people together helps to create a shared climate.

5. Capability - This, I believe, is the sleeper issue in the work from anywhere movement. Picture yourself at the start of your career. How much of your development occurred just by being around more experienced people, being invited into meetings to observe, and having that chance to be mentored? All of this is harder when people aren’t together.

Now, please don’t hear me wrong - this isn’t an anti work from anywhere statement. In fact, I’ve been a work from anywhere guy for the best part of ten years. But it’s easy to overlook all the seemingly small and incidental interactions that build community, collaboration, culture, climate and capability. These accumulate over time to play a really important part in each person’s engagement, satisfaction and contribution. If people shift to two or three days in the office, it reduces all of these incidental moments by half.

To replace that, we are going to need to be far more intentional about community, collaboration, culture, climate and capability. We can no longer leave them to chance. Instead, we will, from time to time, need to bring our people together face to face with a clear purpose and focus on each of these five areas. Trying to build these virtually is inefficient. What 5 minutes together face-to-face does for building trust might take hours over email or Slack or even video conference.

So you may not need an office anymore, but you will always need to bring people together face to face. We need to be very intentional when we have that increasingly rare opportunity to all be in the same room at the same time. Make sure it happens, and make the most of it.

Thanks for joining me today, and remember to check out Leadership Today On-Demand. We have a new quick hit video posted every week which is a similar format to our podcast. On top of that are ten recorded webinars on topics like procrastination, imposter syndrome, well-being, assertiveness and influencing, with a new webinar added each month. In addition we have our online courses which you might want to check out. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial by going to our website, leadership.today, and following the on-demand link. Have a great week.

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Summary Procrastination plagues many of us. It seems we are endlessly creative at avoiding things that we know are important. This week we explore different ways to think about and avoid procrastination.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 100 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore different ways to think about and avoid procrastination.

Procrastination plagues many of us. In fact, research suggests that around 25% of people have procrastination as a defining personality trait. But whether you procrastinate all the time or just every so often, I’m sure you would love to procrastinate a little less.

And that’s not surprising, particularly given that procrastination is associated with a range of negative outcomes including low self-esteem, high pessimism, high anxiety, boredom, fatigue and detachment.

One definition of procrastination is “voluntarily delaying an intended task despite expecting to be worse off for doing so”. This highlights a few key aspects of procrastination:

1. It’s voluntary - procrastination is something that we choose to do
2. It gets in the way of our intentions - despite wanting to do one thing, we introduce something else as a replacement, even if that replacement is just staring at the ceiling
3. We know it will make things worse - procrastination never makes things easier, and we typically know that at the point we choose to procrastinate

So given all of this, why do we procrastinate? Researchers describe procrastination as “a form of self-regulation failure involving the unnecessary and voluntary delay of important tasks for the purpose of short-term mood repair.” Put simply, procrastination is about prioritising short-term mood repair over long-term goal pursuit. We procrastinate because it makes us feel better in the short-term. In fact, research demonstrates that the more negative our mood, the more time we spend procrastinating. We use procrastination to feel better. Understanding this can help us to reduce how often we procrastinate. Once we recognise that we’re actually delaying and amplifying negative mood, we can appreciate just how self-defeating procrastination can be. In addition, we can look for ways to boost our mood prior to undertaking a task where we think there is a risk of procrastination. Schedule those tasks where procrastination is a risk at the points of your day when your mood is typically most positive.

I think it’s also important to consider how you think about procrastination. Consider someone who says “I am a procrastinator” versus another person who says “I procrastinate”. The person who describes themselves as a procrastinator sees procrastination as an ongoing trait, part of their personality, and part of who they are. For that person to overcome procrastination requires a change of identity, not just a change of thoughts, feelings and behaviour. In contrast, the person who says “I procrastinate” sees procrastination as a passing state, that it is task-specific, and that it is how they act sometimes. In that case overcoming procrastination requires a change of thoughts, feelings and behaviour, but not a change in how the person sees themselves. If you want to reduce how often you procrastinate, start by thinking about procrastination as something you choose to do, rather than something that defines who you are.

We often fail in making meaningful change because we try to stop procrastinating rather than trying to pursue the opposite of procrastination. The opposite of procrastination isn’t just getting things done on time, it’s actually a state that psychologists call flow. Flow is a positive state which feels great, where time flies, where we can focus our attention, and adapt and be flexible. How do we achieve flow? A lot of it comes down to how we are led. People are more likely to achieve flow in their work when there are clear goals, flexibility or autonomy in how we achieve those goals, and immediate feedback. But we also need to be challenged and have our abilities matched to the task. As so often is the case, flow requires an environment where we are stretched and supported.

If you struggle with procrastination, here are some things to try:

1. Choose to be stretched in an area of interest - boredom increases the risk of procrastination, so we want to focus on tasks that are interesting to us
2. Set goals and deadlines to work towards - we prioritise and work harder to achieve tasks that have a deadline, so use that to your advantage
3. Boost your mood before you begin - go for a walk around the block or some other mood-boosting activity before you tackle that activity you typically put off
4. Turn off wifi or pull out the blue cable - our computers provide a myriad of tempting distractions, so do whatever you can to reduce these
5. Involve others for encouragement, mentoring and feedback - it’s harder to procrastinate when others are checking in on you and holding you accountable
6. Work in bursts - set a timer for 15 minutes and start working, then assess how you’re going at the end of that time - you will usually find you’re happy to then invest another 15 minutes

Hopefully today’s podcast has given you some new ways to think about procrastination and some ideas about how to avoid it in the future. If you have used today’s podcast to avoid doing something else, then just go and do it now!

If you enjoyed this week’s podcast and want to go a bit deeper, I have a free webinar happening this week called “A Procrastinator’s Guide”. If you can’t make the webinar or have missed it, don’t worry. We publish recordings of all of our webinars on the Leadership Today On-Demand service. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link to sign up for a free 30 day trial.

As usual, you will find all of the research used for today’s episode in the show notes. Thanks again to our researcher Lauren Staveley for scouring journals to track all of that down.

And given we have hit the 100 episode mark, I would really appreciate it if you could take some time to provide a rating and review via Apple Podcasts, and also tell a friend about the podcast. That makes a huge difference. Have a great week.

References Göncü Köse, Asli & Metin, Baran. (2018). Linking Leadership Style and Workplace Procrastination. The Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Turnover Intention. Journal of Prevention & Intervention Community. 46. 10.1080/10852352.2018.1470369

Sirois, F.M. and Kitner, R. (2015) Less Adaptive or More Maladaptive? A Meta-analytic Investigation of Procrastination and Coping. European Journal of Personality, 29 (4). 433 - 444. ISSN 0890-2070

Sirois, F.M. (2014) Procrastination and Stress: Exploring the Role of Self-compassion. Self and Identity, 13 (2). 128 - 145. ISSN 1529-8868

van Eerde, W., Klingsieck, K.B., Overcoming Procrastination? A Meta-Analysis of Intervention Studies, Educational Research Review (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2018.09.002

van Eerde W., Procrastination at Work and Time Management Training. The Journal of Psychology (2003), 137 (5), 421-434

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Summary Motivational speakers encourage us to find our purpose in life - our why. But leaders are better off focusing on creating meaningful work.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 99 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to create meaningful work.

Motivational speakers often encourage us to find our purpose in life - our why. If we know why we do what we do, then the things we do become more important and meaningful.

Thankfully, as leaders, we don’t need to help our people to uncover their purpose in life. We do, however, have a significant role to play in creating meaningful work. While meaningful work isn’t quite the same as a life purpose, it is still a significant part of a meaningful life for many.

Reseach which I’ve included in the show notes demonstrates that meaningful work links strongly to work engagement, commitment and job satisfaction. In addition there are weaker links to life satisfaction, life meaning, general health and intentions to stay at a workplace.

If I provide meaningful work, I’m providing significance. There’s an appreciation that the work really matters.

Now, clearly, there are some parts of our work that aren’t wrapped up in deeper meaning. Thankfully research shows that our sense of meaning in work is made up of the various episodes and elements of our work. As humans, we effectively weigh up the various parts to determine, on balance, whether our work has meaning. In fact, the overall sense of meaning makes the meaningless activities tolerable. I will put up with the meaningless parts of my work if the meaning bank account balance is in credit.

To build meaning we can help our people to answer these questions about their work: Why does it matter? What does it contribute to? How does it contribute?

Five whys is great technique to use to explore meaningful work. We covered it in more detail in episode 20. It helps us to take our focus further up the meaning chain. Let me share an example.

I used to manage a team, and part of their role was packing boxes with materials that would be used on leadership programs - all the handouts, materials and everything else that would be needed on that program. They would then send the box to the venue. Now, that job sounds pretty boring and devoid of meaning. So it prompts me to ask five ‘why’ questions. Packing boxes with materials - why does that matter?

Packing the boxes allows consultants to run leadership programs. That’s okay, but why does that matter?

These leadership programs help increase leadership capability for thousands of leaders. Why does that matter?

As those thousands of leaders improve their leadership, it also improves the work lives of tens of thousands of other people. And why does that matter?

That increased satisfaction multiplies out to all of their connections, to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Okay - now maybe that was one step too far, and perhaps we didn’t need the full five whys. But hopefully you can see how using the five whys can help us to create meaningful work for our people. Try it out this week and let me know how you go.

Thanks again to Lauren Staveley, our research assistant, who tracked down the research for today’s episode. As a reminder, we are still offering a free 30 day trial of our Leadership Today On-Demand service. It includes two online courses, together with recorded webinars, and quick hits on a range of leadership topics. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link.

Have a great week.

Reference Blake A. Allan, Cassondra Batz-Barbarich, Haley M. Sterling and Louis Tay. Outcomes of Meaningful Work: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Management Studies 56:3 May 2019

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Summary Feedback is tricky at the best of times, but particularly challenging in virtual teams. Research demonstrates some ways to improve that situation.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 98 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore ways of improving feedback in virtual teams.

There are many challenges associated with leading and working in virtual teams. Not having everyone in the same place at the same time is tricky. Things we take for granted, like giving and receiving feedback, can fall away completely.

We have covered feedback quite a bit on this podcast because it really matters to performance and development. We know that as we progress in an organisation, we receive less feedback. We also know that as our performance moves further away from expectations, we also receive less feedback. It seems at the moments when we really need to know how we’re doing, the feedback we need is missing.

Virtual teams provide further challenges when it comes to feedback. When we’re not working together face-to-face, we’re less likely to ‘see’ each other in action. There are likely fewer opportunities to provide feedback, and fewer things to provide feedback about.

So what can we do about this?

Research by McLarnon and others specifically looked at Global Virtual Teams. Not only did these teams not have the opportunity to work together face-to-face, they had additional challenges of navigating multiple time zones and cultures. The research involved trials of different ways in which virtual team members could provide feedback to each other.

What they found worked best in virtual teams was structured, regular feedback. Setting up a structured way to request and distribute feedback made a big difference, as did building in opportunities for feedback on a weekly basis. This meant that feedback was given in a timely manner. It allowed people to modify their approach, and also helped the team to better coordinate their efforts.

Other research by Kingsley Westerman and colleagues found that verbal feedback works better than written. People value the effort a leader takes in making a phone or video call rather than just sending an email or text. In addition, the researchers found that leaders who provide verbal feedback are seen as more competent and trustworthy.

All of this goes to show that feedback in virtual teams is just as, if not more, important than in traditional face-to-face settings, but there are unique challenges to overcome.

Here are some thoughts you can take into your week if you are leading or working as part of a virtual team:

1. Recognise that people still need feedback - independent of the way the team works, individuals still need to receive feedback to perform and develop.
2. Identify opportunities for feedback - you may need to orchestrate opportunities to gather feedback. That might include sitting in on a video conference, or working through some written work with an individual directly.
3. It helps to structure the feedback process - explore systems where individuals are prompted to provide feedback to their colleagues during the week, rather than waiting for longer-term milestones or formal reviews.
4. Say it rather than write it - as we explored three episodes ago, just pick up the phone and provide the feedback verbally.
5. Make it real time when you can - work on your ability to provide feedback in the moment using simple methods such as Situation, Behaviour and Impact, which we covered all the way back in episode 5 of this podcast.
6. Incorporate team performance and individual contribution - whether the team is performing well or not-so-well, explore further to uncover the contribution of individuals.

A big shout out to our brilliant research assistant Lauren Staveley who tracked down the research for today’s episode, which you can find in the show notes. Also, if virtual teams are of interest, then you are going love our brand new Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership course - complete with a workbook and two hours worth of research-based practical advice to lead teams more effectively while also looking after yourself. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial of our Leadership Today On-Demand service, which gives you enough time to complete the course, watch a few recorded webinars, and even check out some quick hits on topics like feedback, influencing and assertiveness. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link.

Have a great week.

Research Kingsley Westerman, C., Reno, K. And Heuett, K. (2018) Delivering Feedback: Supervisors’ Source Credibility and Communication Competence. International Journal of Business Communication, Vol 55(4) 526-546.

McLarnon, M., O’Neill, T., Taras, V., Law, D., Donia, M. And Steel, P. (2019) Global Virtual Team Communication, Coordination, and Performance Across Three Peer Feedback Strategies. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. 2019, Vol. 51, No. 4, 207–218

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Summary As human beings we often act out of self-interest, but is that the best way to lead others? Recent research sheds a light on whether we make better decisions when considering others.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 97 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore whether we make better decisions when considering others.

I define leadership as achieving results through people for good. The ‘for good’ element is a values statement on my part - it’s how I would hope leaders would act. I’m sure you would also hope that leaders are aiming for collective benefit more than just self-interest.

However, it seems when it comes to learning and decision making we are wired to think primarily of ourselves first. Take, for example, experiments where people are asked to learn a new game in return for a cash payout. Participants learn faster and make better decisions when earning money for themselves than when they are earning money for someone else. Self-interest leads them to put more effort and attention into the learning process.

But what about when there’s a downside? What if, instead of earning money, we are trying to avoid a penalty or harm? Are we still primarily self-interested?

Recent research using an electric shock game provides an insight into these questions. Now, let’s be honest here - psychologists have had a long and occasionally dodgy love affair with passing electricity through people in the name of science. Remember the time we found out that most people would electrocute others to the point of them pleading for help and becoming unconscious rather than disobey someone wearing a lab coat? Thankfully, we do have some ethics and no one in that famous Milgram experiment was actually delivered an electrical shock - it was all actors. In the case of this recent research, the shocks were very much real, but weren’t harmful. The experiment involved two versions of a task where participants would choose between two abstract symbols, one of which would lead to a lower chance of delivering an electrical shock. In one version of the experiment the shock would be delivered to the participant making the decisions. In a second version, the shock would be delivered to someone else. Participants performed better on the task when their choices would result in a shock for someone else, than they did if they were the ones receiving the shock. A level of empathy meant that people worked harder to optimise their decisions to reduce harm to others.

fMRI scans during the experiment revealed different brain regions being activated in the two different versions of the electric shock game. If the shock is being delivered to the participant making the choices, regions associated with evaluating decisions light up. If the shock is going to be delivered to someone else, areas associated with evaluating the emotional state of others also light up.

So that’s great news - when we are aware of a downside for others, we tend to demonstrate greater care in our decision making. What’s really interesting it that greater care leads to more effective decisions being made. Our decisions improve when we consider others.

So what does this mean for the way we lead? Hopefully you’re not in a workplace that has a penchant for delivering electrical shocks. But, as leaders, our decisions often have potential upside benefits and downside impacts on others. The standard business mantra is that decisions should be focused on data - just stick to the facts. While there’s some truth to that, we need to broaden what we include as data. We need to extend our definition of ‘data’ to include the potential impact on others. The research suggests that isn’t just good for others, but ultimately leads us to make better decisions.

I trust you found the podcast helpful. And remember to check out Leadership Today On-Demand. It includes all of our video content, including our brand new Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership course - complete with a workbook and two hours worth of research-based practical advice to lead teams more effectively while also looking after yourself. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial, which gives you enough time to complete the course, watch a few recorded webinars, and even check out some quick hits on topics like feedback, influencing and assertiveness. Cancel your subscription at any point during the first 30 days and you won’t pay a cent. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link.

Reference Lukas L. Lengersdorff, Isabella C. Wagner, Patricia L. Lockwood, Claus Lamm. When implicit prosociality trumps selfishness: the neural valuation system underpins more optimal choices when learning to avoid harm to others than to oneself. The Journal of Neuroscience, 2020; JN-RM-0842-20 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0842-20.2020

As reported in Science Daily - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200824131811.htm

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Summary There’s a popular mythology in business that being self-centred and cold towards others helps you to get ahead. But does being a jerk get you ahead at work? Research released this month addresses this question.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 96 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore whether being a selfish jerk helps you to get ahead at work.

There’s a popular mythology in business that being self-centred and cold towards others can help you to get ahead. That if I act like an intimidating jerk, it will help me to get ahead at work. The thinking being that operating in this way will help me to amass power and influence.

American baseball player, coach and manager Leo Durocher exemplified this approach well, perhaps not surprisingly given his nickname of Leo the Lip. Some of his more entertaining quotes include “nice guys finish last” and “show me a good loser and I’ll show you an idiot”. His winning ratio was 54%, so I guess he was a self-proclaimed idiot 46% of the time.

In the business world, people like Steve Jobs are held up as examples of how being aggressive and intimidating helps you to get things done. That being a jerk helps you to push through the constraints that hold others back. In fact, his close friend and former Apple designer Jony Ive described it like this: “I think honestly, when he's very frustrated, … his way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And I think he feels he has a liberty and licence to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don't apply to him. Because of how very sensitive he is, he knows exactly how to efficiently and effectively hurt someone. And he does do that.”

Disagreeable people are driven by self-interest and a lack of consideration for others. So how would this help them to progress more quickly up the corporate ladder? The popular thinking is that the time nice people spend looking out for others might hold them back, giving disagreeable people an advantage. Their intimidation then allows the disagreeable person to amass power and influence.

But are disagreeable people actually more likely to get ahead? Research by Anderson, Sharps, Soto and John published just this month explored precisely this question. They identified disagreeable people and then tracked their careers over the next 14 years.

Now, I know the question you’re asking - How do you identify a disagreeable person? The researchers used personality patterns associated with the likelihood to be hostile towards others, deceive and manipulate for their own gain, and ignore others’ welfare as indicators for disagreeableness.

So what did they find? Their key finding is that disagreeableness does not predict attainment of power. Disagreeable people are not more likely, but just as likely, to reach positions of power and influence. It didn’t help their career, but it didn’t get in the way either.

The researchers described four main ways people can attain power:

1. Dominant-aggressive behaviour - fear and intimidation
2. Political behaviour - building alliances with influential people
3. Communal behaviour - helping others
4. Competent behaviour - being good at your job

The key to understanding why jerks don’t get ahead is in the trade-off the disagreeable person makes. The researchers suggested that any assistance being intimidating gave in seeking out power was counteracted by poor relationships with others. Their results suggest that a lack of communal behaviour counteracts any benefits of dominant-aggressive behaviour and self-interest.

So being disagreeable doesn’t work. But can the opposite also be true? Can we be overly agreeable? While the researchers didn’t explore this, it’s easy to see how being overly nice might also get in the way - that always focusing on helping others without placing any emphasis on our own needs and interests could also be a problem.

I think the key to striking the right balance is through true assertiveness - having a genuine interest in others’ needs and interests, while also confidently presenting our own needs and interests. If you want to explore that further, then check out episode 6 from way back in August 2018 where we pick apart what true assertiveness looks like.

And if you want to go even deeper, check out our Boost Your Assertiveness course at Leadership Today On-Demand. Our On-Demand service is an annual subscription that brings together all of our video content, including online courses, recorded webinars, and quick hits on a broad range of leadership topics. You can sign up today for a free 30 day trial which gives you plenty of time to complete the course and take a look around. Just go to the Leadership.Today website and follow the On-Demand link. Have a great week.

Reference Cameron Anderson, Daron L. Sharps, Christopher J. Soto, and Oliver P. John People with disagreeable personalities (selfish, combative, and manipulative) do not have an advantage in pursuing power at work. PNAS, 2020 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2005088117

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Summary Picture this scenario. You need to make contact with someone that you haven’t spoken to in quite a while. Do you call or just send them a text or email instead? It turns out that our chosen communication method is often driven more by fear than effectiveness.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 95 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. Picture this scenario. You need to make contact with someone that you haven’t spoken to in quite a while. Do you call or just send them a text or email instead? It turns out that our chosen communication method is often driven more by fear than effectiveness.

To explore this, researchers asked 200 people what they thought it would be like to reconnect with an old friend via email and phone.

Even though people thought a phone call would lead to great connection, they feared a call would be more awkward. People were far more inclined to use email than pick up the phone. In that moment they performed a quick cost-benefit equation. Is the better connection worth the awkwardness? Apparently not.

They then divided the group randomly into an email group and a phone call group and had them actually contact that old friend using that method.

So was the preferred choice of email the right one? Those who were forced to use the phone found their calls actually went far better than they predicted. The phone call led to an even deeper connection, and was far less awkward than anticipated. So using the phone is the better option.

“But wait a second” I hear you say - “Doesn’t a phone call take longer?” That’s a fair question to ask. If a phone call takes longer than an email, then maybe the email is better after all.

Indeed, researchers found that participants also thought an email would be faster than a phone call. However, it turns out that the phone calls took around the same amount of time as reading and responding to email.

Does this actually happen at work? Absolutely. It’s likely that people are choosing communication methods that don’t maximise connection because they think the alternative will be awkward and inefficient.

We communicate a lot through our voice, and not just through the words that we say. Our tone, pace, pitch and volume all come together to communicate a richer message. The research is pretty clear - if the goal is to build trust and connection, look for opportunities to be face-to-face and, if that’s not possible, then pick up the phone and give the person a call. It’s likely to be far less awkward and far more effective than you expect.

As I encouraged a few episodes ago, it may even be worth replacing a video conference using Zoom or similar with a phone call. You can find out more about that in episode 92. All our past episodes are available via the Leadership.Today website or wherever you get your podcasts. And, while you’re thinking about what to listen to next, why not provide a quick rating or review? It really makes a difference.

Have a great week.

Research Kumar, A., & Epley, N. (2020). It’s surprisingly nice to hear you: Misunderstanding the impact of communication media can lead to suboptimal choices of how to connect with others. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000962

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Summary Have you had an ‘aha’ moment lately? New research provides clues into why some of us find insights so addictive.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 94 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the power of insights, including what’s going on in our brain when we have them, and some practical ways to have even more insights.

There are few things in life better than an ‘aha’ moment - that point where you’ve been grappling with a problem and the solution just suddenly pops into your head. It can feel quite different to solving something by working away at it methodically. Ideas can come as a slow steady slog, but sometimes there are leaps.

Researches earlier this year discovered that these sudden insights can, for some people, trigger the brain’s reward system. That an insight can activate the same areas that highly pleasurable activities and even addictive drugs work on.

To explore this, the researchers presented each person with a series of anagrams while using a high resolution EEG to monitor brain activity. Let’s say, for example, that you were presented with the letters ABSIS. Those letters could also make up the word BASIS. But how did you solve that? The participant would press a button to confirm whether it was an insight or more of an analytical process. So the word BASIS might just pop into your head, or you might mentally start shifting the letters around in a more analytical way.

Researchers can actually see the moment when the insight occurs as it is accompanied by a burst of gamma-band brainwaves right before the person indicates that they have had an insight solution. So what did they discover? Not surprisingly, they found that insight solutions were faster than analytical solutions. Insights pop into our head much faster than our ability to consciously think through potential solutions. What is really interesting is that many people also showed a second burst in the orbitofrontal cortex - a region of the brain just above the orbits of your eyes, thus the name, which is associated with reward and pleasure. This reward burst occurs just a tenth of a second after the insight, so it is too quick to be the result of conscious thought. It turns out that for many people the insight itself is inherently pleasurable, rather than something that we decide should be pleasurable.

The researchers wanted to understand who is more likely to have this reward response, given that not everyone experiences it. To do this they had participants complete a questionnaire on reward sensitivity - the extent to which people were driven more by gaining rewards than the fear of loss. They found that those more focused on gain rather than loss were also more likely to experience a natural reward response when they had an insight. It’s easy to see how that might lead people to spend more time chasing that reward, therefore investing more effort into creativity and insight generation.

So what does this mean for me as a leader? Well, let’s assume you don’t have a high resolution EEG lying around the house. Although I will point out that EEG units that hook up to your phone are becoming far more accurate and affordable if you did want to strap one onto the old melon to take a look under the hood. If that’s not an option, here are some other suggestions:

1. Pose yourself problems to solve. This sounds kind of obvious, but if you don’t present your brain with a problem to solve in the first place, you’re not going to have an insight.
2. Keep positive. Researchers found those in a positive mood solved more problems via insight than those with lower mood. There are lots of benefits to having a positive mood.
3. Focus on what you have to gain rather than lose. That will encourage a more insight-based approach to problem solving.
4. Aim for low attention moments. As we have discussed before, people never come up with their best ideas while sitting at their desk. Make the most of those low stress, relaxed moments. Sometimes I pose myself a problem before I go to bed or just before I go for a run. I then don’t try to actively solve the problem - I just let it sit. It’s amazing how many times I have an insight when I wake up, or when I’m cooling down after that run.
5. Celebrate solving something hard. Even if it doesn’t get your reward circuit going in the moment, maybe that piece of chocolate a little later will.

If you did want to delve into the research further, I’ve provided a link in the episode notes although, full disclosure, it is a pretty dense bit of reading.

And let me know your insight stories - what works for you? You can make contact via the leadership.today website. Have a great week.

Reference Yongtaek Oh, Christine Chesebrough, Brian Erickson, Fengqing Zhang, John Kounios. An insight-related neural reward signal. NeuroImage, 2020; 214: 116757 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116757

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Summary People will bring complaints about colleagues to you as their leader. How do you figure out if an issue is worth tackling? There is a simple question that can help.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 93 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore how to figure out if a potential issue between staff is worth tackling. This week’s podcast is going to be even shorter than usual, but I can assure you it will save you countless hours.

I’m sure you’ve had this experience as a leader before - if you haven’t, it’s only a matter of time before you do. Someone in your team, let’s call them Jan, comes to you to discuss an “issue” they’re having with a colleague - let’s call the colleague Steve. Jan wants you to do something about this problem with Steve. Maybe Jan thinks Steve is talking too loudly on the phone, or heating something obnoxious in the microwave for lunch, or there’s some kind of vague personality clash about Steve smiling too much, or Jan just thinks Steve isn’t pulling his weight. You ask Jan whether she has discussed the issue with Steve directly. “No”. You then ask Jan whether she would be comfortable to have that conversation with Steve directly. “No”. And now we’re stuck.

What is our role as leader at this point? The general principle is simple - we should encourage the person with the issue to talk directly to the person they are having an issue with. But what if they don’t feel comfortable doing that, and still want you to do something about the perceived problem. And what if the perceived problem sits right on the fence. It can be challenging to know when to intervene and when to just let things slide.

There is a question to ask at this point that can save everyone a lot of time and confusion. It’s simply this - “What’s the business issue?”

Steve’s loud talking on the phone might be distracting and frustrating other people. The business issue is lost productivity and engagement. That’s worth tackling directly.

Steve’s smelly microwaved lunch is wafting into the reception area, and several clients have complained about the smell. The business issue is the impact on our reputation with clients. That’s worth tackling.

Steve is smiling too much. Well, I’m struggling to find the business issue there. It’s not worth tackling.

Jan thinks Steve isn’t pulling his weight, but you have the results to suggest that he is. Again, there’s no business issue there.

Using the business issue test with the individual raising the complaint can be really helpful. That will help Jan to work out what things are worth her worrying about versus those things worth letting slide.

I’ve found the business issue test really helpful in highlighting what are real problems worth tackling, and what are interpersonal issues that might need to be navigated in a different way.

Well I hope you found that helpful. I received a couple of really encouraging emails from listeners to the podcast this week. You can always get in contact via the Leadership.Today website (he says, clearly fishing for a few more). And, if you do have time, a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening to this makes a huge difference.

Just a quick reminder about our online workshops and webinars. Go to the Live page on our website to find out more about the seven different workshops we offer, and also to register for an upcoming free monthly webinar. I would love to have you along.

Have a great week.

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Summary Video conferencing has rapidly increased in popularity, but the cognitive and attentional load can make it exhausting. In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we look at five ways to stop Zoom killing your focus.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 92 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at five ways to stop Zoom killing your focus.

Zoom and other video conferencing services have seen a rapid rise in popularity. People have flocked to video conferencing as the next best thing to a face-to-face meeting, particularly when trying to build social connection. During a global pandemic, video conferencing has proven to be a lifesaver for many people forced to work from home. It’s a testament to the quality of Zoom that the brand name is now synonymous with web-based video conferencing. We are becoming increasingly dependent on access to Zoom, as evidenced by a recent outage that disrupted millions of people including online schooling and businesses.

And Zoom isn’t just a back up for when we can’t be face-to-face. Research conducted last year showed Zoom was rated positively for qualitative data collection in health care interviews, coming in ahead of face-to-face, phone and other video conferencing options when they factored efficiency into the equation.

Amidst all of that success and celebration there are recurring and largely anecdotal concerns emerging about the impact of video conferencing on our attention and energy levels. People report feeling drained and exhausted at the end of a full day of Zoom calls. It’s too early for there to be specific research about why this might be the case, but the field of attention research gives us some clues to why Zoom is killing our ability to focus.

Let’s face it, weird things happen on Zoom calls that would never happen in a ‘real’ meeting. We see people fixing their hair as they stare at themselves. People keep looking away from the camera to a second screen so you end up having a conversation with their ear. People eating anything looks disgusting - seriously, stop eating while using Zoom. We see people talking but no words are coming out - you’re on mute! Surprise people and their pets appear out of nowhere. People keep trying to talk at the same time which leads to a flurry of “no, no, you go first”. As we look behind people it feels like we are in a dozen different rooms at once. And, while we’re talking backgrounds, why not include an even more distracting virtual background? Sure, you’re on a beach, or drifting through space. In a sign of just how confused we are, we even feel the need to wave goodbye at the end of a Zoom call. It’s exhausting.

What are the challenges of Zoom calls, or indeed most other video conferencing tools? There are three main issues:

1. Visual distractions. We are not used to seeing ourselves in action, and it’s easy to become fixated, or at least distracted, by how we look. It’s easy for the meeting to then feel like a performance. Simultaneously seeing multiple faces is also strange. We wouldn’t normally have people lined up in a grid like the start of the Brady Bunch, but rather be attending to one or two faces at any point in time. Reseach has repeatedly demonstrated that visual distractions significantly decrease our ability to focus and increase stress.
2. Auditory distractions. The inability for everyone to speak at once is a real issue. The small delays and “loudest person wins” nature of Zoom make auditory processing a challenge. The audio itself is of a higher quality than a typical phone call, but it still feels more draining than a landline phone call due to these artefacts.
3. You can’t look into someone’s eyes. I might try to fake eye contact by staring at the camera, but then I can’t see you. Thankfully, research demonstrates that people are lousy at figuring out if we’re making eye contact in real life anyway. In fact researchers found that we can’t pick the difference between someone looking into our eyes versus looking predominantly at our mouth. But on Zoom, the distance between the camera and the person’s face is larger than a real human face - the effect of not making eye contact is more pronounced.

All of this leads to an increased cognitive and attentional load. We end up suffering from what researchers call continuous partial attention.

So Zoom - is it worth it? That largely depends on the work and what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re after interaction, trust and engagement, it’s hard to beat face-to-face. If face-to-face is not possible, Zoom is a great backup. We just need to recognise and manage the risks.

In particularly we need to minimise visual distractions - research has show that this leads to a 16% boost in performance for time-sensitive, high focus work, while also reducing stress by 18%. Reducing auditory distractions will also help.

So how do we reduce distractions and the cognitive and attentional load of Zoom calls and meetings. Here are five suggestions:

1. Hide the self view. Check that your video feed looks okay at the start of the call, then use the menu on your own image so you can no longer see yourself. Just keep in mind that others can still see you - there’s a reason webcams have little lights on them to show when you’re on. Search Zoom call fails on YouTube for some great examples.
2. Use the speaker view. Rather than having everyone on screen at once in equal size boxes, shift to just being able to see the speaker. I’ve found this really helps me to focus on one person at a time, rather than trying to attend to a sea of faces.
3. Mute when not speaking. Muting yourself reduces the audio distractions for others. We need to treat a Zoom call like it’s not fully duplex, particularly as group sizes increase. Despite any claims to the contrary, the experience of multiple people trying to speak at once is far more painful on Zoom than in real life.
4. Make it interactive. In the field of online learning there’s a popular myth that people can’t attend to any video that’s longer than 6 minutes. There doesn’t seem to be much concrete evidence to back that up and, in fact, research shows that you can increase beyond that easily by making the video more interactive. The same principle applies to Zoom calls. Use polls, chat, breakout rooms, annotations, reactions - anything to spice things up and make it less of a presentation.
5. Reduce the length of your meetings. Recognise the cognitive and attentional load by making meetings shorter. As a rule of thumb I reduce the length of Zoom calls by a third to what I would expect people to engage in face-to-face.

And if none of that works, hey, here’s a crazy idea - why not try a phone conference call instead? Use a bit of variety and gain ideas and input from your team about how to improve things.

Now I’m sure a lot of these technical issues will become smoothed out over time. Someone will figure out how to mount a camera behind a screen to mimic face-to-face, and I’m sure the audio challenges will reduced. Perhaps people will listen back at this episode in 5 years and think - well, how quaint! However, keep in mind the broader principle that focus and distractions are enemies. Anything we can do to reduce visual and auditory distractions at work are going to make a difference, whether it’s online or in an office.

What have been your Zoom experiences? Make contact via the Leadership.Today website and let me know. I love a good story. Have a great week.

References Archibald, M. M., Ambagtsheer, R. C., Casey, M. G., & Lawless, M. (2019). Using Zoom Videoconferencing for Qualitative Data Collection: Perceptions and Experiences of Researchers and Participants. International Journal of Qualitative Methods.

Haworth Human Performance Lab. Visual Distraction Effects on Deliberate Focus Work. 2017 http://media.haworth.com/asset/96533/VisualDistractions.ResearchReport.201708.Johnson.pdf

Kathy Roper and Parminder Juneja Distractions in the workplace revisited. May 2008 Journal of Facilities Management 6(2):91-109

Nitza Geri, Amir Winer, Beni Zaks. Challenging the six-minute myth of online video lectures: Can interactivity expand the attention span of learners? Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management Volume 5, Issue 1, 2017

Shane L. Rogers, Oliver Guidetti, Craig P. Speelman, Melissa Longmuir, Ruben Phillips. Contact Is in the Eye of the Beholder: The Eye Contact Illusion. Perception, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/24/zoom-apologises-after-being-hit-by-partial-global-outage

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Summary

In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we look at a structure for team meetings to bring out the best in your people.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 91 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at how to structure team meetings to bring out the best in your people.

A study released in July 2020 looked at the impact of pandemic-related lockdowns on over three million people across North America, Europe and the Middle East. Scouring through de-identified data from a technology firm, they found the number of meetings per person increased 13%, as did the number of attendees per meetings (14%). However the average length of meetings decreased by 20%, with an overall impact of people spending 12% less time per day in meetings. So more, shorter meetings with more people, but less time per day in meetings overall. But how effective are all those meetings?

In episode 89 we looked at ways to make meetings better. Last week in episode 90 I shared a monthly one-on-one meeting structure. This week we round out our focus on meetings by walking through a team meeting structure I have been using for years.

You will find the structure in the show notes. It includes:

Positives

What’s going well?

Negatives

What’s not going well? What's getting in the way at work?

Priorities

What are the current priorities as a team?

Support

How can we best support each other?

Interesting

What is on the horizon that we are noticing?

Anything else to discuss?

Action Items

Review action items from previous month

Add any new action items

It’s important to start off with the positives and a reflection on what is going well. Depending on the size of the team this might involve some time for people to share the positives in twos and threes before summarising them back to the broader team. It’s really easy to skate right past the positives. We have a tendency to underplay our successes as we shift our focus to the next big thing. However celebrations are important. Use the positives part of the meeting to recognise these accomplishments.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the discussion of positives is followed by negatives. We can sometimes be scared of talking about the negatives and what’s getting in the way at work. As I’ve shared before, frustrations have a disastrous impact on well-being and productivity. We need to air the negatives, but also bring a focus on improvement and action.

Next we cover priorities. To be clear, this isn’t about having each individual share their own priorities, but rather looking at priorities at a team-level. This discussion helps everyone to have a shared understanding of what really matters.

That leads naturally to a discussion around support. Given the priorities and challenges we have discussed, how can we best support each other? That includes supporting each other by sharing around the work load, but could also include other ways of offering support.

I always include a section in team meetings focused on interesting things. This could include things that people are noticing in the organisation, observations about clients, customers or competitors - really anything that might be of interest that doesn’t neatly fit into the positive or negative categories.

The final section of the meeting is focused on action items. We take this time to review any action items from the previous month, and add any new action items.

As per the monthly one-on-one meetings I discussed last week, I share this agenda with the team, and then circulate a bullet point summary of what we discussed afterwards, just in a Word document, with the most recent meeting at the top of the document. That document helps new team members to quickly come up to speed by reviewing the main points from the last few team meetings.

If you are running your team meetings exclusively online, I would add some time at the start of the meeting as a quick check in to see how people are doing. This is particularly important for new team members who may not have met others face-to-face. You might also profile a different team member each month, having them share something about themselves like a favourite holiday destination including a photo. Building trust and connection is very difficult online, so it’s worth building that into your meetings if they are exclusively online.

And you may be wondering about the monthly timing for these meetings. By all means you can meet with your team more often than monthly, however I believe it makes a big difference to have a more formal meeting once a month.

As always I love receiving feedback on episodes. You can make contact via the website at Leadership.Today. That’s where you’ll find today’s show notes, complete with the meeting structure that you’re welcome to adapt for your team. Have a great week.

Reference

Collaborating During Coronavirus: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nature of Work

Evan DeFilippis, Stephen Michael Impink, Madison Singell, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Raffaella Sadun

NBER Working Paper No. 27612
Issued in July 2020

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27612

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Summary Monthly one-on-one meetings - we all know we should have them, but we might be less clear about what to discuss. This week we revisit a structure for monthly one-on-one meetings that will take your leadership to the next level.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 90 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we revisit a structure for monthly one-on-one meetings that will take your leadership to the next level.

For those playing the long game with the Leadership Today podcast, you might recall that we discussed monthly one-on-one meetings way back in August 2018 with episode 4 in the context of performance reviews. I think it’s a topic worth revisiting all on its own, because so few leaders have structured one-on-one meetings with their people.

Over the past month I’ve been running quite a few of our online workshop, The Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership. Towards the end of the one hour workshop I typically mention that I have examples of one-on-one and team meeting structures, and participants are always keen to take a look. I think as leaders we often want to do the right thing, but we’re not sure what the right thing is. The theory is great, but it’s even better to look at what all that research ends up looking like in practice. So this week’s podcast is extremely practical, and you will want to review the show notes at the Leadership Today website where you can highlight and copy the one-on-one meeting structure. Next week I’ll share my monthly team meeting structure.

Now I’m not saying that these structures are perfect for everyone in every situation, but I have road tested them with hundreds of leaders, and also applied them with the people and teams that I lead. They have really helped me to lead effectively, and I’m sure they will do the same for you as well. You are welcome to adapt them to your needs.

I suggest you have a more structured one-on-one meeting each month. You may already be meeting with individuals more often than that, but this structure will help you to make that a little more formal and interactive. Here’s an overview of the structure and topics.

Performance What are you currently doing well?

What do you need to work on?

Priorities What are your current priorities?

What goals need to be added, removed or updated?

Manager Support What's getting in the way at work?

How might we address this?

Training and Development How is your development plan progressing?

What training and development experiences might be beneficial?

Other Anything else to discuss?

Action Items Review action items from previous month

Add any new action items

I share this agenda with people, then ask them to come prepared to our meeting with bullet points under each topic. I also come prepared with my own bullet point thoughts. I’m clear about my intent for the meeting - this is as much about helping them as it is about helping me. It’s not a performance review - it’s a structured update to help us to work together more effectively.

Let’s start with performance. We don’t talk about performance enough and, as a result, people are often uncomfortable with performance discussions. Discussing performance each month helps to normalise it. People are expected to come to the meeting prepared with a list of what they think they are currently doing well, and also what they need to work on. When we as their leader do the same, it’s an opportunity to build a more comprehensive picture of their performance. Some people are overly hard on themselves and just focus on their development needs. As a leader you can build them up by pointing out what they’re doing well. Others might overestimate their performance or understate their need for development. Including discussion about what they need to work on helps highlight that we all have things to work on. The moment we think we’re perfect is the same moment we confirm that we’re not perfect.

Next up is priorities. There may be priorities for your people that you’re not aware of. Discussing priorities helps you to establish and clarify what the priorities are from your perspective. This additional clarity is like oxygen for your people. If you’ve ever worked in a role that lacked clarity around priorities, you know just how debilitating that can be. Here we also talk about goals. This isn’t just to track how the person is going against their goals, but also an opportunity to add new goals, remove goals that are completed or no longer relevant, and to update other goals. In that way we’re not treating goals as “set and forget” - it’s helping to recognise that circumstances change, and a monthly revisit of goals is extremely useful.

Next is manager support. People face frustrations that they may not otherwise share with you unless you ask. They may not think a frustration or obstacle is worth raising with you. So we need to ask the question directly - what’s getting in the way at work? Now, just because we ask the question doesn’t mean that, as a leader, we take sole responsibility for fixing the issue. It’s far better to work with the person to help them to remove the obstacle wherever that is possible. But there will be occasions where something needs to be addressed at your level, to either remove the frustration or reduce the impact on your people.

It’s easy to let training and development plans slip, so it’s great to explore progress on a monthly basis. With staff who are at earlier points in their career I spend time in this section building their resume. We discuss what they can now do that they couldn’t do a month ago. This is a great way of highlighting the progress they are making, as it’s very easy to not reflect on what development has been achieved. You can also use this section of the meeting to explore other development opportunities. Keep in mind that this isn’t just training courses - it could be shadowing someone from another team, working on a new project, or presenting at a team meeting. Help expand the possibilities for development even further.

The section called other is a chance to discuss anything else that doesn’t fit into the headings we’ve covered so far. We want to give our people every opportunity to share with us whatever is on their mind.

At the end of the meeting there is time to cover any action items that were committed to the previous month, and also an opportunity for the leader and their direct report to add any actions for the coming month. This helps both you and those you lead to be accountable for actions to which you have agreed.

I find these meetings take around 45 minutes to an hour with new staff, gradually settling in to around 30 to 45 minutes over time. It’s not a great deal of time and effort to invest in your people.

I encourage you to give this one-on-one meeting structure a go. You might even share this episode with your team to introduce the approach. The feedback I’ve had from people who have implemented it has been very positive, and I would love to hear how it goes for you as well.

Have a great week and I look forward to sharing a team meeting structure with you next week.

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Summary The amount of time leaders spend in meetings has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. But so too, thankfully, has our understanding of what makes a meeting effective. It’s time to have better (and fewer) meetings now!

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 89 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at ways to have better (and fewer) meetings now!

Over the past 50 years, the average amount of time leaders spend in meetings has steadily increased from below 10 hours per week in the 1960s to now approaching 23 hours per week. And the recent proliferation of video conferencing has removed the travel time between meetings altogether. We can now move from meeting to meeting without even leaving our desk. As a result, many of the clients I am working with describe an increase in meetings with remote working, and the associated demands that places on their time.

Research into the attitudes of senior managers towards meetings identifies 65% of people who see meetings getting in the way of completing work. A similar percentage, 64%, see meetings being at the expense of deep concentration work. It’s hard to get into the flow if you have meetings scheduled every other hour.

Other research by Desmond Leach and colleagues looked into the factors that lead meetings to be rated as effective by participants. They examined a range of factors including the use of an agenda, keeping minutes, punctuality, the appropriateness and comfort of the room facilities, the number of attendees, the length of the meetings and the use of a chairperson. Of all of these, they found the three most important factors were:

1. Agenda use - distributing an agenda ahead of time, sticking to it during the meeting and completing all the items on the agenda
2. Punctuality - both starting and finishing the meeting on time
3. Facilities - having an appropriate room that is setup well, and that is comfortable and quiet

The researchers noted that these three factors are important independent of the type of meeting. So whether the meeting is for routine issues, information sharing, or emerging problems the three key factors are agenda, punctuality and facilities.

Of course with so many meetings now occurring online, it’s easy to translate the meeting room facilities finding across to the technology platforms we are using. When we are meeting online, the technology is the setting. Video conferencing software continues to improve dramatically, but does call for a different skill set to be used effectively. If you have used a particularly clunky platform, you know how detrimental that can be to the meeting, independent of the agenda and punctuality. What I call ‘mixed mode meetings’ are particularly challenging - where you have some people individually online, and others sitting together in a room or across several rooms. It’s extremely difficult to maintain a balance between the two types of meeting attendees. It’s for that reason that I recommend either having everyone in the same room, or having everyone individually online, but don’t mix the two unless you have the high end technology to pull that off.

Bringing all of that together, here are five ways to have better (and fewer) meetings now:

1. Begin by asking “Does this need to be a meeting?” Meetings are most effective when you need real time interaction, where people are Interdependent and generating new ideas. Being in the same place at the same time allows people to build on others ideas in real time. It’s also appropriate to call people together for celebrations, milestones and recognition. However, if it is one-way information sharing or updates without discussion, switch it to another format using video, email or collaboration software. There’s no need to have everyone together at the same time for information sharing.
2. Set some shared expectations for those scheduling and facilitating meetings. Some organisations require a meeting to have a clear purpose and agenda before it can be scheduled. In addition I would look carefully at the attendee list in terms of the role each person is expected to play in the meeting. If you can’t identify why someone is required, then save them the bother and don’t invite them. The excuse of inviting people ‘just in case something comes up’ is not a good enough reason to eat into their time. It’s a lazy way to lead.
3. Make meetings shorter. Parkinson’s law states that work will expand to fill the time available, and the same is true of meetings. Yet suspiciously few meetings are scheduled for less than an hour in length. Why not give a 20 or 30 minute meeting a go. And make sure you complete the agenda. Desmond Leach’s research demonstrates that people become particularly frustrated when a long meeting doesn’t complete the agenda.
4. Start and finish on time. Punctuality really matters to people. I’ve seen some organisations that are brilliant at this, with everyone ready to go at the appointed time. Unfortunately, for every one of those organisations, there are others where people routinely arrive 5, 10 or 15 minutes late - with the person chairing the meeting simply waiting for everyone to arrive. That’s a great way to encourage people to arrive even later next time.
5. Look for improvements. It’s important to leave time at the end of the agenda to reflect on the effectiveness of the meeting. That might include discussing what we did well and what we need to improve.

We all need connection and collaboration. Following these research-based tips will help ensure you’re only having the meetings that really matter, and that we’re making the most of the investment of people’s time and energy.

While I have your attention can I please ask you a favour. If you haven’t already, please provide a rating or review wherever you download your podcasts. There’s a reason why every podcast host asks you to do it, as it really does help others to find the podcast. Have a great week, and I look forward to sharing some more practical leadership research with you next week.

References

Stop the Meeting Madness. Leslie A. Perlow , Constance Noonan Hadley and Eunice Eun, Harvard Business Review July–August 2017

Perceived Meeting Effectiveness: The Role of Design Characteristics. Desmond J. Leach, Steven G. Rogelberg, Peter B. Warr, Jennifer L. Burnfield, Journal of Business Psychology, 2009 24:65–76.

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Summary

You’ve heard the well-known Oscar Wilde quote “Be yourself - everyone else is already taken”. Yet we often tempted to be something that we’re not. But the research shows us to impress, do less.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 88 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week discover that a great way to impress is to do less.

You’ve heard the well-known Oscar Wilde quote “Be yourself - everyone else is already taken”. Yet we often tempted to be something that we’re not. We often try to present ourselves the way we think others want to see us, rather than as we truly are.

If that sounds like you, you’re not alone. Research shows that, when given the opportunity, 66% of people try to impress by catering to the other person’s needs. In addition, 71% thought catering would be the best approach. Research also demonstrates that trying to impress is precisely the wrong strategy, especially when it comes at the expense of being ourselves.

This is particularly the case when we don’t know much about the people we’re trying to impress. That could include a presentation, a job interview, a sales pitch or a range of other scenarios.

To explore this further researchers set up a scenario where people were applying for a fictional job. Participants in the study were then placed into one of two groups. The first group was encouraged to be themselves - to try to be genuine and authentic. The second group was encouraged to try to position themselves in the way they thought aligned with the interviewer’s expectations and interests - to cater to their needs. Those who were encouraged to just be themselves were 26% more likely to be hired than those who tried to become something they weren’t in an effort to impress.

A second study was conducted at a forum where entrepreneurs were pitching ideas to a panel of judges. The entrepreneurs who were genuine in their approach were three times more likely to be selected by judges than those who tried to cater to what they thought the judges wanted to hear.

Why is being yourself better than trying to cater to what you think people want to hear? Researchers suggest three main reasons:

1. It’s cognitively hard to not be yourself - we’re not thinking at our best
2. It’s emotionally draining to not be yourself - we’re not as aware or in control of our emotions
3. We’re anxious because we can’t fully anticipate what the other person may want or expect - we’re putting effort into guessing at their needs and interests

Taken together it’s a recipe for poor performance.

Being yourself makes the best impression. Guessing at others’ needs is far less effective.

Now the next step is if we can genuinely take others’ interests into account. To do that, we need to ask people about their needs and interests. Then we don’t need to guess at their needs, and we can still be ourselves. We can be genuine, informed and empathetic. That sounds much better than guessing at others’ needs and pretending to be something we’re not.

I hope you found that helpful. As always, the research referenced in this episode is available in the show notes at our website - leadership.today

While you’re there, why not check out our upcoming webinar. Each month we run a free 45 minute webinar on a wide range of topics. If you can’t make the session, you will receive a link to a recording to watch at your own time.

Have a great week, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

Reference

To be or not to be your authentic self? Catering to others’ preferences hinders performance. Francesca Gino, Ovul Sezer, Laura Huang, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 158, May 2020, Pages 83-100

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Summary We routinely prioritise activities that have a deadline over far more important but not urgent activities. That includes our tendency to sacrifice breaks when we’re busy. But a break might be exactly what we need to boost our performance.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 87 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at the importance of taking breaks to achieve even higher levels of performance.

Researchers call it the mere urgency effect. It’s the finding that people routinely prioritise tasks with a deadline independent of their importance, over far more important tasks that don’t have a deadline. So even if another activity has much greater potential for outcomes, we will instead focus on a task with a deadline even if it isn’t really that important. The researchers found that this effect is even more pronounced in those who consider themselves to be ‘busy’.

Being busy and being effective rarely go together. We have work cultures that celebrate busy-ness above all else. I remember being cc’d on a farewell email which repeatedly spoke about the long hours this person worked, and how they had earned a rest in retirement. There was no mention of the outcomes they achieved, the difference they made to the business, or the legacy they left in others - just the long hours and the well-earned rest. Is that what you want to hear at your retirement?

The science shows that we need both stress and recovery to be truly effective. Long hours without breaks are not good for productivity and performance. Taking this to the next level, a few organisations have trialled four day weeks. In these cases employees were paid the same as they would have received for a five day week but only needed to work four days. The shorter of the two studies, with Microsoft Japan over a 5 week time frame, saw significant productivity increases of 40%. Another organisation, Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, found job performance was maintained, but other factors such as engagement, work/life balance and stress all improved markedly. People could deliver just as much if not more in 20% less time. Clearly when it comes to performance not every hour is created equal.

This contrasts with recent research from the UK which showed 82% of people don’t always take breaks. This is despite breaks being legally required for shifts of over 6 hours. The research showed that some people always take breaks, some people rarely take breaks, but most people fluctuate. Even though people were aware of the health and well-being benefits, completing tasks was still prioritised over taking breaks. A break is often seen as optional, and one of the things that is first to go when we get busy. The research also demonstrated that pressure from managers made a difference both ways. The manager sets the tone as to whether breaks are normal or not. We need to be careful about what we role model to our people. If we say ‘take a break’ but routinely eat lunch at our desk, guess which behaviour your people are going to follow?

Here’s the problem - If we see breaks as just an opportunity to boost an individual’s well-being at the expense of productivity, the work will always win. But the science is clear - breaks increase our productivity. Way back in episode 29 we talked about chronotypes - that our energy and attention levels fluctuate across the day, with most people favouring the morning, while some favour the afternoon and evening. But we’re not victims of our chronotype. We can recharge our energy and attention levels through frequent breaks.

Some years ago I undertook some consulting work with a power plant. The production team was focused on, not surprisingly, production. In their minds the best scenario was to run the plant continuously and never give the plant a break. Then there was the maintenance team. In their mind the best scenario was to never run the plant so everything could be maintained at peak condition. Now those are extreme perspectives and the leaders in those areas wouldn’t express it that clearly, but their actions bore it out. The pressure to run the plant at 100% collided with the risk that the entire plant could be taken out by equipment failure. But the owners and senior leaders tended to favour production over maintenance. The business made money through production, but only ever seemed to lose money through maintenance. Interestingly, even several significant unplanned outages didn’t change their perspective. Clearly well-planned maintenance together with realistic production is the best scenario.

As human beings we face the same dilemma. Time doing work is favoured over long-term productivity and performance. “Just get it done” is the norm, not “make sure you refresh and re-energise”.

Is there another way? How might we avoid the mere urgency effect? Here’s how you might make a change:

1. Implement a trial and experiment on yourself. What works for others may not work for you, so prepare to try a few different approaches.
2. Measure your productivity - track it with numbers. This will give you a baseline measure that you can use for comparison.
3. Remove the choice to take breaks - schedule them in and take them. Make breaks as important as a meeting with your boss. I suggest putting them in your calendar so others can’t book meetings over the top.
4. Use breaks to tackle those important but non-urgent activities like refuelling, exercise, connecting with people, or planning for the future. Don’t just fritter the breaks away on time wasters like social media.
5. Measure your energy, attention and productivity across the day. Use an hourly reminder and rate each factor out of 100%.
6. Keep experimenting. Play around with how long you work before a break, with the length of breaks, and with what you do on those breaks. Implement a new trial.
7. As a leader, encourage your people to do the same.

I trust this helps in taking you out of the world of mere urgency, and allows you to deliver even greater results while also looking after yourself and others.

As always, the references used in this episode are in the show notes at the leadership.today website. And while you’re there, follow the “on demand” link to find recorded webinars and our Boost Your Assertiveness online course, all available with a free 7 day trial.

References Mike Oliver, Karen Rodham, Jennifer Taylor & Claire McIver (2020) Understanding the psychological and social influences on office workers taking breaks; a thematic analysis, Psychology & Health, DOI: 10.1080/08870446.2020.1764954

Meng Zhu, Yang Yang, Christopher K Hsee (October 2018) The Mere Urgency Effect, Journal of Consumer Research.

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Summary When things inevitably go wrong, it’s far better to treat yourself like your best friend rather than your worst critic. A little self-compassion goes a long way.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 86 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at the importance of self-compassion when we’re faced with setbacks and disappointments.

It was early in my career and it had been a crazy week. We had a client event coming up and needed to get physical invitations out to people as soon as possible. I put my hand up to organise the invitations and get them out the door the same day. After some quick design work and a proof read by a colleague, the invitations were on their way to clients. As the team sat together on the Friday morning that same week, a few printed invites were handed around. I received a few congratulations for having the invitations out so quickly. It was at that point that one of the Directors said “we have a problem here”. I thought he was joking, but the look on his face said otherwise. It turned out that in my haste I had put the wrong street name on the invitation, automatically inserting the street from my previous workplace. At that point, the person who had proof read the invitation and given it the all clear helpfully pointed out that they hadn’t proof read the invitations “for the details”. I was well and truly thrown under the bus. Over 20 years later I can still remember the feeling of embarrassment, disappointment and frustration.

We’ve all had moments like that when we feel like we’ve let others down. They can really play havoc on our well-being and productivity. So how do we best respond in those moments? Research demonstrates that a little self-compassion goes a long way.

Researcher Zessin and colleagues describe self-compassion as “a positive and caring attitude of a person toward her- or himself in the face of failures and individual shortcomings”. Self-compassion is about remaining positive about ourselves, and also treating ourselves in a kind way. Their analysis, combining 79 research papers, found that self-compassion is crucial for well-being. That if we are positive and caring towards ourselves, we are going to be far better off when things inevitably go wrong. We can then maintain our composure and be able to perform more effectively.

Research demonstrates that, when we mess things up, it’s natural to experience negative emotions, reduced self-esteem, and even to feel excluded from the group. Self-compassion appears to buffer individuals from these adverse impacts, helping people to experience fewer negative emotions while still feeling a part of the group that they let down.

Other research shows that those with greater self-compassion feel less stressed when they end up procrastinating. So even if it is just ourselves that we’re letting down, having self-compassion can help a lot.

I was eventually able to see my invitation error as a mistake that anyone could have made, and to draw out learnings from the situation. But it took weeks, not moments, to get to that point. So how do we move to acceptance faster? How do we boost our self-compassion?

To answer those questions, it’s helpful to explore the different elements of self-compassion that researchers focus on. Self-compassion is often divided into three components: self-kindness, mindfulness and common humanity. Each provides an insight into how to build our levels of self-compassion:

1. Self-kindness - here we acknowledge the pain, but are then kind to ourselves. A helpful approach can be to consider how you would respond to a friend in the same situation. We’re often far more compassionate to others than to ourselves. Taking the perspective of a considerate friend can provide a useful vantage point to put our failures into perspective.
2. Mindfulness - this is about being aware of our emotions and keeping them balanced. When things go wrong it’s normal to experience negative emotions, but it’s important to not let ourselves tip into exclusively negative territory. It can be helpful to focus on what we have learned through the situation. We also want to challenge our negative self-talk. Journalling is an approach that can help. The act of writing out the details of the situation and how we are thinking and feeling about events can make it easier to challenge the negative response we might be experiencing.
3. Common humanity - here we are recognising that everyone experiences challenges and set backs. Part of our common humanity is a tendency to get things wrong. Mistakes and growth can go hand in hand if we allow them to. I’ve found that if things are hard then I’m probably learning something - I’m sure that’s true for you too.

So how are you when it comes to self-compassion? It’s far better to act like your best friend rather than your worst critic. Allow yourself to experience the pain and take responsibility when you do mess up, but be kind to yourself so you can move forward.

Well, would you believe it has been two years since I launched the Leadership Today podcast. In that time we’ve had 86 main episodes and 13 Midweek Motivate episodes - 99 in total. Over that time we’ve cracked it onto the management podcast charts in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Singapore, Uganda and the United States. All of this was to help thousands of leaders to achieve results through people for good. I’m really thankful for the people I’ve met along the way, and look forward to extending into our third year. And, as is apparently mandatory at the end of all podcasts, if Leadership Today has been helpful to you, a great way to say thanks is with a rating and review, or just sharing the podcast with a friend. Have a great week.

References Zessin, U., Dickhäuser, O., & Garbade, S. (2015). The relationship between self‐compassion and well‐being: A meta‐analysis. Applied Psychology: Health and Well‐Being, 7(3), 340-364.

James H. Wirth, Ashley Batts Allen and Emily M. Zitek Self-Compassion Buffers Against the Negative Effects of a Poor Performance. Social Psychology, May 2020.

Sirois, F. M. (2014). Procrastination and stress: Exploring the role of self-compassion. Self and Identity, 13(2), 128-145.

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Summary The most widely cited model when it comes to development is 70/20/10. While it is often referenced, it is also frequently misunderstood. This week we look at why development isn’t quite 70/20/10.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 85 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at why development isn’t quite 70/20/10.

The most widely cited model when it comes to development is 70/20/10. While it is often referenced, it is also frequently misunderstood. The idea is that organisations and individuals should focus development opportunities around three different areas:

• 70% of development should be “on the job”
• 20% should be with “other people”
• 10% should be through “courses”

So where did these suspiciously rounded-off figures come from? 70/20/10 was coined by Bob Eichinger, Mike Lombardo and Morgan McCall in the 1980s with the Center for Creative Leadership. They arrived at the figures based on responses from senior executives about their key development experiences. The 70/20/10 proportions were a rounded-off representation of the themes coming through those reflections. Despite the widespread acceptance of the model, it has also received a number of criticisms, most of which are unfair. For example, some suggest that 70/20/10 is saying that formal learning isn’t important, or that the ‘on the job’ component is passive. Neither of those really reflect the model and the authors’ intent.

One reasonable criticism is that the work was based on a relatively small number of US executives who also turned out to be predominantly male and white. Anyone who is familiar with research into leadership will recognise this isn’t the only place where this has been a problem. In fact some argue that the bulk of psychological research has been conducted on university and college students - hardly a representative sample of the population. In addition, it does suffer from what we could call ‘survivor bias’. When we ask existing leaders to reflect back on what made them successful, we’re staring back in time to what made these people successful during the 1970s. A similar criticism can be levelled at research based on successful entrepreneurs who gain an almost cult-like status. If we ignore all of the unsuccessful entrepreneurs whose businesses failed, it’s hard to gain a true perspective on what really made the difference for the successful ones.

The original intent of the model was to encourage organisations to proactively focus on the development of their people, and that a great way of doing that is through the work they conduct, the people they interact with, and the occasional more formal training they undertake. If we accept that original intent, it’s easy to see that 70/20/10 is a helpful guide when considering development opportunities.

Since the original study the Center for Creative Leadership has updated the figures using a broader and more diverse sample. They have drawn out some interesting nuances to the model. Their latest research shows that the 70% “on the job” element is actually made up of challenging assignments (45%) and hardships such as business mistakes or losing a job (22%). So the 70 is actually 67. The updated 20% “other people” is actually 23%. And the 10% “courses” is actually 5% coursework and 5% personal life.

I’m sure you will appreciate that calling 70/20/10 the 45/22/23/5/5 model is far less catchy, so it’s okay to stick with 70/20/10. What I find most interesting is the picking apart of the “on the job” component.

As I flagged earlier, often “on the job” is misinterpreted as passive learning - that somehow learning and development will just happen as people go about their day job. But the “on the job” element is not just business as usual. As CCL have highlighted, 45% of our leadership development tends to be through stretching and challenging assignments. We can take a proactive approach to giving people challenging accountabilities and roles in the context of their development goals. That would go a long way towards helping people to grow and develop. The tension we face in doing that is organisations typically want people who can already do the job, whereas individuals typically want jobs that allow them to develop. So organisations will need to shift towards seeing appointments and promotions as development opportunities, at least in part. We can still assess whether people have potential, but even the best tools still require us to roll the dice a bit on talent. Taking this approach may actually reduce the certainty that someone will work out. But it does reinforce, again, the importance of the “20” (or 23) part of 70/20/10. If we’re going to stretch people, then we really need to surround them with people who can support and encourage their development. Giving someone a stretch assignment is far more like growing a plant from a seedling than it is like screwing in a new light bulb.

You might want to think about and discuss with your people the kind of stretch assignments that might aide in their development. If I think back through my career, I really wasn’t ready for my first consulting role, my first people management role, my first executive leadership role, or for running my own business. Each transition felt like jumping into the deep end of the pool yet again. But it always felt like I had people around me cheering me on who were prepared to jump in to rescue me occasionally if that’s what it took. In summary, 45% of our development is likely to come from challenging assignments. Work with your people to help identify their development goals and options to safely stretch them.

I find the 22% of development coming from hardships really interesting. Does it mean that we should manufacture hardships for our people? Obviously not, although I do occasionally think that’s what some leaders are trying to do. Rather we should see hardships as a key element of development. They are a great chance to learn, provided people see them that way and are supported to draw out the key development outcomes. Of course, hardships are more likely as you take on greater responsibility. As you work with people to give them challenging assignments, you’re also increasing the risk of hardships. Think back over the hardships in your own career and how much you learned. For me the global financial crisis was one of the greatest business hardships I’ve experienced. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the development gained through that tough time coincided with me being in a stretching role.

Here in July 2020 we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic. Are we helping our people to use this hardship as a development opportunity? Are we taking that mindset into it ourselves? Perhaps one way to help ourselves and our people come through this time is to focus on the opportunities to stretch and grow.

In all of this, the 70/20/10 model reminds us that we each need an opportunity to reflect and build on the learning through connections. Provide people with the opportunity to connect and reflect on hardships and learning. Be there for your people as they are stretched beyond what they think they can do. If we do this, we will all emerge stronger and more capable.

As I wrap things up and on a more personal note - how are you going? Can I encourage you that if you’re finding these current circumstances challenging and stressful then, congratulations, you’re a human being like the rest of us. Hopefully this episode reminds each of us of the opportunity to emerge stronger, and the need to support others through to the other side, whatever that might look like. Have a great week.

Reference Putting Experience at the Center of Talent Management By: Joan Gurvis, Cindy McCauley, and Milynn Swofford. Center for Creative Leadership

https://cclinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/talentmanagement.e-1.pdf

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Summary Being a great leader isn’t about having all the answers - it’s often about asking the right questions. This week we look at ten great questions leaders ask.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 84 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at ten great questions leaders ask.

One of the most significant societal and workplace shifts over the past two decades has been from answers to questions. Like many of you, I grew up before the internet. If I had a question about something, there was only a few options of where I could turn for answers. There was the school library which had, amongst other books, a complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. At home we had the more budget version - the World Book Encyclopaedia. In order to keep the encyclopaedias up to date, the publishers would send out a 'Year Book' update each year. That included little tabs that you could put in the relevant spots in the original encyclopaedia to point out that the information was now out of date, and which year book to refer to instead.

Answers were difficult to find and expensive to access. Even simple things like finding out movie session times involved buying the newspaper or a phone call to the cinema. The relative cost of answers meant that you were very careful in the questions you asked, and relatively trusting in the material presented.

The internet changed everything. Firing up Netscape Navigator allowed information and answers from all over the world to suddenly be at our finger tips...if only we could find them.

Services like Google helped to categorise content and make it searchable. Over the next few years answers suddenly became cheap. Now you don’t need to go to the library or buy the book, because chances are someone else has written the same content up online. If you want to know the history of France, how birds fly or how to fix your washing machine, the internet is your one stop shop for information. Answers have become prevalent and cheap. It’s now the trustworthiness and quality of answers that varies.

Questions are the valuable commodity now. Perhaps they always have been, but even more so in this landslide of opinion and content. As leaders our role is less about providing answers, and more about helping people to ask the right questions. Great questions help people to discern between competing opinions in order to craft a way forward. As research has highlighted, questions build both liking and learning - they help to build connections and trust. Yet many of our educational institutions and workplaces still focus on rote learning and parroting back facts.

So what are some great questions to ask? A quick search on Google revealed “350 Good Questions to Ask - The only list you'll need” followed by the next entry “253 Good Questions to Ask - The only list you'll need.” As tempting as it is to just copy and paste those posts in, instead here are 10 questions I have fond helpful that provoke, challenge and extend our thinking:

1. What are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? There’s a reason why a SWOT analysis is still beneficial. It forces us to look outside at the upside and downside possibilities, while also considering our own capabilities.
2. What does success look like? People work together more effectively when they’re clear about the end state they’re working towards.
3. What’s the problem we’re trying to solve? Sometimes we can be busy trying to solve something when we’re actually not clear about the problem. As a result we can end up working towards solving the wrong problem. Work with people to define a problem statement - episode 33 has more information on how to structure that.
4. Who else is involved or impacted? It’s easy for us to overlook the human element of situations, so always make an effort to consider who else should be involved.
5. What else could we try? We often stop at the first proposed solution but that’s rarely the best way forward. Instead, make sure you bring out as many options as possible.
6. How do you feel about this? We can underestimate the emotional element. Feelings matter and they impact our ability to make decisions.
7. What’s getting in our way? Or What is likely to get in the way? It’s important to anticipate obstacles so we can plan options to push through or avoid them.
8. What progress have we made? Often we don’t spend enough time reflecting on the progress we have made. Taking time to reflect can help encourage us to keep going.
9. What support is available? We often underestimate the amount of support available to us. It’s important to consider the people and resources around that can be of assistance.
10. What will we do next? Help your people to move beyond conversation to action. I often encourage people to think about what they can do in the next 24 to 48 hours.

There will always be places on leadership teams for those who can ask the right questions. It turns out that a great question is as much about innovation as it is about information - it takes the conversation forward in a new direction. As leaders we need to focus less energy trying to have all the answers, and spend more time getting the questions right.

Well I hope that was helpful. I’ve brought together a range of our on demand resources into one place. This includes recordings of webinars on a range of leadership topics, and our Boost Your Assertiveness course. Each month I’ll add another webinar, and there will be an additional video course added each quarter. Just go to the leadership.today website and click on the on demand link to take a free 7 day trial. Have a great week.

Reference The Surprising Power of Questions by Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John
Harvard Business Review, May–June 2018 Issue
https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-surprising-power-of-questions

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Summary It’s often easy to see feedback as criticism. As a result, we can be tempted to ignore it or react negatively. This week we look at turning criticism into feedback and growth.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 83 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at turning criticism into feedback and growth.

Very early in my career, my boss at the time called me into his office. While I can’t remember the exact words, I vividly remember the impact. In effect he said “Andrew - you’re smart and doing good work. But you can use your critical thinking to be very critical. Rather than just spotting what’s wrong, you would benefit from being more positive and trying to improve things yourself”. I remember feeling hurt, disappointed, upset, confronted and discouraged. And I remember reflecting in the coming days that he was absolutely right. It was amongst the most helpful feedback I have ever received.

“I have some feedback for you” - be honest, what’s your immediate response to those words? What’s going on in your body? Are you feeling excited about someone giving you feedback? Probably not. More likely you are heading towards a threat response.

Our instinctive reaction is often to see feedback as criticism. But what is the difference between feedback and criticism? The difference is the perceived intent. If you think people are seeking to help you, it will feel like feedback. If you think people are seeking to hurt you, it will feel like criticism. It took me a few days, but I recognised that my boss was trying to help me. He saw potential in me, and astutely identified exactly what was holding me back. In fact over 20 years and numerous career moves later, that same ex-boss continues to provide excellent feedback and advice. I’m glad I was able to convert what I initially saw as criticism into feedback and growth.

As argued by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, feedback is often self-centred and poorly structured. Rather than bringing out the best in others, it’s often an attempt to transfer advice from one person to another. It’s better to think of feedback as an input in the development journey. Feedback isn’t about telling someone what to do, rather it’s about allowing them to see their impact more clearly so they can better align that with their intent. Often times the impact we have is vastly different to our intent.

Feedback is not always packaged well. As a result it can be tempting to just dismiss the feedback. On the receiving end it’s easy to think that it is just their perception of events. But their perception is also their reality. To us our perception IS our reality. It’s how we see the world.

When we take on more of a growth mindset, we take feedback and even criticism as an opportunity to learn, grow and adapt. We look for the reality in the perception.

Here are five tips for receiving feedback, and five tips for providing feedback.

On the receiving end of feedback:

1. Assume positive intent or, if you can’t do that, separate the feedback from the intent. People rarely provide feedback to hurt you, after all giving feedback is hard and risky. But even if you think the feedback is meant to hurt or limit you, change your perspective to see it as data.
2. Seek further information. Ask the person for an example that relates to the feedback. This will help you to understand what you actually did and the impact it had. Help the person to make the impact you had even clearer. Make sure you express this as a desire to understand rather than to question their feedback.
3. Listen for the core of truth. Even if you’re unsure that the intent is positive, there’s probably some truth in the feedback. Sift through the feedback to find the truth.
4. Let the person providing the feedback know the impact their feedback has had upon you. Don’t let people guess at the impact.
5. Seek further feedback. Even if it hurts and is hard, ask for and actively seek out additional feedback. It’s the best way to grow and change our impact.

And when we’re providing feedback:

1. Share your positive intent. Now, this isn’t about a feedback sandwich approach - it’s not about inserting negative feedback between two positive pieces of feedback. It’s about enveloping your feedback in positive intent. Ensure that people walk away knowing that you’re on their side and want to help them become even more effective.
2. Seek their perspective and response. Don’t just drop the feedback and walk away. It’s important to gain their perspective about the situation.
3. Invite a follow up meeting. While you’ve planned to provide the feedback, they haven’t had that same chance. Make sure they do have an opportunity to think about that and have some additional time with you.
4. Dial up the positive feedback. We don’t provide enough positive feedback. Think of it like a bank account - the more positive and encouraging feedback you provide, the greater the balance you have to draw on when you need to provide more challenging feedback.
5. Model an appetite for feedback. It’s not reasonable to wander around throwing feedback at everyone if you’re not open to receiving feedback yourself. Actively seek out feedback about specific areas.

Each of us can help turn criticism into feedback and growth. I hope you found the content helpful today in doing exactly that. We run webinars on a pretty regular basis here at Leadership Today on a range of topics, and so on the website at leadership.today you will find a bunch of pre-recorded webinars that we’ve done and also an upcoming webinar that you can register for. I look forward to seeing you on one of those webinars and also to speaking with you again next week. Have a great week.

References The Feedback Fallacy by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall
Harvard Business Review March–April 2019
https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy

And a response to the article worth reading: https://hbr.org/2019/05/what-good-feedback-really-looks-like

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Summary

When faced with unexpected negative outcomes, people tend to become more paranoid and attracted to conspiracy theories. This negatively impacts their ability to make sound, rational decisions. This week we look at five ways leaders can help overcome our tendency towards paranoia when faced with uncertainty.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 82 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at five ways leaders can help overcome our tendency towards paranoia when faced with uncertainty.

A firm I worked for was going through an acquisition. As part of the company being acquired, that meant moving to some beautiful new offices on a high floor overlooking gardens. We had only just moved in when there was the first of many morning teas to celebrate birthdays in the office. As we made our way into the open kitchen area I could not believe the amount of food. There wasn’t just the traditional birthday cake, but also sushi, sandwiches, spring rolls and pastries filling the large table. Just before the speech began, I heard a low voice next to me say “Hey - you’re one of the new guys, yeah? So here’s the deal - make sure you take as much food as you can - maybe for lunch or to take home. Otherwise if there’s food left over the management will cut back on how much they order next time”. Sure enough, once we finished singing happy birthday, people were making their way back to their desks with loaded plates and containers full of food - more than enough to cover their lunch if not another meal on top of that. To me it looked like a somewhat overly generous way to celebrate staff and bring people together. But for the paranoid whisperer, the birthday celebrations had become just another way that the leaders were scheming to take something away from the workers. The acquisition provided fertile ground for all sorts of conspiracy theories and paranoia.

How prevalent is paranoia? One study showed 20% of people believe that someone was against them at some time during the last year. 8% of the population believe others are actively out to harm them.

In a work context, I’ve lost count of how many times people have said “the management” or some other elusive group were out to get them. There have been accusations of sabotage, stealing clients, or other teams intentionally making things hard out of spite. All of this resulted in cultures driven by blame, fear and even revenge.

Research demonstrates that paranoia is a predictable response to uncertainty and unexpected change. As human beings we try to make sense of negative and unexpected events, and often that involves finding someone to blame. Blaming others helps us to explain and make sense of events, even if the conspiracy theory we put together seems a little strange to others.

In one study researchers measured people’s levels of paranoia and then had them play a card game where the chances of winning were manipulated during the game. Those with greater levels of paranoia tended not to learn from the outcomes in the game, expecting even higher levels of volatility than was present. High levels of paranoia decreased effectiveness. They made decisions and choices that weren’t based on the experience of playing the game, but rather based on their perceptions of the person leading the game. As the experimenters increased the level of uncertainty, even the initially low paranoia participants started acting like those with high paranoia. Their learning also decreased and they became far less effective. When uncertainty was high decisions were based far more on their expectations than on real-time experience.

Now I can guess what you’re thinking - when bad things are happening to you, surely it’s natural to feel paranoid. But in an earlier study, researchers found that even when just observing a similar game people were inclined to become paranoid towards the person running the game as the uncertainty increased. You don’t have to be on the receiving end of the negative outcome to become paranoid.

As the the author of Catch-22 Joseph Heller said, “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” However, we often see ourselves as being in the spotlight - as if we are the main actor in a performance revolving around us. It’s easy to then think that if something unexpectedly bad happens, that someone around us is pulling the strings. We can become hyper-attuned to others as a source of risk, particularly if we don’t know them well. But if you have to choose between conspiracy and a misunderstanding, go with the misunderstanding every time. People aren’t very good at conspiracies.

So what can we do about all of this? As a leader when the unexpected happens:

1. Create meaning even if you can’t explain everything. Part of your role as leader is as meaning-maker. What do these events mean for the team and for individuals?
2. Find the predictable. Grab a hold of what you can control, and encourage your team to do the same. This helps to increase the level of certainty within your team.
3. Talk about the risk of paranoia and conspiracy theories. You might even share this research so people can manage the risk of conspiracy theories and pull themselves up when they see themselves falling into that trap.
4. Challenge interpretations of negative intent. Help people to steer away from assuming others are out to get them, and explore other potential reasons that might be driving their behaviour.
5. Connect people. It’s much harder to think those you personally know well are conspirators against you. Help your team to understand their world and the pressures they are facing, then identify ways you can support each other.

Paranoia is a natural response to uncertain times, but that doesn’t mean we have to put up with it. I hope these ideas will help you to steer your team through challenging times, bringing people together rather than driving them apart.

As always I’ve provided details of the research used in this episode in the show notes. And just before you continue on with your day, why not make sure you’ve hit the subscribe button and provided a rating for the podcast. That will help you and others to find future episodes. Have a great week.

References

Erin J Reed, Stefan Uddenberg, Praveen Suthaharan, Christoph D Mathys, Jane R Taylor, Stephanie Mary Groman, Philip R Corlett. Paranoia as a deficit in non-social belief updating. eLife, 2020; 9 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.56345

Raihani, N.J., Bell, V. Paranoia and the social representation of others: a large-scale game theory approach. Sci Rep 7, 4544 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-04805-3

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Summary

The objective of leadership is aligned motivation. When we inspire people from the outside in we build a team that contributes because they want to, rather than because they have to.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 81 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at inspiring others from the outside in.

The objective of leadership is aligned motivation. As leaders we want a group of people who aren’t just motivated, but are motivated towards the same vision and objectives. There’s no point in having a group of motivated people who are headed in different directions. It’s not much better to have a group of people who know exactly where they are headed, but lack the motivation and drive to get there. As leaders we need to align the motivation of our people.

But how do we achieve this? Do we just need to hire people who are already on board with where we are headed as an organisation? And then what happens when the direction changes? How do we move people towards a new vision and direction? That’s where understanding human motivation can be really helpful.

I’ve referred to the work of Deci and Ryan before. It’s fair to say that they have done more to build our modern understanding of motivation than any other researchers. Deci and Ryan suggest that we often think about motivation as a single thing - that motivation varies just in amount. As a result we then try to work out how to make a person more motivated to do something we want, or less motivated to do something we don’t want. Their work demonstrates that it’s more helpful and accurate to think about types of motivation.

The first distinction they make is between autonomous and controlled motivation. With autonomous motivation I’m doing something with a sense of willingness, volition and choice. I’m undertaking the action or completing the work because I enjoy doing it, and I find it interesting and personally valuable. It’s likely the work aligns with my values and interests. With autonomous motivation I do it because I want to.

With controlled motivation I’m doing something to gain a reward or to avoid punishment. I’m completing the work because I feel pressured, demanded or obliged. With controlled motivation I do it because I have to (or at least I feel like I have to).

Not surprisingly, Deci and Ryan found that autonomous motivation is much better for performance, creativity, problem solving, well-being and engagement. Having freedom and autonomy is a basic human need. We’re much better off as human beings when we have autonomy and freedom.

When we think about autonomous motivation, we typically think about it in terms of intrinsic motivation - that it’s something inside of us. Here we are doing the activity or work because we personally find it interesting and enjoyable, and not just because someone told us to do it. So it’s easy to think of intrinsic motivation as ‘good’. People then contrast that with extrinsic motivation, where we are doing an activity in order to get something else. That ‘something else’ might be a financial outcome, the praise and approval of others, or a good grade. Therefore many people lump all types of extrinsic motivation into the ‘bad’ category.

However, Deci and Ryan found that people could internalise extrinsic motivation in a way where they own it as their own. Over time a person could come to understand the inherent value of the activity and integrate it into who they are. The extrinsic element could be an idea or a concept such as a team purpose. If I come to identify with that purpose, I can eventually own the purpose as my own. At that point I have become autonomously motivated. I’ve taken the extrinsic idea and made it an intrinsic purpose. The leader who has helped me to do that has aligned my motivation. At that point I’m not doing it because you told me to do it, rather I’m doing it because I want to do it.

It’s perhaps a subtle difference, but our job as leaders isn’t to motivate people, but rather to inspire them. When we inspire someone we are sparking their motivation towards a particular direction. That’s different to thinking we can somehow impart motivation onto others, or force them to be motivated. This change in mindset helps us to understand that aligned motivation is about inspiring people. As Deci puts it, it’s not about focusing on how we can motivate others, but rather how we can set up the conditions where people can motivate themselves.

So how do we go about inspiring people from the outside in?

1. Understand what motivates our people. We take the time to uncover what connects people to the work, and what motivates them outside of work. We need to understand their perspective and interests. That takes time - there aren’t any short cuts.
2. Communicate a compelling vision. We take our plans and shape them into a vision that is clear, concise and memorable. It’s an influencing exercise. We need to approach it the same way we would try to sell someone a new product or service. It’s an upfront investment that will pay dividends later.
3. Align individuals to the vision. We work with each individual to help explain the vision and why it matters in a way that is aligned with their interests. We allow our people to make the choice to engage.
4. Define roles in the context of the vision. We take the time to ensure all the work we undertake links back to the vision.

This helps to explain why the ‘me too’ and ‘black lives matter’ movements have been so successful in engaging a broader group of people where other approaches have had limited success. By way of illustration, both movements have allowed me as a white male to see my role in being part of the solution. So even though I haven’t been on the receiving end of sexism, exploitation, racism or abuse in any significant way, I have been able to align my motivation with those who have. The countless leaders in both movements haven’t motivated me, rather they have set out the conditions that allow me to understand their perspective and how that aligns with my own, and then demonstrated how I can support and help. That’s a very different approach to telling me I have to change, even though clearly I have unwittingly benefited from being on the better end of the equation for years. Rather the leaders have inspired me by drawing out my personal values of fairness and equality, and by encouraging me to take action. And that’s what great leadership looks like.

When we inspire people from the outside in we align their motivation, building a team that contributes because they want to, rather than because they have to. Great leaders take the time to listen and understand first.

I hope you found that episode helpful. In the show notes I’ve included links to a couple of videos with Edward Deci explaining Self-Determination Theory in more detail.

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6fm1gt5YAM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGrcets0E6I

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Hello there. Welcome to midweek motivate, where our goal is to build your leadership and give you something practical to try with your team.

We are in the final week of a six week coverage of the Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders. So far we’ve looked at the importance of Reflecting, Inspiring, Developing, Connecting and Delegating. The final daily practice that we will explore today is Clearing.

Research I conducted early this year showed that 48% of people experience frustrations that impact their productivity at least daily. Those experiencing frustrations multiple times per day estimated their productivity at just 64% of what they could otherwise bring. 80% of those who experienced frustrations multiple times per day also said they frequently experienced negative work related stress. In summary, frustration are bad for your organisation, and even worse for your people. However people are often reluctant to voice their frustrations as they don’t want to be seen as negative.

Leaders can help by Clearing the way for their people. Such leaders undertake four activities:

1. Identify frustrations - they work with their people to find out where frustrations exist. There’s no point in trying to ignore frustrations as that just makes things work. Take the time to actively seek out what’s getting in the way for people.
2. Investigate cause and impact - sometimes we can’t change the cause of a frustration, but Clearing leaders recognise they can still reduce the impact of the frustrations on their people.
3. Champion continuous improvement - we don’t need to fix everything overnight. If we help our teams to continuously improve each day, we can significantly reduce frustrations over time.
4. Measure and communicate productivity - frustrations directly impact productivity. It can be incredibly helpful to measure productivity and share with the team the positive impact of removing frustrations.

I encourage you to talk to your people this week about frustrations that impact their productivity. If you want to review the list of actions I’ve included it in the show notes.

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This week is a replay of our 24th August 2019 episode - Seven Reasons to Get Back to Nature. We will be back next week with a brand new episode.

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Welcome to midweek motivate, where our goal is to build your leadership and give you something practical to try with your team.

We are part way through a six week coverage of the Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders. So far we’ve looked at the importance of Reflecting, Inspiring, Developing and Connecting. The fifth daily practice that we will explore today is Delegating.

I used to really struggle with delegating. When I first became a manager I quickly realised that I needed to delegate. There just weren’t enough hours in the day. But often times it was quicker and easier to just do something myself. I saw delegating as a short-term efficiency effort that didn’t work in the short-term and definitely wasn’t efficient. Eventually I came to understand that delegation is actually about long-term development and capability building. Once that light came on, I was happy to delegate anything. The unavoidable dip in performance and quality that came with delegation didn’t put me off - rather, it was a reminder that the person was learning.

Leaders who focus on Delegating regularly undertake four activities:

1. Delegate important work - great leaders take key parts of their role and delegate them to their people.
2. Take a long-term view - you have to extend your focus beyond this week or this month when it comes to delegating.
3. Provide feedback - relentless feedback is a key part of successful delegation. But be clear that your intent is to help the person to improve, and not to micromanage what they’re doing.
4. Focus on accountabilities - people may well do things differently to the way you would have. In fact, they may even do it better. Give people plenty of autonomy about how to get things done.

I’m sure, of that list, there are at least one or two actions you could increase this week. If you want to review the list I’ve included them in the show notes.

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Summary

We would all hope that going good for others helps to create more positive work places. Recent research highlights the contagious nature of kind acts at work.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 80 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at the surprising benefits of doing good.

We would all hope that doing good for others helps to create more positive workplaces. But doing good can become scarce when people are under pressure.

Let’s start with the flip side to doing good. In episode 62 I shared Christine Porath’s work on incivility in the workplace highlighting the negative impact on work effort, quality and performance which also tends to flow on to treatment of customers. Whether it’s losing your temper, being rude, withholding information, running down someone’s reputation, or sabotaging a piece of work, it’s easy to see how incivility is so damaging in the workplace. So organisations have made a real effort to reduce these sorts of negative behaviours.

All those efforts, at best, take us back to a neutral position where people aren’t being actively negative towards others. But it’s really difficult to be neutral towards other people. We tend to be either positive or negative in our impact during our interactions with those around us.

Each of the world’s major religions have a variation of the golden rule - treat others as you would like them to treat you. In Judaism it’s expressed as loving your neighbour as yourself, words that Jesus restates during the early foundations of Christianity. From that perspective, the golden rule is not just a minimum standard, but a call to be kind and good to others.

I know you’re already thanking me for the first year philosophy and ethics lecture so let’s take a deeper look at the research around doing good at work, or what researchers typically call pro-social behaviour.

A just released research review from The University of Texas demonstrates that cooperative behaviour is contagious. When people see someone perform an act of kindness, they in turn are more likely to be kind. And the effect wasn’t just about being on the receiving end of the positive act. In fact, the motivation to be kind was strongest when the kind act was witnessed, rather than when it was personally received. That’s right - you’re more likely to be kind to others when you see someone being kind, rather than being on the receiving end of kindness.

Another study undertaken in the workplace included participants who were asked to perform acts of kindness for their colleagues. The impact of these kind actions were noticed by others, leading to greater perceived levels of autonomy and higher ratings of happiness. The study even found the old adage to be true - that it’s better to give than receive. Those undertaking acts of kindness rated their life satisfaction and job satisfaction higher a full month after the intervention finished. Those on the receiving end of kind acts also tended to pay that kindness forward to others.

So the research is pretty clear - if you want to increase the amount of good in your workplace, share examples of people being good towards others. This role-modelling is particularly powerful when it comes from leaders. In a large organisation where I used to work, there was an executive elevator that ran express from the executive car park up to the executive floor. The most senior people could make their way through an entire day without ever seeing anyone that wasn’t an executive. The CEO at the time made a conscious effort to take the elevator from the car park to the ground floor, get out, and then catch the regular elevator with everyone else. He would ask for people’s names and engage in conversation. That simple act probably cost him 10 minutes a day, but it role-modelled that under his leadership anyone could talk to anyone. The message was clear - if the CEO makes an effort to engage with frontline staff, then maybe I should do the same.

So what can you do as a leader to boost the amount of good in your workplace? Here are some ideas:

1. Be kind to others - it will benefit them and you, and it is also likely to be contagious
2. Recruit others to also be kind to others - find some peers who are willing to join you in doing good
3. Share examples of kind acts - this will motivate others to be kind themselves

As always, I hope you found this episode helpful. Can you believe it, we’re up to episode 80 so remember we’ve got a whole back catalogue of research and advice in episodes like this. Just go to the leadership.today website to track those down. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

References Haesung Jung, Eunjin Seo, Eunjoo Han, Marlone D. Henderson, Erika A. Patall. Prosocial modeling: A meta-analytic review and synthesis.. Psychological Bulletin, 2020; DOI: 10.1037/bul0000235

Chancellor, J., Margolis, S., Jacobs Bao, K., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2018). Everyday prosociality in the workplace: The reinforcing benefits of giving, getting, and glimpsing. Emotion, 18(4), 507–517. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000321

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Welcome to midweek motivate, where our goal is to build your leadership and give you something practical to try with your team.

We are part way through a six week coverage of the Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders. So far we’ve looked at the importance of Reflecting, Inspiring and Developing. The fourth daily practice that we will explore today is Connecting.

Deci and Ryan describe three basic human needs that we all have - competence, autonomy and relatedness. We need to feel confident and effective, and also have a sense of control. But we also need to feel we belong, that we are cared for, and have an opportunity to care for others. That might all sound too warm and fuzzy for some. Do organisations really need to provide this sense of belonging and care? Can’t people just sort that out on the weekends?

But those same people may well want increased productivity, collaboration, and integration across departments. They are the organisational benefits of leaders that focus on Connecting. Connecting is the glue that holds the organisation together, while also sustaining people to deliver into the future.

How are you going as a leader when it comes to the daily practice of Connecting? Here’s a quick checkup.

Leaders who focus on Connecting regularly undertake four activities:

1. Connect people with potential supporters - as a leader you don’t need to be the sole source of support and encouragement. Help people to find mentors and other supports across the organisation.
2. Identify organisation-strengthening opportunities - Connecting leaders proactively develop ways to bring different divisions, departments and teams together.
3. Build teamwork - they invest in helping the team to come together and perform more effectively. They recognise it’s about task, process and relationships.
4. Provide support and encouragement - Connecting leaders care for people and help them to feel that they belong.

I’m sure, of that list, there are at least one or two actions you could dial up this week. If you want to review the list I’ve included them in the show notes. Have a great week.

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Summary If you think back over the best workplaces you’ve been a part of, fun was probably a key element. However, the fun was likely to have felt quite natural rather than forced. This week we look at five ways to make the workplace more fun.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 79 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at five ways to make the workplace more fun.

If you think back over the best workplaces you’ve been a part of, fun was probably a key element. However, the fun was likely to have felt quite natural rather than forced. And, in those examples, the fun probably helped rather than hindered productivity.

When times are challenging, our instinct might be to steer away from an enjoyable and light-hearted approach to work. However it is still possible to take the work and results seriously, while also being less serious about the way we deliver.

Research indicates a number of benefits in having fun workplaces:

• Attracting and retaining staff
• Engagement
• Positive mood and emotions
• Increased job satisfaction
• Increased organisational commitment
• Reduced emotional exhaustion - fun actually buffered employees against the otherwise taxing parts of their role

However building a sense of fun can be tricky to achieve. There’s a fine line between real fun and forced fun.

In a business where I used to work, we had an annual Work Christmas party. This usually included lunch at a nice restaurant and some fun activities. However one year we decided to have a dinner instead. Given it was at night instead of during the day, one team member asked if the Christmas party was compulsory and whether they would be paid to attend. I thought they were joking. They weren’t. It turns out that not all fun is created equal. What one person loves, another despises.

What we are aiming for is fun with a point. It’s not fun for it’s own sake. And that’s where the research can help.

One study focused on four different dimensions of workplace fun and the impact on the level of connection people felt with their organisation. The findings of their study highlighted that not all fun is created equal. They found the following in order of effectiveness:

1. Fun job responsibilities - fun worked best when it was baked into the job itself
2. Coworker socialising - fun with colleagues is great and doesn’t need to be formal
3. Manager support for fun - it helps if your manager actually supports fun in the workplace - again that was quite positive
4. Formal fun activities - when we try to add fun to work as an additional activity it is far less effective

The key is to make core elements of the work itself more fun. It’s not about adding fun to work (although that still doesn’t hurt), it’s about making the work more fun.

Here are five things we can try as leaders:

1. It starts by asking a simple question - What do people enjoy doing? Why not ask your team how they think you could make the work more fun? You might be surprised at what people come up with. A team I managed introduced a scoreboard to track their productivity across the day including a mini presentation ceremony. That worked really well for a few weeks to lighten up an otherwise administratively-heavy task.
2. Provide meaningful core responsibilities. Even mundane tasks can become positive if we can help people to find enjoyment and satisfaction. Link the task to the broader purpose. Work with people to align the work to their interests.
3. Introduce variety - that might include job rotations, special projects, or opportunities for people to innovate. People love an opportunity to try new things.
4. See enjoyment as something important to factor in when crafting the job. Give people as much freedom as possible over when and how they complete their work.
5. Change your mindset about fun. It’s easy to see fun as a waste of time. However, a group of people laughing together can help to build connections, engagement and productivity.

The research clearly shows us that fun with a point can make a great contribution to our workplaces. Why not work with your team this week to get creative and lighten things up?

Research Michael J. Tews John Michel Shi Xu Alex J. Drost , (2015),"Workplace fun matters … but what else?", Employee Relations, Vol. 37 Iss 2 pp. 248 - 267

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Welcome to midweek motivate, where our goal is to build your leadership and give you something practical to try with your team.

We are part way through a six week coverage of the Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders. These practices are based on research I’ve conducted over the past three years across thousands of leaders to identify what outstanding leaders actually do that makes a difference when engaging their people and producing results. So far we’ve looked at the importance of Reflecting and Inspiring. The third daily practice that we will explore today is Developing.

Ongoing development is important to build the capacity of our organisations, but it’s also important in motivating individuals to contribute. Research I’ve conducted shows that those who are developing capability in areas that are important to them have 26% lower negative work-related stress and 60% higher engagement. Not only that, but their likelihood of staying with the organisation for more than a year is 87% higher than those who don’t feel they’re developing capability through their work.

As leaders, we need capable and motivated people. Developing people through their work is an essential investment.

Leaders who focus on Developing regularly undertake four activities:

1. Identify capability needs - they assess what skills and capabilities are required to deliver.
2. Clarify development interests - they work with their people to identify what they want to learn. Great leaders Invest in that development even if it isn’t core now. It’s about retention, and also building capacity for the future. We don’t always know what skills will be needed, or the benefit of people applying new skills.
3. Coach people towards growth - great leaders coach on a daily basis. They ask questions and guide people to come up with their own insights and solutions.
4. Recognise and celebrate progress - they make a big deal out of people applying what they have learned. They look for opportunities to catch people getting better.

Developing is great for our organisations and our people. What are you going to try today?

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Summary When have you learned the most at work? I bet it wasn’t sitting in a training course. In this week’s podcast we look at the four best ways to learn at work.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 78 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at the four best ways to learn at work.

When have you learned the most at work? Was it sitting in a training course? Probably not. We usually learn best through stretching assignments where we are placed outside our comfort zone, with a supportive leader and team around us. We often try to add learning to work. However it is far better to learn through our work.

Charles Jennings has long championed this approach to learning. He believes we should focus on extracting learning from the work we do, rather than adding learning on top of our work. We should therefore focus more on performance metrics rather than learning metrics. Our performance is the key measure of our learning. We have learned something new when we can demonstrate it, not when we can restate it. And that learning should flow through to our performance on the job.

Charles outlines four drivers of learning. Let’s step through each of those in turn, along with some practical examples.

The first driver of learning is exposure to rich and challenging experiences. As leaders we need to delegate important and challenging work to our people. From a development perspective, we can’t wait until we’re 100% confident that someone can deliver before we delegate. People learn through opportunities to be stretched. Delegation is not about short-term efficiency. Whenever you delegate, there is always going to be a short-term drop in performance. The key is to provide support and encouragement to help people push through the discomfort of learning.

The second driver of learning Charles Jennings identifies is the opportunity to practice. To learn, we need some freedom to experiment and try things out. We recently shifted a face-to-face leadership program to an online format. The facilitation team had varying levels of experience and comfort in delivering online. Most, including me, had never delivered a multiple day program in this way. So part of the learning process was to practice and experiment with the platform. We encouraged people to use the platform to catch up with family and friends - to just play with the technology in a real setting. That meant the occasional drop out and technical issue, but it’s much better to have those in a practice session than during the real thing. No amount of online how-to videos could have equated to the learning of actually practicing using the platform.

The third driver of learning is participation in rich conversations and networks. It is really important to have people to share ideas and feedback with. I have always sought to be part of small groups of people for the purposes of learning. As a leader I encourage you to connect people together from across the organisation to form learning groups. Such peer learning opportunities are really powerful as people have the chance to coach and learn from each other with a focus on real work.

The fourth driver is spaces for reflection. In order to maximise our learning we need time to reflect while we are working, and time away from the work to reflect as well. Let’s be honest - no one is going to mandate or schedule that reflection time for you. You need to set aside time yourself to reflect. But you can encourage your team members to spend time reflecting. It’s great to ask people about what they can do now that they couldn’t do a month ago. That will encourage people to reflect back on just how much they have learned. Without reflection, we often miss the opportunity to consolidate what we have learned.

These past few months have been a massive opportunity to learn through our work. With millions of people thrown into working remotely, we’ve all had to learn on the run. That might have included figuring out how to unmute ourselves on Zoom, or how to structure our days when working from home, or working out how to lead people remotely. To make the most of this globally enforced learning opportunity, it’s important to continue to stretch ourselves, to practice, to discuss what we’re learning with others, and to take the time to reflect on what we have learned. And, as leaders, we need to encourage and support out people to do the same. That way we will emerge with even greater capability and capacity as individuals and organisations.

Reference Charles Jennings - The Four Ways Adults Learn : Learning Technologies 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0ItF1s9O9Y

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Welcome to midweek motivate, where our goal is to build your leadership and give you something practical to try with your team.

We are part way through a six week coverage of the Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders. These practices are based on research I’ve conducted over the past three years across thousands of leaders to identify what outstanding leaders actually do that makes a difference when engaging their people and producing results. Last week we looked at the importance of Reflecting. The second daily practice that we will explore today is Inspiring.

As leaders, we want motivated people who are aligned to the direction we’re heading as an organisation. But aligned motivation doesn’t just happen - it takes effort. And we can’t force anyone to be motivated. Instead, a key part of achieving aligned motivation is inspiring our team members.

What does it take to inspire someone? First, it’s important to recognise that what inspires one person may not inspire the next. We can’t just push out the same message to everyone the same way. Just like any other influencing exercise, we need to start by understanding the individual. Which brings us to the four activities of Inspiring.

Inspiring leaders:

1. Understand what motivates their people - they take the time to uncover what connects people to the work, and what motivates them outside of work
2. Communicate a compelling vision - the leader takes their plans and shapes them into a vision that is clear, concise and memorable
3. Align individuals to the vision - they work with each individual to help explain the vision and why it matters in a way that is aligned with the individual’s interests
4. Define roles in the context of the vision - the leader ensures all the work that is undertaken links back to the vision

Inspiring isn’t a once a year activity. We can’t just leave inspiring up to the most senior leaders in our organisations. Inspiring is a daily practice of every outstanding leader. What are you going to try today?

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Summary In a world that’s unpredictable, creativity is more important than ever. But we often treat creativity like it’s an inherited skill - something you’re either born with, or not. Does that then rule us non-creative types out? Or can we make ourselves more creative?

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 77 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore ways to make ourselves and our teams more creative.

In a world that’s unpredictable, creativity is more important than ever. But we often treat creativity like it’s an inherited skill - something you’re either born with, or not. Does that then rule us non-creative types out? Or can we make ourselves more creative? While the field of creativity research is a bit of a mess of conflicting models and ideas, most research supports that people can make themselves more creative. So how do we do that?

Well, first of all, let’s define creativity. Creativity is about producing something genuinely new, even if we eventually take that new thing for granted.

A great example is the development of the first iPhone. The iPhone was announced in January 2007, and launched later that same year. It’s worth watching a recording of the launch and I’ve provided a link as a reference in the show notes. In the video, Steve Jobs takes to the stage and announces that Apple is launching three revolutionary products - a widescreen iPod with touch controls (and there’s some enthusiastic cheering), a revolutionary mobile phone (louder cheers), and the third a breakthrough internet communication device (muted cheers). He then keeps repeating “an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator” and then asks “Are you getting it?” He then blows people away by saying “These are not three devices, these are one device”. When he demonstrates the multi-touch screen by using his finger to scroll through a list of songs, people in the audience gasp. In a world where all smart phones had keyboards and extremely convoluted software, the iPhone was something completely out of the box. But now we take all those revolutionary features for granted. Now every smart phone looks pretty much the same as the next.

All of this plays to the narrative that people like Steve Jobs are the exception. Surely they are creative geniuses from birth and mere mortals like us could never be that creative and smart. And we often equate being creative with being smart. But being creative can also be about being unrestrained, and that is something research suggests we can learn and develop,

For example, research was conducted with jazz musicians with varying levels of experience. After they had warmed up, each musician was asked to improvise over a pre-recorded track as they “normally would in a jazz setting”. This was the baseline. They were then given three more tries, but told they should “improvise even more creatively than your past performance”. Those with less experience did markedly better when consciously deciding to be more creative. For the musicians the key was actually about less effort and worrying less about judgement, both their own and others’.

Daniel Kahneman talks about two ways of thinking in his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow - system 1 and system 2. Neither system is perfect, and both are necessary.

System 1 - thinking fast - is fast, automatic, emotional, unconscious, and biased. System 2 - thinking slow - is conscious, effortful, logical, and calculating. One of his arguments is that we think of ourselves in terms of system 2, but the reality is we can never turn off system 1. Creativity involves using both of these systems to make the most of our experience and intuition.

Here are five tips for being more creative, whether it’s individually or leading a team:

1. Decide when you are going to be creative. If you’re working with others, let them know that’s what you’re doing. That will give you and others permission to be more loose on logic.
2. Pose provocative questions, What if? Here you want to beg, borrow and steal from other business models like Uber, AirBnB or Netflix. You can take any business model and think about how that might apply to your business or product.
3. Free yourself from constraints. We are focusing here on the volume of ideas. Judging the merits will be relatively easy - we’re all experienced at punching holes in ideas. So take the time to ditch fear and judgement.
4. Pay attention in the shower. Our best ideas rarely emerge through conscious effort, but rather when we are relaxed. Creativity is as much about letting your mind wander as it is about focused problem solving.
5. Decide when to be practical. All that creativity is worthless if you don’t apply it. Again, if you’re working with others let them know that’s what you’re doing. It’s time to critique the ideas and put together a road map.

So we can all be more creative through a combination of effort and intuition. Why not explore creativity with your team this week

And just a reminder that I do have some more webinars coming up. You can go to the Leadership.Today website to find those, and I’ve also included recordings of some of the previous webinars.

You’ll also find details of our online facilitated workshops including Well-Being For Leaders and The Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership. We can run those with your teams. They’re around an hour each, and we can run that with any number up to 100 participants.

Anyway, I hope you have a great week and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with you again next week.

References Rosen, D. S., Kim, Y. E., Mirman, D., & Kounios, J. (2017). All you need to do is ask? The exhortation to be creative improves creative performance more for nonexpert than expert jazz musicians. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 11(4), 420–427.

iPhone launch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGoM_wVrwng

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Welcome to midweek motivate, where our goal is to build your leadership and give you something practical to try with your team.

For the next six weeks we’re going to be exploring the Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders. These practices are based on research I’ve conducted over the past three years across thousands of leaders to identify what outstanding leaders actually do that makes a difference when engaging their people and producing results. The first daily practice is Reflecting.

One of the key leadership challenges for 2020 and beyond is what I call reflection deficit. We’re just not taking enough time as leaders to reflect on why we’re doing what we’re doing. And, on an even deeper level, whether we’re doing the right work in the first place. As a result our teams can be diligently and efficiently working away on precisely the wrong things. I’m sure we’re working hard, we might even be working smart, but are we doing the right work?

There are four activities that I see as central to reflecting. You might need to dial up one or more of these activities.

Reflecting leaders:

1. Scan for opportunities and threats. They explore beyond their department, organisation, industry, and geography. They take a look at broader trends.
2. Craft a purpose. They develop and share a clear sense of purpose in the work that’s undertaken. They can explain why we do what we do, and why it matters.
3. Establish goals. They stretch teams to aim higher. They are extraordinarily clear about what’s expected and they help the team to strive.
4. Formulate a plan. The purpose and goals are clear, so they determine a path to get there.

Perhaps this list has prompted something you could do this week. One thing you could try is simply setting aside more time to reflect. Put it in your calendar on a daily basis. You might be surprised at the benefits.

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This bonus episode includes audio from our recent Increase Your Influence Webinar. It includes some research-based and practical tips to increase the influence you have at work. You can find upcoming webinars and recordings of previous webinars at our website, leadership.today

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Summary

It seems like everyone is being encouraged to pivot - to try something completely new in order to maintain your job or business. But it’s important to pause before you pivot and consider four Cs - Capability, Content, Channel and Call.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 76 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at the need to pause before we pivot, and consider four Cs - Capability, Content, Channel and Call.

There’s a lot of focus at the moment on the need for organisations and individuals to pivot. That we need to look for something new to do rather than sticking with old approaches. That being agile and nimble is essential to survival in rapidly changing circumstances.

Research by LinkedIn highlights the tension for individuals, showing 22% of people feel like they’ve just fallen into their job without much planning, and 23% are feeling like they are on a treadmill going nowhere. Why not give something completely different a try?

While I absolutely agree with the sentiment behind this, it’s important to pause before you pivot. Yes, there are new opportunities emerging every day, but the answer isn’t to mindlessly change what we’re doing and hope for the best. We can bring a far more considered and systematic approach.

LinkedIn and other social media feels like a giant experiment at the moment, with people and organisations throwing forth seemingly random ideas and offers in an attempt to find a solid foothold. Much of it is driven by a genuine desire to be helpful, or at least needed. And much of it will ultimately fail. There’s just not enough substance behind many of these pivots.

It’s helpful to think of the need and capacity to pivot in terms of four Cs - Capability, Content, Channel and Call. I know this sounds like I’ve pivoted overnight to a podcast on marketing, but we can think of these four Cs for ourselves and our organisations when considering whether to pivot, and where to pivot.

For any organisation or individual, we bring value to the world via our Capability and Content delivered through a Channel. We then receive value back based on whether there is a Call or demand for what we bring.

You can think of Capability as the skills and abilities that we bring to bear. There are things that we can do that are potentially of value to others. And we can always develop our Capability through the investment of time and effort.

Content is what we know. It’s the knowledge that we’ve acquired over time. It’s our views and perspectives about different areas. We can always build more Content.

Then there is the Channel. If you think about this from a marketing perspective, a Channel is how you connect and communicate with others. In the context of making a pivot, a Channel is how you bring your Capability and Content to the market. That might be a job, or a voluntary role, or a business, or a blog. It’s the conduit between you and the outside world.

The final and perhaps most important area is Call. Here I’m talking about the market demand. If you’re looking to remain employed or in business, the Call will be mainly financial - how you can bring value that warrants the amount you are paid. But even if you’re doing something in a voluntary capacity, there still needs to be a Call for what you’re offering. When considering Call the key question is “what do people want or need?”

A risky pivot is to try to change in multiple areas simultaneously. For example, to do something outside of our Capability, with new Content, through a new Channel, without a clear sense of the Call. We are much better at any point in time to pivot in one or two areas, rather than all four.

We do want to experiment, but think of a minimum viable product based on a clear Call. Start by thinking about what people need - clarify the Call. Then, rather than working away at something that requires a huge investment, why not test a smaller version of that first? I hate the term, but it might be a side-hustle alongside your paid employment. Or it could be a new service or product for your business.

I’ll provide an example from my own business. At Leadership Today our mission is to help leaders to achieve results through people for good. That’s why we exist. The mission hasn’t really changed in the past 8 years, but it has been refined and clarified.

When I speak with clients, the Call I’m hearing around leadership development at the moment is in two areas - well-being and remote leadership. How do leaders look after themselves and others in a broad definition of well-being? And how do leaders lead teams that are physically distanced and isolated? There is an ongoing Call for leadership development that aligns with the mission of my organisation, but these two areas are most pressing.

If I think about those two leadership development needs in terms of Content, there’s a lot I know about leadership in both of those areas. But there’s always more I can learn, so I’ve been spending some time increasing my Content knowledge.

In terms of Channels, up to last year I had been primarily using this podcast and face-to-face leadership development programs to deliver my Capability and Content to the market. But even before the pandemic, I saw that the vast majority of people who listen to this podcast are outside of my home country of Australia, so I was already looking at ways to deliver what I know (the Content) to people where face-to-face would not always be possible (the Channel). So, for me, I had already identified webinars, online workshops, and online courses make a lot of sense in linking the Content to the people who want it (the Call). The pandemic has just increased the Call.

It’s then that Capability comes to the fore. So I can record podcasts, but I also have experience in recording video for leadership development programs, and also in hosting webinars and online web conferences. Perfect - I’m pretty much ready to go from a Capability perspective.

Taken together, the Call is slightly refined, the Capability is pretty much there, the Content just needs tweaking - it’s the Channel that’s the greatest change. So that’s a pivot mainly in one area - totally do-able. And I can try it out with some low risk experiments and learn quickly to refine the Channel.

At this point you might be saying, “that’s great for you Andrew and I’m glad your business is going well, but I’m in a job or looking for new work”.

Let’s take the example of someone who has recently lost their job. It might be tempting for them to either try and find exactly the same job but in another organisation, or go completely to the other end of the spectrum and try something entirely different. The best answer is likely in between these two extremes.

You can think of the job as the Channel - it’s the way you deliver your Capability and Content to the market, the market being your organisation. I think we often underestimate the breadth of Channels or jobs across which we could bring our skills and knowledge to life. We also routinely underestimate our Capability and Content. But we also need to recognise the market demand - the Call.

Let’s say I’m a flight attendant and I’m out of work as the number of flights occurring has dropped dramatically. It might be tempting for me to try to find the same job somewhere else - to keep the same Channel and try to join a new airline as a flight attendant. But the Call has dropped dramatically globally. So then I should invest my time thinking about the Channel and the Call. Where are my skills and capabilities in demand? Sure, I could also rush off and do a course in something completely different - I could focus on Capability and Content. But then I’m looking at Capability, Content, Channel and Call at the same time. That’s not impossible, but it is risky. It would have been safer to develop my Capability and Content while I was also safely employed.

One final example. I was recently looking for a laptop stand and couldn’t find one anywhere due to the sudden increase in people working and schooling from home. Everyone was out of stock with future deliveries nowhere in sight. I stumbled across a great Australian business called Stagekings. They were, until recently, focused on making staging for concerts and performances. Clearly, that work has dried up during the pandemic - the Channel and Call had both evaporated. They were facing the prospect of closing down and laying off staff until things returned to normal, whenever that might be. So they looked at their Capability and what the market needed, the Call. They saw the huge demand for desks, monitor stands and laptop stands. They connected this to their Capability to manufacture plywood structures using a commercial router, and started making exactly what people needed - easy to ship and assemble desks and related products. Sure, that meant they needed to develop some new Capability and Content, but those areas were less of a stretch. It turns out making a monitor stand isn’t that different to making a stage. They now have their original team busier than ever, have hired more people, and are even using event crew to drive delivery trucks. On top of all of that, they donate money towards supporting out of work people in the event industry. So, for them it was the perfect pivot.

It’s tempting for me to look at their business and think “why didn’t I think of that?”. But, even if I recognised the Call, I lacked in the other three areas of Capability, Content and Channel. Pivoting from leadership development to desk manufacturing would have been way too big a pivot. But pivoting from stage construction to desk construction is less of a stretch. Still challenging, but ultimately successful. If you’re in Australia, go to stagekings.com.au and check them out.

So, yes, I absolutely encourage you to think about a pivot. Just ensure you’re keeping in mind the four C’s - Capability, Content, Channel and Call. Try not to make radical shifts in more than two at once. And don’t underestimate how much value you already have to bring.

Just a quick reminder that I have a free webinar coming up on the morning of the 8th May in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, or the afternoon and evening of the 7th May in the US. The topic is “The Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders”. You can register at leadership.today - just look for the link on the homepage. I’ll make sure the next webinar is at a decent hour for my European audience, but you can also check out previous recorded webinars at our website.

Also, I’m running a number of online workshops for clients around topics including Well-Being for Leaders and The Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership. They’re interactive and just an hour long. We’re getting great feedback about the research-based content, practical tips and facilitation approach. Send me a message via the website if you’re interested in having me run an online workshop with your organisation. Have a great week.

Reference

Blair Heitmann (2018) Nearly a Third of U.S. Professionals Are Career Sleepwalking: A Career Pivot Could Be Your Wake Up Call. LinkedIn Official Blog

https://blog.linkedin.com/2018/august/15/nearly-a-third-of-u-s-professionals-are-career-sleepwalking-career-pivot

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Welcome to Midweek Motivate. This week we’re looking at some quick wins around physical health.

Physical health is a core part of not just our well-being, but our effectiveness as leaders. Research into maintaining our mental capacity into older age repeatedly returns to the importance of diet, exercise and sleep.

But we know all this don’t we? But if it’s that easy, why do so many of us struggle with poor physical health. Here are some rapid-fire ideas to try for yourself and share with your team members.

Let’s start with diet. One key concept when it comes to diet is to think replacement instead of removal. Diets often fail because we focus too much on what we’re losing. I can’t eat donuts anymore. There goes potatoes. Whatever it might be - we pull things from our diet, while not focusing on replacing them with something new. So if you’re giving up a muffin, maybe you can replace that with some fruit or nuts that you like. And keep it fresh in both senses of the expression. Hang around the fresh food section of the supermarket and fill your trolley with things that go off. And keep it fresh by trying new things.

On exercise, make things a habit rather than a choice. Build it into your daily routine. Maybe park further away from work. Get back to nature - don’t just go outside, but find a park or somewhere with trees as this has a greater benefit on our well-being. And find the joy in exercise. Do what you enjoy doing. Maybe you love catching up with a friend. Why not do that over a walk instead of over a coffee.

When it comes to sleep, maintaining regular times to go to bed and wake up is really important. Include some wind down time device free - an hour should be enough. And keep a note pad next to your bed. That way, if you wake up with some great new idea or something troubling you, you can note it down and go back to sleep. Otherwise your brain might continue to loop on that idea in an attempt to not forget it. Writing it down ticks the box for our brain that the idea is important, while also letting us get back to sleep.

Give a couple of these ideas around physical health a try this week, and make sure you share it with your team. Have a great week.

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Summary “Hope” can sound just like wishful thinking. But at the heart of true hope is driven initiative. This week we explore four research-backed ways to build hope.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 75 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore four research-backed ways to build hope. “Hope” can sound just like wishful thinking. But at the heart of true hope is driven initiative.

The concept of hope captures the human imagination. We see it reflected in popular quotes.

Martin Luther said “Everything that is done in this world is done by hope”. His namesake, Martin Luther King Jnr said “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope”.

We’re encouraged to live a life focused on hope not fear. As Nelson Mandela said “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears”.

But it’s easy to see hope as just wishful thinking. We might even accuse people of having false hope - of being unrealistic in their optimism.

The reality in life is that we are constantly barraged by opportunities and threats. Our brain is wired for survival and will always tend towards the threats. That’s why we are so amazed by stories like that of Nelson Mandela - someone whose life circumstance while in prison suggested there should be no hope, and yet he held onto a sense of hope and purpose even through tough circumstances. Indeed, this hope drove and strengthened him.

From a psychological perspective, those who research hope focus on two components:

• The first component is Pathways - one element of hope is thinking about routes to achieve desired goals. Those with hope dream a dream, but a practical dream. For those with hope there’s a belief that they will find a way forward - that there’s always a pathway.
• The second component is Agency - that’s having the motivation to follow these pathways. Those with hope are willing to put in the work. Agency is the belief that we can initiate and sustain action towards our goals.

The researchers find a raft of benefits from those who demonstrate these two components of hope, ranging from improved academic performance, physical health, and mental health. The research shows that Agency, in particular, really matters. Agency, that drive and motivation to keep going, is linked with later decreased demonstration of both anxiety and depression.

If you use this two part definition of hope, the researchers argue that you avoid “false hope” altogether. Having a goal, a plan, and the drive to get there is far from false hope.

Those with hope are confident they will find a way through challenge. They are also confident in their drive to pursue goals. So it’s not just trying to smash through obstacles by sheer effort. Often hope is about having confidence that you will be able to find a way around an obstacle, or perhaps develop a new goal in the process.

You can think of hope as driven initiative. Agency is the drive element , and Pathways is the initiative element.

If I think about the TV shows and movies that appealed to me when I was younger, they featured characters who exemplified this definition of hope. I may be showing my age, but the original 1980’s TV series MacGyver comes to mind. The back story of Angus MacGyver, the main character, was always a little vague. He had a military special forces background but also an education in physics. But he was a case study in hope. Every week he overcame extraordinary odds, often by fashioning some solution out of everyday objects.

I recall one episode where MacGyver was escaping an angry group of mercenaries in a hot air balloon when one of them shot a hole in the side of the balloon. MacGyver initially looks worried as he stares up at the gaping hole and the balloon starts to descend. But then we see, moments later, that he has somehow duct taped a map to the outside of the balloon to stop it from deflating. Cue a big smile from MacGyver and roll the credits. I remember being slightly annoyed that he taped the map to the outside of the balloon, when taping it on the inside would have worked much better. And they never did show how he made his way halfway up the outside of a hot air balloon. But, despite those nit picky details, MacGyver was a picture of hope. He was always willing to put in the work. And he was always willing to look at new pathways to get to his goal.

Being filled with hope is a mindset you can develop. We can train ourselves to look for the hope in a situation or beyond a situation. And we can build hope in others as well. If you’ve worked for leaders with hope you will have seen just how positively it shaped the culture of your team and organisation.

As a leader we can build hope in four ways:

1. Helping people to see not just the threats but also the opportunities. The great leaders I have had a chance to work for and alongside have helped me to always seek out the opportunities in even the darkest times. So when something goes bad, I now demonstrate greater hope by looking for opportunities that others might miss.
2. Encouraging people to explore multiple pathways to the goal. We often develop just one plan and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work. Hope is as much about finding a way around as it is about finding a way through. It’s an overused word, but those with hope are agile in their thinking. They hold onto their plans loosely so they can find another way to the goal if needed.
3. Sharing progress. Part of maintaining motivation is measuring and communicating the progress that is being made. We can be in such a rush that we fail to look back at our progress. Looking back helps us to see that we can indeed move forward and we can find a way.
4. Recognising effort. Notice when people are putting in the work and persisting in the face of obstacles. We want to encourage this drive to achieve.

Our world and workplaces can really do with more hope. My challenge to you is to not just build hope for yourself, but also build hope in others.

I hope you found that helpful. I have a free webinar coming up on the morning of the 8th May in Australia, Zealand and Singapore, or the afternoon and evening of the 7th May in the US. The topic is “The Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders”. Given the webinar kicks off at 10am Melbourne time, that will be the middle of the night for those in the UK and some other parts of the world, but it will be recorded. You can register at leadership.today - just look for the link on the homepage.

I’ve also put up two new recorded webinars. A 20 minute webinar on Rethinking Assertiveness, and a 30 minute webinar called Increase Your Influence.

One final thing before I go. We’re up to 75 episodes of the podcast, and I genuinely see this as a way of helping leaders to achieve results through people for good. If that sounds like a cause you want to support, please let a few friends or colleagues know about the podcast and, for bonus points, provide a rating or review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Thanks for your support and have a great week.

References Snyder, C. R., Rand, K., King, E., Feldman, D., & Woodward, J. T. (2002). “False” hope. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58(9), 1003–1022. doi: 10.1002/jclp.10096.

Snyder, C. R. (2002). Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13(4), 249-275.

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Summary This week we explore whether investing in people’s development makes them more likely to stay with an organisation, even if it increases their career opportunities elsewhere.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 74 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore whether investing in people’s development makes them more likely to stay with an organisation, even if it increases their career opportunities elsewhere.

There is a cartoon that does the rounds on LinkedIn every so often. It has two people, typically a Chief Financial Officer and a Chief Executive Officer. In the cartoon the CFO says “What if we train them and they leave?” to which the CEO replies “What if we don’t train them and they stay?” It’s pretty cheesy and has sparked thousands of variations. The origins of the quote probably go back to Henry Ford, who reportedly said “The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay!” The sentiment clearly strikes a chord - we need to invest in people, even if it increases the risk of them leaving.

What’s missing in both the cartoon and Henry Ford quote is the other side of the equation. It implies that developing people is almost a regretful necessity - a short term investment we need to make, even if it does nothing to retain people. I’m sure we would all like to think that investing in the development of our people will make them more likely to stay, but is that actually the case? Can we increase staff retention while also making it easier for people to take their increased capability and leave?

Before I tell you the research answer to these questions, I want you to think back over your career. Think about those managers and organisations that really invested in your development. It might have been through training courses, but it was more likely time taken to mentor you and give you challenging experiences combined with support and encouragement. Were you more likely to leave as a result? Probably not.

For me, the times I was invested into were also the times when I really wanted to stay and bring my best. And, interestingly, the times when my development was placed as a high priority were usually a combination of a great manager and a great culture of ongoing development. Continuous improvement and relentless feedback were features of the work environment. That meant some painful conversations at times as I was pushed to keep improving. I even remember telling a colleague that I wished there was a point where my leadership development was done! But it was also motivating. It seemed like everyone, from the newest employee to the most experienced, were all pushing themselves to get better. No one was pretending that they were perfect. Everybody had more to learn.

Back to my earlier cliff hanger around the research. A paper published just a week ago by Daniel Dietz and Thomas Zwick showed that investing in training significantly increases employee loyalty and retention. As people receive development that increases their chances of finding work elsewhere, they simultaneously are also more likely to stay with that employer. This increase in retention occurred even when the training meant employees could take a higher paying career path outside the business. Even gaining externally certified and portable qualifications still increased the likelihood of an individual staying with the organisation.

Richard Branson is quoted as saying “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to”. This research helps demonstrate that investing in development is part of treating people well. It’s an investment that pays off through higher loyalty and higher retention.

While we are on the topic of development, I have a series of webinars coming out over the next few weeks. Head over to the Leadership Today website and join our mailing list to ensure you know what’s coming up. Have a great week.

Reference Daniel Dietz, Thomas Zwick. The retention effect of training: Portability, visibility, and credibility1. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2020

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Summary It turns out we prefer to be comfortably uninformed. This week we look at four steps to push ourselves through short-term pain to gather the information we need to take action.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 73 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. It turns out we prefer to be comfortably uninformed. This week we look at four steps to push ourselves through short-term pain to gather the information we need to take action.

We are wired to avoid pain whenever possible. By way of example, I’ve mentioned before that I go for a run most mornings. The first ten strides down our driveway are always painful. Not necessarily physically painful, but it doesn’t feel particularly nice to start out. I’m conscious of the cold weather, how comfortable my bed was, some discomfort in my knees, the tightness in my leg muscles. But I know that one minute in to the run I will feel better. And at the end of the run I always feel great. In fact, I always feel better on the days when I go for a run in the morning, than on the days when I choose to sleep in. If I focused on avoiding short term pain, I would never go for a run. The start always feels hard and awkward. The key to getting out of bed and going for a run for me is to remember how much better I feel at the end, and remind myself that the pain and discomfort pass quickly when I continue to take strides forward.

It turns out this same tendency to avoid short term pain occurs in every sphere of our lives, including the extent to which we seek out additional information and stay informed. Research recently published in Management Science shows that when we think additional information may be painful in the short term, we avoid being informed. We do this even if it means we can’t make as good a decision or plan for the long term. So when a doctor asks us to call them back to provide additional information on some tests, our natural tendency will often be to delay that call. When we’re faced with financial challenges, we might avoid doing further research. Or when I’m sent a set of participant evaluations from a leadership program I facilitated, I might leave it to the next day to open it just in case someone had something negative to say.

We routinely trade off the benefit of making better long-term decisions in order to avoid short-term pain. It also turns out that those who are impatient are even more likely to avoid information. The focus becomes entirely short term, often to our own detriment. The end result is that we remain comfortable, but comfortably uninformed.

So how do we avoid becoming comfortably uninformed? Here are four steps you can take:

1. Recognise the human tendency to avoid short-term pain. Awareness is the starting point.
2. Know when it’s happening to you in the moment. Once you’re aware of the tendency to avoid short term pain you will start to notice when it happens. See that as a prompt to do more research.
3. Think of your future self as a real person. This will help you to pass through the short-term pain and pay it forward to your future self.
4. Broaden your sources of information. Talk it through with others to gather their perspectives and recommendations.

If we take these four steps, we will be in a much better position to make informed decisions and take action.

I hope you, your family and your colleagues are travelling okay through these really challenging times. Stay well, stay informed, and stay optimistic. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

Reference Emily H. Ho, David Hagmann, George Loewenstein. Measuring Information Preferences. Management Science, 2020

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Summary In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we explore some practical ways to avoid micromanagement.

Transcript Well hello there and welcome to episode 72 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the curse of micromanagement, and some practical ways to avoid it.

One of the most ridiculous things I’ve done in my career was fly from my home country of Australia to Zurich Switzerland for a one hour sales pitch to a client - and we didn’t even win the work. Zurich is a lovely city to visit though - I highly recommend it. But one experience on that trip in particular struck me as unusual. The city centre isn’t far from the airport, so I chose to catch the train from the airport to Zurich Main Station. As I wasn’t very proficient in any of the four official languages, I accidentally purchased a child’s ticket. I figured this out part way through the train journey, so was becoming increasingly nervous about what might happen when I tried to exit the train station at the other end. How would I explain why I bought the wrong ticket? The train pulled into the beautiful Zurich Main Station (again, highly recommended - you really should see it). I exited the train onto the platform, made my way to the main concourse, walked a little further, and then found myself outside the station on the street. There were no barriers, no exit gates, no one checking tickets. As a foreigner I found this truly bizarre. What kind of country just trusts people to do the right thing? It seems like the Swiss treat people as adults, even when they buy children’s tickets.

That’s a long way of introducing the topic of micromanagement. A lack of trust is at the centre of micromanagement. The micromanager would have told me to catch the train, checked I had bought the right ticket, followed me onto the train, and then checked my ticket again as I left the station just to make doubly sure I had done the right thing.

We have more people working from home today than ever before. Even businesses that have been reluctant to allow working from home have been forced into this brave new world.

I’m hearing a range of stories of how that is working out. These experiences seem to fall into three categories:

1. Going okay: Leaders are providing meaningful work, communicating clearly, they’re connecting with their people, and they’re bringing the team together virtually to keep morale up. The challenges aren’t sugar-coated - the leaders are honest but optimistic. If that’s what you’re doing as a leader, well done.
2. Radio silence: People are trying to work from home, but leaders are missing in action. There’s no communication and the work is starting to run out. People sit at home wondering when that dreaded redundancy discussion is going to come up. Can you even be made redundant while you’re at home?
3. Micromanagement: People are being swamped with task after task. They’re suddenly having to fill time sheets out to justify their every hour, or quarter hour. If an email isn’t answered within an hour, there’s a second email to follow up, and maybe a text message. After all, what’s the person doing? The washing? Watching a movie? Clearly they can’t be trusted. People start wondering whether they’re going to lose their job.

I think both radio silence and micromanagement are equally damaging. Both signal a lack of trust. In the case of radio silence, it seems like we can’t trust you to be part of the solution. With micromanagement, it seems like we can’t trust you to do anything.

So why might a leader micromanage? Perhaps they think the person isn’t competent. Well, either provide the training or hire better next time. Perhaps they think the person isn’t motivated. Well, has the leader taken the time to figure out what motivates the person and how to link that to the work? Probably not. Or perhaps they think the person can’t be trusted. Well, it’s pretty unfair not to give people the benefit of the doubt. You can measure whether someone can be trusted to deliver by, guess what, whether they deliver or not.

Now the catch here is that people rarely think that they’re a micromanager. So there’s a risk that you want to forward this to your leader, when actually you’re the problem.

Just in case let’s go through five ways to avoid micromanagement:

1. Provide meaningful work. Importantly, the work needs to be meaningful to the individual and important to the organisation. That means you need to understand what matters to the person, and what matters to the organisation. If you’re not sure on either, then ask.
2. Clarify expectations. Be really clear about what needs to be done and by when. Be clear about where there is room for autonomy and freedom, and where there isn’t.
3. Trust people to deliver. Don’t tell them how to do it. Assume that they will deliver. If that’s too big a step for you, consider including a check in point and communicate that to the person up front.
4. Be available. Offer your support and counsel, but don’t demand it.
5. Measure what matters. Discuss and agree up front the measures of success. Trust people to deliver and measure whether they deliver. As a consultant I routinely ask clients to imagine we are meeting at the end of the project. How would they know that things had gone really well? This question helps to reveal what really matters.

So, this week, think about how you can demonstrate trust and avoid micromanagement. And, seriously - drop the time sheets people!

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Summary

In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we explore a technique to manage stress more effectively in ourselves and our teams.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 71 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore a technique to manage stress more effectively in ourselves and our teams.

There is plenty of stress around at the moment. As leaders, managing ongoing and acute stress effectively for ourselves and our teams is essential. Few things spread faster than the negative emotions associated with stress and fear.

Long term exposure to elevated cortisol and other stress hormones plays havoc with almost every essential process in our bodies. It has been linked with anxiety, depression, digestive problems, headaches, heart disease, sleep problems, weight gain and even memory and concentration impairment.

When it comes to managing acute stress there are lots of effective techniques. One that is particularly easy to use when faced with peak stress is to think back on the good times. Research has demonstrated that thinking about positive memories buffers you against the impact of high stress.

Researchers Mauricio Delgado and Megan Speer put volunteers under stress by video taping participants while they had their hands submerged in icy water. Participants then spent 14 seconds either thinking about a positive experience like a great holiday or a more neutral experience.

As expected, all participants experienced an increase in cortisol levels. But there were significant differences between the participants asked to think about positive memories and the rest.

Those who reminisced about a positive experience felt better than the neutral group. They reported fewer negative emotions and more positive emotions. And the impact wasn’t just in their heads. Remembering the good times also reduced the impact on their stress hormone response. Cortisol levels only went up 15% as much for the positive memory group as those in the neutral group.

So when you and your team are going through tough times, it is worth reminiscing back on the good times. That might include having people share stories from their favourite holidays or family events.

Not only will you and your team feel better, but you will remain more productive and healthy as well.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks here at Leadership Today as we shifted a client’s three day face to face leadership program into an online facilitated program. The feedback from the pilot has been amazingly positive, so if you’re facing the same challenge make contact with me via the Leadership Today website and I’m happy to share some things we learned along the way. Have a great week.

References

Speer, M., Delgado, M. Reminiscing about positive memories buffers acute stress responses. Nature Human Behaviour 1, 0093 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0093

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037

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It's an extraordinary time in our world's history with so many countries in lockdown with COVID-19. It's understandable that leaders are focused on trying to save business rather than focusing on their people. However, treating people well is critical to future performance. Best wishes during this difficult time. I know I have a lot of listeners in countries that are badly impacted. Please be assured of my thoughts and prayers.

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Summary In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we explore ten tips for leading others through the Coronavirus pandemic. Like any other crisis, this too shall pass. Now is the time to lead others in a way that leaves our people and organisations in a stronger position once the crisis is over.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 70 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore 10 tips for leading others through the coronavirus pandemic.

It is March 2020 and the world is in the grip of a global virus pandemic. Individuals, organisations, cities and even entire countries are moving towards isolation in an attempt to slow down the spread. Travel is becoming increasingly difficult. Family members are separated from each other. Relatives are unwell. Major events and sporting seasons are cancelled. Share markets are in free fall. Supply chains are impacted. Businesses are grinding to a halt. It all sounds like the start of a science fiction movie. But this is all a very real challenge for leaders.

Given all of this, even our most resilient people are likely to be experiencing uncertainty and fear. Each morning they wake up to hear yet more bad news. They’re worried about their health, their families, their friends and their jobs. While there are some similarities to the global financial crisis from a business perspective, the impact on the day-to-day lives of our people is much greater.

At the very moment where leaders are at risk of becoming distracted and distant, they need to become more focused and present.

Here are 10 tips for leading others through the coronavirus pandemic:

1. Be informed and prepared. Do your research from reputable sources. Keep up to date with information and instructions from your local health and government services. Consider the full range of impacts for your organisation and people. Choose not to be caught up in the online and media frenzy.
2. Turn up each day. As I reflect on leading during the global financial crisis, one thing I would change is the amount of time I spent with other members of the leadership team versus how much time I spent with my own people. It’s really tempting to bunker down with your fellow leaders - after all, who better to understand the pressures you’re facing? But that’s the very point our people need us.
3. Provide as much clarity as you can. Be as open as you can with your people about the plans in place and likely eventualities.
4. Remain calm. As a leader you need to instil well-founded confidence. Emotions are infectious, whether we are face-to-face or via phone or video. People are looking to leaders to set the emotional tone. Yes, this is serious, but you can still be warm and smile.
5. Demonstrate genuine interest in others. It’s tempting to focus a lot on ourselves, so we need to ensure we continue to ask a lot of open questions. Find out how people are doing, and any practical steps that can be taken to make their lives easier. Listen for what is said and not said. Think about the implications of your actions from their perspective.
6. Provide meaningful work. This one is particularly critical. Beyond spikes of activity as organisations reshape their plans, people are likely to be less busy than usual. Help people to focus on meaningful work and projects that will continue their development and strengthen the organisation.
7. Check-in regularly via video. Thanks to mobile technology we all have the potential to stay in touch through video conversations. Video calls are the next best thing to face-to-face conversations. If your organisation doesn’t have a platform for this, find one that works. Services like FaceTime, Zoom and Skype all have free options so there’s no excuse.
8. Invite others to connect. Rather than just connecting downwards, encourage people to connect across the organisation. Suggest they use messaging and team productivity platforms to see how people are going. These casual interactions are something that’s easy to take for granted when it’s business as usual, and they can make a big difference in helping people to feel connected and supported.
9. Don’t miss the opportunities. It’s easy to focus on the threats, but there are always opportunities. Moments of crisis define you as a leader and your organisation as an employer. Use this as an opportunity to up-skill staff, to have them work on longer-term projects, and to prepare and strengthen the organisation.
10. Don’t do it alone. Find a trusted colleague with whom you can share your concerns, ideas and frustrations. Stay close to your own leader and provide as much support as you can.

Like any other crisis, this too shall pass. Now is the time to lead others in a way that leaves our people and organisations in a stronger position once the crisis is over. As always, I hope you found this podcast helpful. Look after yourselves out there! If there are any ways we can help here at Leadership Today please contact us via our website leadership.today - we’re always happy to run some ideas past you and swap some thoughts. Have a great week, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

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Summary In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we take a step back to explore five key leadership challenges for 2020 and beyond. We explore the daily practices that help us tackle these challenges head-on.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 69 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we take a step back to explore five key leadership challenges for 2020 and beyond.

You only have to read the paper or watch the news to appreciate there are lots of challenges in the world at the moment. Whether it’s extreme climate conditions, global trade challenges, the refugee crisis, or the expanding virus pandemic, it feels like there is a lot to be worried about.

There are always pressing challenges in the broader national and global context. Being born in the early 1970s I remember growing up with the imminent threat of nuclear war. That was followed by the devastating AIDs epidemic. Then there was a national economic recession, global terrorism, and the global financial crisis. It’s almost like we skip from one existential crisis to the next.

Upon that backdrop there are always challenges for leaders. As we continue through 2020 and into a new decade, I believe there are five challenges for leaders in particular. These are based on research literature and reinforced through my own experiences.

1. Reflection deficit. The leaders I work with talk about back to back meetings, and too much work to complete in a day. They bounce from crisis to crisis with very little time to think or plan. As a result they’re reactive and struggle to be fully present. The old example of working ‘in the business’ very much applies, with few working ‘on the business’ let alone considering whether this is the right business in the first place.
2. Flatlining trust. When it comes to organisations, the trust bank account is empty. People have seen how organisations have treated them, their friends and their relatives. Based on experiences over the past 12 years post the global financial crisis they’ve been taught that organisations can’t be trusted to look after their best interests. We feel like we’re on our own and that it’s every person for themselves.
3. Internal competition. With the backdrop of flatlining trust, many people have based their work identity and community around their team rather than the organisation. The context might change, but the comments are remarkably similar between organisations. “My team is great - we support each other to deliver great work. Unfortunately we can’t depend on other teams to do the same”. It ends up being team versus team, us versus the world, or even us versus the organisation. While that creates identity for the team, it also discourages collaboration and loyalty to the organisation. If anything it amplifies the lack of trust towards the organisation. After all, even my leader is acting as if the organisation can’t be trusted.
4. Reluctant leaders. Leadership is often seen as an onerous addition and, as such, many people don’t want to become leaders. They see it as an additional burden on top of the regular job. When I ask people in leadership roles how many hours in their week should be spent leading, very few think it is more than four.
5. Transactional engagement. Within all of that context employees are naturally focused on what they can get in the short term. Their relationship with the organisation becomes transactional. Working for an organisation ends up looking remarkably like working within the gig economy. When I’m getting what I need I’ll stay, but I’m always watching out for the next opportunity just in case. Leaders end up focusing on trying to get a short term boost. The question is often how they can get the best out of their people this week.

In summary, there’s an overwhelmingly short term focus on daily problems. Leaders are operating in an environment that’s closer to panic than planning.

Stepping out of these challenges can be tough. It requires a different focus on daily practices that encourage long term thinking. That’s part of the reason for calling this podcast Leadership Today - it’s what we can do today that makes the difference.

Here are six daily practices that help to address these leadership challenges:

1. Reflecting. Set aside some time each day to reflect. Think about where you get your best ideas. Think beyond your own industry. It may mean you need to trim back time-wasters such as meetings you don’t have a role in. Look for opportunities to reflect each day.
2. Inspiring. A key contribution of a leader is meaning-making. Talk to people about what matters to them, and how their role contributes to something that matters.
3. Developing. Focus on what people are interested in developing. Increase the capacity of the organisation and develop up that next group of leaders.
4. Connecting. If you’ve ever played the game Jenga you recognise the importance of having blocks that can hold each other together. When you build a tower that way it’s surprisingly stable, but once we start pulling out those cross-connections things seem to fall apart. Well it’s the same with organisations - it’s really important for leaders to build connections across the organisation into other teams and other parts of the business.
5. Delegating. Most of us understand how delegating is supposed to work. We need to be clear about what’s needed, offer support, check-in from time to time, and provide feedback. But oftentimes we’re delegating the wrong things. We end up delegating tasks rather than accountability. That just makes people more dependent on us, doesn’t save a whole lot of time, and doesn’t build capability. Take something significant in your role and delegate it.
6. Clearing. I talked about a leader’s role in removing frustrations recently. It’s really critical that we understand the world our people operate in and make an effort to remove frustrations and inefficiencies. They’re often in the best position to see the frustrations, and we’re often in the best position to clear the way.

As a leader you can check off this list each day - how did I go at reflecting, inspiring, developing, connecting, delegating and clearing? You’re probably doing two or three of these regularly without thinking. There’s a possibility that you’re undertaking another two of these practices from time to time. And there’s probably one or two practices that you rarely take the time to do. Identify the one or two that you can dial up this week, and start putting that into practice on a daily basis.

Well I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, make sure you share it with someone else. You can always provide a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the podcast. And also take the time if you haven’t connected with me on LinkedIn as yet you can do that via the Leadership.Today website and just follow the connect links. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

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Summary We all know leaders that love using jargon. This doesn’t just lead to eye-rolls - recent research demonstrates that jargon damages our ability to lead.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 68 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore how jargon damages our ability to lead.

We all know leaders that love using jargon. They’re always using acronyms and spouting the latest organisational buzz words. But, beyond the usual eye-rolls the jargon junky elicits, is there any other impact? Recent research suggests that the use of jargon hampers our ability to lead others effectively.

One definition of jargon is “special words or expressions that are used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand”. Jargon helps those in the know to feel more part of an exclusive group. But that exclusiveness comes, by definition, at the exclusion of others. Jargon can easily create a barrier that reinforces insiders and outsiders.

As a management consultant, I came across a lot of jargon. I learnt quickly to ask what jargon words meant, knowing I had to work them into a report at some point. Once you let the jargon word pass the first time, it just became more difficult to find out what the word meant later.

Sometimes we are so immersed in our environment that we don’t even recognise the jargon we’re using. It’s often highly specific to our group or organisation. Recently I saw a presentation which included 14 acronyms on one PowerPoint slide. While the mostly insider audience nodded along, I was mystified. That’s not a big deal in that case as I was just an observer, but I wonder how it felt for those in the audience who were new to the organisation and were potentially reluctant to ask what the sea of TLAs (or Three Letter Acronyms) meant.

And jargon happens across cultures too. On my first business trip to the USA I naively thought it would be pretty similar to Australia given our shared language and cultural heritage. I quickly figured out that a slide deck was code for a PowerPoint presentation - a term that has now made its way around the world. At the local department store it took me a little while longer to work out that the “men’s personal furnishings” area was where the underpants were sold, and not a department specialising in replacing pants with credenzas. But then a colleague described a service offering as being “from soup to nuts”. Given the context, I correctly assumed this meant from start to finish, but I couldn’t picture a meal that started with soup and ended with nuts. When I asked him about the phrase he had no idea where it came from either. It turns out “soup to nuts” is a uniquely United States expression that is rarely used in other parts of the world. In fact it refers to a fairly typical 1800s multiple course meal which did indeed start with soup and end with port and nuts. On a side note, the phrase originally goes back to a similar Latin phrase meaning “from eggs to apples”. But the use of the term made me feel like an outsider in a strange land. Saying the service covered everything from start to finish would have been easier on us both. But then again I come from a country that calls traffic cones “witch’s hats”, so I’m not really one to pass cultural judgement.

In leadership there’s always a risk of information being lost in translation and people being made to feel excluded. Using jargon just makes the situation worse.

Research published just last month reconfirms that jargon reduces the ability for people to process information. It’s as if jargon makes information harder to hear. That’s not overly surprising and replicates previous studies. What’s interesting is their finding that the impact on processing information persists even if definitions of terms are included. So even if I explain what the jargon means, I’m still losing my audience in the process.

The research shows that using jargon has three main impacts:

1. People understand less
2. People identify with the message and messenger less
3. People are less interested in finding out more about the topic

I’ve talked before about the importance of building connections with others through warmth and competence (episode 14 if you want to listen again). People who use jargon in an attempt to demonstrate competence might reduce their ability to build connection.

Leaders play a significant role in helping others to feel like they belong. This research demonstrates that if you want them to belong faster, cut down the jargon.

So how do we reduce the use of jargon in the workplace? One technique I’ve seen is a jargon jar. You may have come across swear jars in the past, where people add a small amount of money each time they swear. It’s a light hearted way of making them more aware of their behaviour. Well, you can do the same for jargon. As a leader, model it yourself and get those coins ready - you may need them.

Okay - I think we’ve covered the subject of jargon from soup to nuts, or indeed from eggs to apples. Now you just need to figure out what jargon is being used in your workplace and make an effort to reduce it.

A big shout out to those who have provided a rating of the podcast over the past few weeks. That always pushes up the podcast charts and helps new people to find us. Have a great week.

Reference Hillary C. Shulman, Graham N. Dixon, Olivia M. Bullock, Daniel Colón Amill. The Effects of Jargon on Processing Fluency, Self-Perceptions, and Scientific Engagement. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 2020; 0261927X2090217 DOI: 10.1177/0261927X20902177

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Summary Self-control is a core part of being an effective leader. And when it comes to self-control, planning beats will power.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 67 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at planning for self-control versus using will power in the moment.

We are all faced with situations that require self-control. It might be that new diet, avoiding distractions while focusing on some detailed work, or that colleague that drives you crazy. We often find ourselves needing to fight those impulses that take us away from our goals. This management of our emotions and responses is a crucial part of emotional intelligence, allowing us to be individually productive, and also to form effective working relationships with others.

When it comes to self-control we often leave it up to our will power in the moment. With this “in the moment” approach we’re hoping that we will demonstrate restraint and control our impulses, but don’t really have a strategy to achieve this.

Williamson and Wilkowski from the University of Wyoming recently undertook some research to see if there was a better way. They found that planning ahead for self-control is markedly better than techniques focused on self-control in the moment. We can effectively plan ahead to reduce the will power we need to exert in the moment, leaving our responses less to chance.

Their research looked at five self-control strategies in total - four that involved planning in advance, and one that involved self-control in the moment. They were able to measure the effectiveness of each strategy.

Here are the four techniques that worked well:

1. Situation selection: This is effectively an avoidance strategy. For example, if you’re wanting to focus on some work but know you’ll be constantly tempted towards distraction working at your desk, then avoid trying to do that focused work at your desk.
2. Situation modification: This involves changing the situation slightly to reduce the amount of will power needed for self-control. If you find yourself checking your phone constantly while carrying it around, leave it in your desk drawer instead. On the technology side there are also settings and apps that can help to reduce the constant pinging for our attention that is built into most applications we use.
3. Distraction: As the name suggests, this involves taking our attention away from the thing that requires self-control. For example, if someone’s behaviour in a meeting drives you to distraction, you might instead focus on taking really good notes and asking questions.
4. Reappraisal: This involves thinking about the temptation in a different way. I recall really struggling with a work colleague who had quite different values to me. I found myself really caught up on this difference and found it hard to work constructively with them. I made the mental shift to acknowledge the difference in values and their right to have those values, and this made the working relationship far more positive.

Each of these four techniques reduces our reliance on demonstrating will-power in the moment. As the researchers noted, "People can, indeed, proactively initiate self-control. And those who do so are better able to make progress toward their long-term goals."

This week I encourage you to not just think about planning for your own self-control, but also to share these approaches with others. Why not use an individual or team meeting to discuss how to apply this research. And, while you’re at it, suggest they subscribe to the podcast. Have a great week.

Reference Laverl Z. Williamson, Benjamin M. Wilkowski. Nipping Temptation in the Bud: Examining Strategic Self-Control in Daily Life. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2019; 014616721988360 DOI: 10.1177/0146167219883606

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Summary Aaarrgghhh! This week we look at the leader’s role in removing frustrations.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 66 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at a leader’s role in removing frustrations.

When you think about the role of a leader, it’s easy to focus primarily on their ability to manage upside potential. That upside potential might include providing meaning and purpose, clarifying roles and expectations, and providing development opportunities. We tend to first focus on the leader’s ability to tap into the motivation of their people. Each of these areas are really important, however an equally important and often overlooked part of leadership is reducing the things that get in the way of performance. That includes removing frustrations and other barriers to success for individuals and teams.

Let’s take IT as an example. As I work with a broad range of organisations it always amazes me the variety of IT setups people end up using ranging from cutting edge through to museum-grade antiques. Even when things look brilliant to me as an outsider, few people rave about their IT systems. However I’ve heard plenty of complaints about long boot up times, tricky remote login processes, slow response times, clunky data entry, and systems that don’t speak to one another. As the technology we use at home continues to leap forward, people have increasingly high expectations of the technology they interact with at work. And if the technology gets in the way of delivering work, it quickly impacts job satisfaction. In fact a study released just this month shows that workplace IT satisfaction accounts for 38 percent of the variance in job satisfaction. If IT is getting in the way for your people, there’s a high chance that it’s impacting the way they experience their job and the organisation.

Broader research on frustrations at work beyond just IT demonstrates a clear link to the risk of burnout. This is particularly the case when people see their frustrations impacting clients and customers. Recently I made a simple purchase of one item and watched as a great employee who had been really helpful wrestled with the point of sale system. While they remained professional, the frustration for them was real. What should have taken less than a minute stretched on for several minutes as more customers joined the queue. It’s easy to see how working with that system day after day would impact an otherwise motivated and engaged employee, particularly when that person cared about providing a great experience for customers.

And it’s not just about that employee - research also shows a link between frustrations and negative work behaviours such as aggression towards coworkers. What frustrates the individual ripples through the organisation. If people aren’t being civil to each other in your organisation, I can almost guarantee there are unresolved frustrations.

Research suggests there are three conditions that magnify the impact of frustrations:

1. When they don’t feel heard about the frustrations and their impacts
2. When they don’t feel a sense of control over the frustrations
3. When they feel isolated - like they’re the only ones having a problem

Leaders are the ones best positioned to help with these three conditions.

Here are a few tips when seeking to reduce and remove frustrations for your people:

• Accept that frustrations are normal - there’s no such thing as a completely frustration-free work environment.
• Recognise that frustrations can get in the way of both personal and organisational goals - while the frustration may be primarily impacting the person, it’s likely to be flowing through to team and organisational performance.
• All frustrations can be reduced - you may not be able to completely remove a frustration, but there are always creative ways of reducing the impact.
• Provide an opportunity for people to discuss frustrations and be heard - start with your own people and simply ask them “What frustrations are getting in the way of you doing your job well?”
• Allow people to connect with others - as you seek to remove frustrations it’s helpful to see how others are dealing with and working around the frustrations.
• Equip people to continuously improve - give people the authority to make changes and improvements that will reduce frustrations for themselves and customers.

Hopefully you found this episode helpful - if you did, remember to share it with others. I’ve listed the three references used in the show notes. Remember to head to the Leadership.Today website for other episodes, to connect via our monthly newsletter, and there’s even a link to follow me on the social media equivalent of a sensible family car - LinkedIn. Have a great week.

References Lewandowski C. (2003) Organizational Factors Contributing to Worker Frustration: The Precursor to Burnout. 30 J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 175

Suzy Fox Paul E. Spector (1999) A model of work frustration–aggression. Journal of Organizational Behaviour Volume 20, Issue 6

Wei Wang, Yi Wang, Yi Zhang, Jing Ma (2020) Spillover of workplace IT satisfaction onto job satisfaction: The roles of job fit and professional fit. International Journal of Information Management Volume 50, February 2020, Pages 341-352 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026840121831257X

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Summary How effective are you in a crisis? This week we outline the four core skills of leading in a crisis to build the resilience of our people and our organisations.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 65 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the four key skills of leading in a crisis.

As we read the news it seems like there is a new crisis every week - fires, floods, earthquakes, financial mismanagement, international tensions. We are often quick to judge leaders solely on what we see them doing publicly. We are very quick to categorise those attempting to lead during a crisis as either a hero or a villain. They either demonstrated and instilled confidence in those they lead, or potentially made the crisis even worse through a lack of leadership

A crisis by its nature is something you don’t see coming until you’re in the middle of it. The intensity and challenge are often underestimated at the onset of a crisis. Once the crisis is over it’s often easy to look back and spot missed opportunities at the point when the crisis wasn’t a crisis.

Crisis leadership is obvious on a national stage, particularly when politicians are involved. We can all recall stories of leaders who stepped up during a national crisis. Equally, we remember those who were holidaying, dining, playing golf or getting their hair done while a crisis began to play out. What do we expect from our leaders? Do we want them on the front line fighting the fires, rescuing people, saving the environment from disaster? It’s a natural instinct that when people suffer, we look for leaders to hold responsible. Whose fault was this disaster? Who rose to the challenge?

By definition, a crisis is unpredictable, its scale broad, the speed fast, and the threat great. What does this mean for me as a leader? We all have crises that we face. Maybe it’s just once a year, or perhaps it’s only a few times in our career. But these situations make and break leaders. More importantly, they make and break the lives of those we lead and our organisations.

It could be a series of redundancies and restructures following an economic downturn, or hacking of an IT system, or the impact of a natural disaster or accident. There will be a point when you recognise that this situation isn’t business as usual, but rather a crisis that needs to be managed carefully and at speed. Back in the days of paper and pencil psychometric tests, the instructions we would read to candidates included advice to work “quickly and accurately”. The same competing principles apply in a crisis.

But what is a crisis for one person may not be a crisis for another. Take paramedics for example. They spend most of their day in situations where people are in crisis. But it’s not a crisis for the paramedic. You don’t see paramedics running around screaming and panicking. Instead, you will see them walk towards the people in crisis, bringing with them a calm efficiency that instills confidence in others. Paramedics are able to lead others through crisis situations through their extensive training and experience. What might be a crisis for me is entirely expected and routine for the paramedic. Just like paramedics, we can train and prepare ourselves for crises.

Research into crisis management suggests there are four core skills that effective leaders demonstrate - identifying, acting, communicating and reviewing. As we work through each of the four skills I want you to think about your own crisis leadership. Think about a challenging situation when you were the leader and consider how you demonstrated each of these four skills.

1. Skill one - Identifying. Effective leaders identify a crisis early. While others might be continuing as if its business-as-usual, the effective leader recognises that there is a crisis to be managed. They help people to build a shared understanding of the nature of the crisis, including the likely scope and impacts. Organisations can help prepare for a crisis by building their capacity to monitor for opportunities and threats. You then need experienced people and the ability for them to be heard as the crisis emerges.
2. Skill two - Acting. The effective leader in a crisis quickly establishes a framework for making critical decisions. They need to set things up so they can make strategic decisions while not getting caught up in operational issues. A truly effective leader in a crisis doesn’t necessarily have all the answers. Instead, they are clear about the kinds of decisions they need to make, and what needs to be passed down to others. The effective leader quickly connects with others in the organisation, and potentially across organisations. They monitor cooperation between these various groups and get involved only where this cooperation breaks down. They quickly isolate the issue from the rest of the organisation’s operations - a process called decoupling. This means only the relevant parts of the organisation focus on the crisis, while the remainder can continue operations as normally as possible.
3. Skill three - Communicating. A key role of a leader during a crisis is meaning making - providing people with a way of making sense of what is happening. Researchers describe this as creating “authentic hope and confidence”. It’s not false optimism - it helps people to interpret the crisis, and provides confidence about how the leader intends to lead through it. The effective leader recognises that communication in a crisis is different in terms of pace and context. People need to understand the crisis, the likely consequences, what’s being done, and what, if anything, they need to do.
4. Skill four - Reviewing. Once the crisis is over, a leader needs to explain what was done leading up to and during the crisis. This includes what went well and what didn’t work. Often times leaders, particularly political leaders, are keen to avoid the “what went wrong” discussion. Rather than apportioning blame, it’s more about preparing the organisation and its people for any future crisis. Every crisis is unique, so leaders need to be comfortable trying new things out and learning on the run. Afterwards it’s important to be able to reflect and learn from the experience and lessons. The effective leader uses a review to enhance resilience in themselves, their people, and the organisation.

A crisis is anything but business as usual. But each of us can develop the four core skills of identifying, acting, communicating and reviewing. This helps build strength, agility and resilience in our organisations.

If you want to dive into this topic further, I highly recommend the reference I’ve provided in the show notes. It picks apart leadership in times of crisis from a public administration perspective.

Thanks for listening to the podcast. It would be great if you could take the time to rate or write a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening to this, and also recommend it to a friend or work colleague. The podcast is continuing to grow and I always make time to read every review. See you next week.

Reference Boin A, Kuipers S, Overdijk W (2013) Leadership in Times of Crisis: A Framework for Assessment. International Review of Public Administration.

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SUMMARY Habits can either help or hinder our leadership. In this episode we explore the two keys to making and breaking habits.

TRANSCRIPT Hello and welcome to episode 64 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the key to making and breaking habits.

This is our first new episode coming out at the start of February. If you’re anything like me and most other people, the goals you set a month ago may be starting to fade. Our great intentions may have run into everyday challenges and circumstances. Or maybe this year was different, and the intentions you started with are beginning to stick. They might even have become part of your everyday routine. What likely made the difference are habits.

A habit is something we do regularly without much conscious thought - something that persists, and that can be difficult to change or give up. A habit is neither good or bad, but it can be helpful or harmful in the context of goals we set for ourselves. Perhaps my habit of laying out exercise gear in the evening is helping me to achieve my goal of getting to the gym in the morning. Maybe my habit of ordering a burger and fries each time I eat out is getting in the way of my goal to lose weight. And it’s the same at work. My habit of greeting my colleagues in the morning might be helping to build relationships. But my habit of speaking first and listening second might be getting in the way of truly listening to others.

So what are the keys to making or breaking a habit? To answer this we need to go to the movies.

I want you to picture yourself at a cinema with a bucket of popcorn. Just as the movie starts, you reach in, grab some popcorn and put it in your mouth. Now, this popcorn unfortunately isn’t as fresh as you might hope. In fact, it has been made a full week earlier and left out to go stale. Still edible, but not great tasting. Do you keep eating the popcorn? Do you eat as much of the stale popcorn as you would if it was fresh?

Researchers set up exactly this scenario to study the strength of habits. They took a group of people and asked them to watch and rate a series of movie trailers in a cinema, while also providing them with popcorn to eat. They varied the freshness of the popcorn - the fresh popcorn was made an hour earlier, while the stale popcorn was a week old.

After the movie trailers, they asked people to rate the popcorn, and also measured how much popcorn each person ate. As you would expect, people rated the stale popcorn below the fresh popcorn. But it turns out that not all popcorn eaters are equal. Some people have strong associations between going to the cinema and eating popcorn, whereas for others the link is less strong. Those who had a weaker link between going to the cinema and eating popcorn not surprisingly ate less of the stale popcorn. After all, why would you eat stale popcorn? Well, those with a stronger link between going to the cinema and eating popcorn ate about the same amount of stale and fresh popcorn. That’s right - they ate as much of the stale popcorn as they did of the fresh popcorn, even though they rated the stale popcorn lower on taste. The habit of eating popcorn meant they didn’t seem to care about the freshness of the popcorn - they just stuck with their habit.

So if eating popcorn at the cinema is a habit for you, you’re likely to go on eating popcorn independent of its freshness. But what if I want to change this habit? The research found two interesting ways to break the cinema popcorn eating habit, if only in the moment. The first habit breaker was to change the context. When they moved the experiment out of a cinema and into a meeting room, the habitual popcorn eaters ate less of the stale popcorn than the fresh. The change in context seemed to break the habit. The second habit breaker was to make people eat the popcorn with their non-dominant hand while in the cinema. In this second scenario the context is exactly the same, but the eating process requires a little more conscious thought and effort. Once again, in this version the habitual popcorn eaters ate less of the stale popcorn than the fresh.

As leaders, that gives us two ways to think about making and breaking habits for ourselves and others - context and consciousness.

If we’re looking to break a habit, we want to change the context and make the behaviour more conscious. It’s the equivalent of getting people out of the cinema while also making them use their non-dominant hand.

f we’re looking to make a habit the opposite is true. Over time we want to keep the context consistent and we want to reduce the amount of conscious effort required to undertake the behaviour. That’s the equivalent of offering fresh popcorn in the cinema and allowing people to use their dominant hand. Over time we will be able to build up a group of habitual popcorn eaters.

When I’m coaching leaders to change, it’s much easier to work with them outside their normal context. That’s why running a leadership program offsite typically allows people to be more open. They’ve already had to alter some patterns of behaviour, which makes them more open to varying their views and habits around leadership. If the context is largely similar, like running the leadership development at their office in a familiar meeting room, it’s much harder to encourage people to change. Getting people into a new context and just outside of their comfort zone really makes a difference when breaking an old habit and considering a new habit. Perhaps you find sitting at your desk trying to write a report really tedious and often find yourself getting writer’s block. Why not vary the context by changing where you write? Maybe you find yourself constantly checking your phone during meetings. Why not leave your phone at your desk instead?

Once we’ve set up a new behaviour, we then want to make the new habit easy to continue. If my new habit is to meet with each of my team members once a month to discuss their performance and development, it’s likely to work best if we schedule all the meetings in for the year, and set them on a day and time that is less prone to interruptions. That way the context is the same - same time of the week, same meeting room, same people and same structure. I don’t have to decide each week whether to meet, where to meet and when to meet because that has all been locked in at the start of the year.

When it comes to making and breaking habits, remember the two keys are context and consciousness.

Check out the show notes for a link to the popcorn research from David Neal and the team from the University of California. And you might want to go all the way back to episode one of this podcast to explore leadership habits further.

So what are your leadership habits, both helpful and harmful?

REFERENCE David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, Mengju Wu, and David Kurlander. (2011) The Pull of the Past: When Do Habits Persist Despite Conflict With Motives? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 37(11) 1428–1437 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9fbd/0b88b802dc55833796b50f27887b57f74e8f.pdf

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Over the holiday/new year period we're replaying some of our most popular episodes. We will be back in February 2020 with brand new episodes. You can find all our episode show notes at the Leadership Today website. Enjoy!

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Over the holiday/new year period we're replaying some of our most popular episodes. We will be back in February 2020 with brand new episodes. You can find all our episode show notes at the Leadership Today website. Enjoy!

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Over the holiday/new year period we're replaying some of our most popular episodes. We will be back in February 2020 with brand new episodes. You can find all our episode show notes at the Leadership Today website. Enjoy!

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Over the holiday/new year period we're replaying some of our most popular episodes. We will be back in February 2020 with brand new episodes. You can find all our episode show notes at the Leadership Today website. Enjoy!

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Over the holiday/new year period we're replaying some of our most popular episodes. We will be back in February 2020 with brand new episodes. You can find all our episode show notes at the Leadership Today website. Enjoy!

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Over the holiday/new year period we're replaying some of our most popular episodes. We will be back in February 2020 with brand new episodes. You can find all our episode show notes at the Leadership Today website. Enjoy!

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Over the holiday/new year period we're replaying some of our most popular episodes. We will be back in February 2020 with brand new episodes. You can find all our episode show notes at the Leadership Today website. Enjoy!

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Summary Being grateful has a host of benefits for individuals and teams. In this episode we explore three practical ways to build gratitude at work.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 63 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the power of gratitude for ourselves and for those we lead.

As human beings we have a natural tendency to become caught up with the negatives and challenges in life. Researchers Gilovich and Davidai describe this as the headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry - what they characterise as a tendency to focus far more on barriers than on blessings. This can lead to a sense of unfairness - a perception that we have it harder than most other people. It also leads us to underestimate the benefits we have received that have contributed to positive outcomes in our lives. This tendency runs counter to a sense of gratitude. It’s very difficult to feel grateful at the same time as feeling like you’ve had it tougher than most people. But that’s exactly why gratitude can be so helpful - we can use gratitude to rebalance the asymmetry.

But first, what is gratitude? It’s a commonly used word, but can be hard to define. Researchers categorise gratitude as a both a trait and an emotion or state. We all experience the emotion of gratitude at different points during our day, but fewer of us have an ongoing grateful outlook on life as a trait. There is even an ongoing debate as to whether gratitude should be considered a personality trait.

What we do know is that gratitude has both a genetic and environmental component - it appears to be wired into us and emerges quite early in our lives. And research also demonstrates that we can increase our gratitude, both in our daily mood, and also ongoing.

For the individual the benefits of gratitude range from improved physical and mental health, elevated mood and happiness, increased life satisfaction, and reduced burnout. By way of example, patients recovering from heart failure who completed a gratitude journal had reduced signs of inflammation after an 8 week period. Other research showed people reported better and longer sleep, and better overall physical health by increasing their practice of gratitude.

For groups and organisations, research has demonstrated that gratitude can increase generosity and kindness, while helping to build stronger relationships and improving work climate. Gratitude is like the glue for society that binds people together. If someone does something nice for you, you’re likely to feel grateful and, in turn, do something nice back.

Here are three ways to increase gratitude at work:

1. Gratitude journal. A common version of this involves writing down three new things each day for which you’re grateful. One experiment showed those asked to journal 5 things to be grateful for on a weekly basis for 10 weeks exercised significantly more and had fewer physical complaints than another group assigned to journal 5 hassles per week over the same time frame. Interestingly, similar studies over 2 week periods didn’t demonstrate significant differences between the two groups. So the research suggests journalling needs to be sustained. You could build this practice of gratitude into individual and team meetings by taking some time for people to share what they are grateful for.

2. Gratitude letters. This typically involves writing letters of appreciation to people you haven’t properly thanked. At work though it could be as simple as expressing gratitude to your people, and encouraging others to do the same.

3. Demonstrating genuine kindness. Why not commit to undertaking one additional kind act per day. It might be helping someone with their work, or grabbing an extra coffee for a colleague back at the office, or even being the person that empties the dishwasher.

Importantly, each of these three ideas need to be genuine. One study found writing a gratitude journal once a week was more effective than three times a week - the theory being that people put more effort into it and it was more genuine when done just once a week. Similarly other research showed the positive impacts are much greater for genuine kindness than what the researchers called “strategic kindness” (or doing something nice in order to gain a personal benefit).

Hopefully that’s prompted you to boost your gratitude, particularly at this busy time of the year. I have provided a link to a comprehensive review of the research on gratitude from Summer Allen at the University of California Berkeley, where the bulk of the research cited in this podcast was drawn. There’s also a link to Davidai and Gilovich’s research on headwinds and tailwinds, and a further article about the science of kindness.

And given today’s topic, I want to express my gratitude to those who have so wonderfully supported the podcast over the last year. Thanks for helping to get the word out and for sending through encouraging messages about how the content has helped in developing your leadership. Your ratings and reviews have also been extremely helpful - I read every review and appreciate the time people take to promote the podcast in that way.

There are several ways to stay up to date with the podcast. The best way is to subscribe to the podcast wherever you’re listening to it now. You can also connect via the leadership.today website to be notified about new podcasts, receive our monthly email newsletter, and to connect with me on LinkedIn or via our Facebook group page.

As it is heading into summer holidays in the lower half of our amazing planet, over the next seven weeks we will be featuring replays of some of our most popular episodes from 2018 and early 2019. I will be back with brand new episodes in February 2020. I look forward to speaking with you again then.

References Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2016). The headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry: An availability bias in assessments of barriers and blessings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(6), 835–851. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000066

Summer Allen. 2018. The Science of Gratitude. Whitepaper. Greater Good Science Center at US Berkeley.

https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Gratitude-FINAL.pdf

The chemistry and psychology of kindness. ABC Life / By Sophie Kesteven

https://www.abc.net.au/life/the-science-behind-the-warm-glow-of-kindness/11749268

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Summary Our workplaces can easily move towards what researchers call incivility. So what are the benefits of being nice to one another, and what can we do as leaders to get there?

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 62 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore why being nice to one another is so important for business performance.

I was working with a client recently and discussing their culture. He said “as a psychologist you have the opportunity to work with lots of different organisations - I bet you walk in and get a pretty quick sense of the mood and culture”. It’s true - I find it easy to gain a quick read on the mood and culture of an organisation. Compare these two workplaces I recently visited. In one organisation I noticed people frowning, staring at screens, no conversation or laughter, and lots of sighs. In another the atmosphere was bordering on joyful - people warmly greeting one other, big smiles, people saying “hello” to me as I walked past even though they had no idea who I was. It was hard in the first organisation not to be dragged down, and it was equally hard in the second organisation not to be lifted up.

But it’s not like being able to read the mood and culture of a workplace is some special power granted only to psychologists and consultants. It’s a special power we all have that comes with being human. We all read a room quickly at a subconscious level. However we become familiar and used to the rooms where we spend the most time. The cultural quirks that hit us on day one at a new organisation fade by month three. We rapidly soak up the standards we see around us. We quickly understand what’s tolerated and what isn’t. If the culture is great, then that’s fantastic - we absorb it and maybe even become a better person. But if the culture is toxic, even the best of us will either lower our standards to fit in, or exit stage right to another organisation.

In some workplaces people aren’t very nice to each other. It might be that most people are 5 to 10 minutes late to meetings, setup their laptops and just continue their work. They interrupt others, they talk to the person next to them while someone else is presenting. They make demands of their colleagues in other departments. They gossip and spread rumours. Before you know it, the place quickly becomes toxic. This is so common that some researchers specialise in looking at what they call incivility. Perhaps the best known researcher in the field is Christine Porath. Her TED talk “Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business” has racked up over 2.5 million views. As people rightly note in the comments below her video, do we really need a TED talk to convince people to be nice to each other? Apparently we do.

Her research demonstrates that incivility lead to 66% of people cutting back their efforts, 80% of people being distracted from their work, and 12% of people leaving their job. In a laboratory study where people witnessed a fellow participant, who was actually setup, being berated for being late, there was a 25% reduction in performance, and 45% fewer ideas generated by the group. Christine argues that incivility is like a virus that we can catch and transmit. As a result people operate out of fear and try to remain invisible. Innovation plummets - after all, why would you risk sharing a new idea when people aren’t being nice to each other?

So why do people end up being mean, unthoughtful, rude, aggressive or passive aggressive towards each other? Here are some reasons that I’ve observed:

1. It works - taking on an aggressive, belittling style may, in the short term, help people to get things done, particularly where there is a lack of clarity and standards.

2. Feedback free environment - people may not actually recognise what they’re doing, or at least the impact that it is having on others.

3. Excessive stress - people are unlikely to be on their best behaviour where they are experiencing high levels of stress.

4. Role models - in some organisations, taking on an aggressive style is modelled and rewarded by more senior leaders.

We can change this. An example Christine shares is a health organisation where they introduced what they called the 10-5 way. The guidance they gave to staff was to make eye contact and smile when they were within 10 feet of another person, and to say ‘hello’ when they were within 5 feet of another person. That sounds incredibly prescriptive and it’s hard to believe it worked, but they saw both patient satisfaction and referrals increase. As we raise our kindness towards others, we’re more likely to be seen as leaders, and we’re more likely to produce better results. This aligns with a wealth of research that shows people are much more effective when they’re in a positive mood, versus being neutral or negative in their mood.

As a leader I suggest the following:

1. Role model being nice towards others. Civility is contagious. You see it when a positive team member enters the room - they lift the mood, people start smiling and laughing, there’s a sense of energy. It really doesn’t take many people to change the culture, and leaders are the ones people look towards to set the emotional tone.

2. Connect with others. Take the time to understand the day to day work and experiences of those within your organisation. You might be surprised at some of the frustrations and obstacles they face, and how easy it may be for you in a position of leadership to remove these.

3. Help others to connect. It’s really difficult to bully people that you know, like and respect. It’s also really hard to bully someone that has strong connections with their colleagues - the weight of numbers makes the bully the odd one out.

4. Look after yourself, and help others to do the same. Think about activities you can encourage that focus on the classic wellbeing areas of exercise, diet and sleep.

So let’s think this week about ways we can encourage others and lift them up. The relatively small acts that we take as leaders on a daily basis can have a huge impact on those we lead and the cultures we create.

I have included links to Christine Porath’s TED talk and book in the show notes - make sure you check them out. And for those listening in the United States, a big Thanksgiving holiday greeting for the week that has just passed. I trust it has been a great time to connect with family and friends to reflect on all the great things we have in our lives that we so easily take for granted. Have a great week.

References Christine Porath’s TED Talk - Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY1ERM-NIBY

Christine Porath (2016) Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Civility-Manifesto-Christine-Porath/dp/1455568988/

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Summary Values can be a powerful driver of business culture, both for good and bad. This week we look at when values go bad and what to do about it.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 61 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at when values go bad and what to do about it.

I met with a Head of Human Resources a number of years ago shortly before the public listing of their business. He was particularly excited about a new set of values that had been developed by the executive team and were about to be rolled out to employees in the coming weeks. He was then kind enough to give me a preview of the five new values, all nicely printed on cards. They were numbered one to five and went something like this:

1. Deliver for Shareholders - as a business about to be publicly listed, the executive team were keen to focus people around the importance of delivering on the promises made to those about to invest in the business.
2. Delight Customers - this seemed pretty sensible and was focused around providing a great experience for customers every time and responding to customer feedback.
3. Operational Efficiency - streamlining processes to improve efficiency and provide greater consistency across their various locations.
4. I honestly don't remember what the fourth value was, which is probably because of the fifth value.
5. People First.

At that point of the conversation I had the same reaction you're probably having now. Before I could fully think it through, I found myself saying "Do you think you should change that last one to 'people fifth'?". At that point he understood the irony of their fifth value.

In this instance the executive team had actually constructed what they saw as the most important values for the business in order of importance, and for them the reality was that people came fifth. However, being accustomed as we all are to saying "people are our most important asset", the "people first" tag line seemed like the right name at the time. You may not be surprised to learn that following the public listing of the business, they closed their doors for the last time within a few years. Perhaps putting "people fifth" was part of the problem.

It’s easy to be cynical about values - we’ve all seen examples of them done poorly. Enron famously had Integrity as one of its four values. However I've seen some great examples of organisational values. When done well, a set of values can provide an invaluable framework for employees throughout the organisation to make decisions in the 'grey space' between black and white rules and procedures. One senior leadership team I was a member of would often refer back to the organisation's values when making tough decisions while navigating the global financial crisis. In the absence of precedents and guidelines, the values allowed us to choose between options based on their alignment with the values of the organisation. The values also helped us to explain these decisions to those affected in the context of the organisation's strategy. Furthermore, it provided a consistent framework for doing business across diverse cultures around the world. When I met with my equivalents from overseas, I was always pleasantly surprised at how consistently they modelled the organisation’s values.

However values can sometimes be poorly developed and inauthentic. 'People fifth' is one example. In some organisations values are developed from the ground up - a sort of democratic discernment of what's important through seemingly endless focus groups, interviews and surveys. This approach almost always produces a bland set of values that are more about avoiding offending anyone than they are about guiding decision making.

The best values are developed at 'the top' and then refined through conversation across the business. In our earlier example, some refinement of the proposed values with employees would have highlighted the 'people fifth' dilemma, and possibly enabled a better end result. However too often executive teams are presented a set of values emerging from an overly consultative process and, as a result, they don't match the strategy of the organisation. The executive team haven't bought into the values before they are printed on a fancy sign that starts off behind the reception desk, and is gradually relegated into a store room to gather dust.

An organisation's values need to be authentic and matched with the strategic direction of the business. As a leader you need to hold yourself and others accountable to these values. If you're going to do this, you will want to make sure you're 100% comfortable with the values yourself.

Patrick Lencioni helpfully breaks values into four categories:

• Core values - these are the two or three unique aspects that differentiate the organisation. Lencioni calls them “cultural cornerstones”.
• Aspirational values - these reflect what the organisation aspires to be like to succeed in the future. Perhaps the organisation aspires to be efficient, but isn’t there yet. Identifying efficiency as an aspirational value helps people to understand that we’re not there yet, but that this is important for us to focus on.
• Permission-to-play values - these are the minimum standard required to operate in your industry. For example, being ethical if you’re a law firm is a permission-to-play value. Every law firm should be ethical - it’s a legal, business and community expectation. It’s unlikely that your firm is markedly more ethical than the next firm.
• Accidental values - these are the spontaneous values people see and experience that haven’t consciously been chosen. An organisation I worked with that had innovation as a stated value, but the accidental value was to never make a mistake. This fear of making mistakes held them back from being innovative - it stopped people from taking action or trying new things.

In summary, authentic values can be a valuable tool to aid decision making in uncertain times. They can be used to hold leaders and employees to account, not just around what results they achieve, but also how they achieve results. A process that starts with the senior team considering the values they believe are required to achieve their strategy is a great start, and needs to be coupled with a refinement or 'testing' process that involves groups of employees. Clearly defined values can provide that all important compass that people need when navigating uncharted waters.

What has been your experiences of values? How have they helped and hindered?

Reference Patrick Lencioni - Make Your Values Mean Something. Harvard Business Review, July 2002. https://hbr.org/2002/07/make-your-values-mean-something

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Summary Great teams manage task, process and relationships. They ask key questions to ensure clarity is built and conflict is addressed in all three areas. This week we look at some key questions you can use to audit your teams and build their effectiveness.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 60 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. Episode 60 is quite the milestone, so a big thanks to everyone who has shared the podcast with others. I love reading your reviews and hearing stories about how the content has been helpful. This week we’re exploring how great teams manage task, process and relationships.

Research demonstrates that there are three main things teams need to manage - the task (what outcome needs to be achieved), the process (how we’re going to achieve the outcome), and the people (how we’re going to work together as human beings). Failing to manage each of these three elements almost inevitably leads to conflict and reduced performance.

There are three common traps that teams fall into:

1. The most common trap is a tendency to focus immediately on the task, neglecting the process and relationships. This results in a flurry of activity but it may well be the wrong activity. We fail to think about the relationships between the people in the room which can result in interpersonal issues and complaints. I often see this trap during leadership programs. You can teach all the theory and techniques in the world, but it all goes out the window once there’s a time-sensitive task to complete. People move straight to the task and ignore process and relationships.

2. The second most common trap is to become caught up with interpersonal issues, and lose sight of the task and process. People end up avoiding the team, progress stalls, and the team often falls apart as people question what the purpose is of meeting in the first place.

3. The third common trap is to focus so much on the process that we neglect the task and relationships. I see this regularly in projects where there’s a huge amount of upfront consultation with little consideration of how to make decisions or deal with differing perspectives. We gather lots of data but don’t know what to do with it.

The impact of conflict in task, process and relationships in teams has varied between different theories, with some frameworks encouraging conflict in these areas. However research into over 6000 teams suggests that task conflict, process conflict and relationship conflict all negatively impact on team performance. The only exception is for decision-making teams, where task conflict can sometimes have a small positive impact. Contrary to earlier theories, none of the three types of conflict reliably lead to innovation.

I’ve previously shared research about the team stages model by Tuckman. In the model he outlined teams get together and are polite during the Forming stage. We descend into disagreements and conflict during the Storming stage as people seek clarity that isn’t there yet. By agreeing standards and ways of working we reach Norming. And that as we combine the strengths of individuals with the strengths of process and relationships we reach Performing. Teams do indeed seem to follow these stages of development, except that storming can occur more frequently and at any point as the team is impacted by outside forces. Conflict about task, process and relationships doesn’t get solved in one neat stage, but rather needs to be continuously monitored and managed.

So the research suggests we need to actively recognise, manage and reduce task, process and relationship conflict. We can’t afford to ignore it or to leave it unmanaged. Conflict is effectively a symptom that something needs to be addressed in one of these three.

Here are some questions that might help for both new and established teams:

• Task - What is our purpose as a team? What is the task we’ve been asked to achieve? What’s the problem we’re needing to solve? What can we uniquely contribute to the organisation?

• Process - How are we going to get there? What’s the plan and order of activity? What’s the division of workload and responsibilities? How are we going to make decisions? How are we going to measure our performance? How will we hold each other accountable? How are we going to monitor and respond to changing needs and circumstances?

• Relationships - What does each person bring to the team? What are the individual strengths and weaknesses? What experiences have we had that might be helpful? What commitments are we making to each other? How will we provide feedback to each other? How will we manage disagreements?

Actively managing task, process and relationships is a key part of any team’s success. Why not undertake a quick audit of all three with the teams you lead?

Reference Thomas A. O'Neill , Natalie J. Allen & Stephanie E. Hastings (2013) Examining the “Pros” and “Cons” of Team Conflict: A Team-Level Meta-Analysis of Task, Relationship, and Process Conflict, Human Performance, 26:3, 236-260, DOI: 10.1080/08959285.2013.795573

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Summary A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Transcript Hey there. Welcome to episode 59 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Motivation can be divided into two main categories - avoidance and approach. This isn’t a new idea. In fact, Greek philosophers spoke about these two forms of motivation as far back as 400 BC. But research has demonstrated that our preference for one type of motivation over another may come down to our personality.

Avoidance motivation, as the name suggests, is about trying to avoid a negative outcome. Avoidance goals relating to health might include not eating unhealthy food or giving up smoking. These avoidance actions may indeed make me less unhealthy, but they probably won’t make me healthy. As numerous people have expressed it, the absence of disease is not health.

In contrast, approach motivation is about pursuing something positive - working towards a positive outcome or possibility. Approach goals relating to health could include adding healthy foods to our diet or undertaking regular exercise. These goals don’t just move us away from being unhealthy, but actively increase our health.

The primary function of our brain is to keep us alive - to survive. That makes avoidance motivation pretty attractive as a default position for most people. It aligns with the base level need to avoid things that have potentially negative consequences for our survival. But our brains are also about reward. We seek out opportunities to experience pleasure and positive outcomes.

Researchers have found that the balance between avoidance and approach motivation can be linked to our personality - that some people have an approach temperament while others have an avoidance temperament - that we either lean towards self-protection or towards self-enhancement. Those with an approach temperament tend to be more extraverted, have positive emotionality, and a bias towards action. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to be less emotionally stable, experience negative emotionality, and have a bias towards restraint (or not acting).

This bias flows through to the types of goals we set. Those with an approach temperament tend to set mastery goals. For example, “I want to master the material in this class”. A mastery goal is about me - I’m the benchmark of success and progress. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to set goals related to others. For example, “I just want to avoid doing badly in this class” or “I just want to do as well as most people”.

A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. Like almost every aspect of leadership, it starts with the way we think, feel and act. And we can always change the way we think, feel and act, even if it takes some effort.

Here are four ideas to move you towards an approach temperament:

1. Connect with people. Meeting our basic human need for connection to others helps to build a more positive mindset.

2. Note down experiences that provide you with positive emotions and build these experiences into your routine. Going for a run each morning makes me feel positive, so I’ve built that into my daily routine.

3. Anthropomorphise negative emotions. What the heck is this one about. You might be familiar with the Disney Pixar movie Inside Out. In the movie the various emotions the young girl experienced were represented by characters inside her head. Researchers have found there may be some benefits to thinking about negative emotions in this way. For example, they found conceptualising sadness as a person, for example as a girl walking slowly with her head down, helped people to feel more detached from their sadness and actually made them feel less sad. It sounds bizarre, but give it a go. I now have Barry, who is my go to character when I’m feeling discouraged. Importantly, you want to only use this approach with negative emotions. The researchers found that thinking of happiness as a person also made people feel less happy.

4. Run your own race and stop comparing. Aim to become better at things that matter to you and track your progress against yourself, instead of comparing your capability to others.

This week I encourage you to focus on approach goals and building a positive bias for action in your team. As always, if you’re interested in the research check out the show notes at the leadership.today website. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

References Andrew J. Elliot and Todd M. Thrash. Approach–Avoidance Motivation in Personality: Approach and Avoidance Temperaments and Goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 82, No. 5, 804–818

http://qglw.personality-project.org/revelle/syllabi/classreadings/psp825804.pdf

Fangyuan Chen, Rocky Peng Chen, Li Yang. When Sadness Comes Alive, Will It Be Less Painful? The Effects of Anthropomorphic Thinking on Sadness Regulation and Consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2019;

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003103515.htm

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Summary Curiosity is rarely encouraged at work. In fact, leaders and organisations often actively discourage being inquisitive. This week we explore the benefits of curiosity, and four ways to encourage it in your team.

Transcript Welcome to episode 58 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at the benefits of curiosity, and how to encourage it in your team.

The word “curiosity” often conjures up negative connotations. If I asked you to tell me a popular saying about curiosity, it would most likely be “curiosity killed the cat”. This fear of being inquisitive translates into our organisations. Surely if people become curious at work they’re going to neglect their day jobs and start venturing into distraction. And won’t this lead to conflict, reduced productivity and a lack of clarity?

However, research on curiosity demonstrates that these concerns are unfounded, and that curiosity provides a range of benefits for individuals and organisations.

Here’s just a sample of what the research tells us about the benefits of curiosity:

• Curiosity helps us to become more accurate in our decision making. When we are curious, we seek out more alternatives. This helps us to avoid stereotyping people and selectively choosing information that supports our viewpoint.
• When people are encouraged to be curious, they share information with others more readily and listen more attentively to their perspectives. This helps us to build empathy and insight.
• Curiosity actually reduces conflict. It encourages people to consider alternative perspectives and what it would be like to be in the other person’s shoes.

For a great summary of the research, check out the Why Curiosity Matters spotlight series in Harvard Business Review. I’ve provided a link in the show notes - https://hbr.org/2018/09/curiosity

It appears we’re hardwired as humans to be curious, but our education systems and organisations often don’t reward this natural and helpful drive to explore and discover. However, as leaders, there are simple steps we can take to encourage curiosity amongst our people. Here are four ideas to start with:

1. Encourage questions. I’ve worked with organisations where asking a question is equated with being negative and stepping beyond your role. It was debilitating for the organisation and for the people, taking away initiative and discretionary effort. Make it safe to ask questions. Role model the inquisitive use of questions with your team.
2. Build alternatives. Always go beyond the first and most obvious option to explore other alternatives. So often we stop at option one, when the best idea might be a combination of option two and option three.
3. Provide time for exploration. Curiosity takes time, and that time needs to be pressure-free and self-directed. This podcast is driven by the questions I ask myself, combined with the time to explore the answers. When I was working in management consulting there was very little time to be curious which, ironically, was often what clients valued the most.
4. Pursue learning. Ongoing learning builds the capability of the individual and the capacity of the organisation. Encourage and fund your people to undertake additional learning they’re interested in, even if it isn’t obviously linked to the work. Sometimes the connections people can draw between what they’ve learned and the organisation’s needs will surprise you.

So this week I encourage you to invest time in being curious, and allow the same for your people as well. You might be surprised at the benefits that result.

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Welcome to Midweek Motivate. The middle of the week can be challenging for leaders. The goal of midweek motivate is to give you one practical idea that you can try for yourself or with your team right away. This week we’re looking at positive relationships and self-esteem.

Researchers recently looked at 52 studies from around the world to clarify the relationship between self-esteem and the quality of relationships.

Their analysis found that having close relationships helps to boost our self-esteem. That is, our friendships can help us to feel better about ourselves and more confident. But they also found that the connection runs the other way as well. Having a strong sense of self-esteem enhances the quality of our friendships.

So what does that all mean for me as a leader? A key role of any leader is to help build connections, both within the team that you manage, and also across the organisation. Becoming a broker of relationships and connections will help your people to feel better about themselves and boost their confidence. And the effect is contagious - those positive relationships also help those outside your team to feel more confident and positive at work.

So this week, think about some people in your network that you can connect with people in your team. It could be someone to take on an informal mentoring role, or just an opportunity to learn more about another aspect of the organisation. Setup an introduction and then leave them to connect.

And why not use this midweek motivate as a prompt to reconnect with someone. The connections we have had in the past can sometimes fade with time, but take a deep breath and give them a call. It will help you and it will help them as well.

I hope you’re finding these midweek motivates helpful. Drop me an email to info@leadership.today if you have any areas you would like covered. And checkout the leadership.today website for a full archive of all of our Leadership Today podcast episodes. Have a great week.

Michelle A. Harris and Ulrich Orth. The Link Between Self-Esteem and Social Relationships: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2019 DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000265

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Summary Chances are that you will suffer from impostor syndrome at some point in your life. In this episode we explore what impostor syndrome is, why it occurs, and nine ways we can avoid feeling like a fraud.

Transcript Welcome to episode 57 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at impostor syndrome - what it is, why it occurs, and nine ways we can avoid feeling like a fraud.

What is impostor syndrome? Put simply, impostor syndrome is the fear of being exposed as a fraud - that we lack the capability necessary for the challenges we face, and are only avoiding being found out through hard work and luck.

Bryan Stewart says “The root of impostorism is thinking that people don't see you as you really are. We think people like us for something that isn't real and that they won't like us if they find out who we really are." We’ll look at Stewart’s research later.

Importantly, it’s not a disorder. No psychologist is ever going to give you a mental diagnosis of impostor syndrome. Rather it’s a reaction or response that falls in the normal range of human experience.

Studies vary, however impostor syndrome is thought to impact 70% of people across their life. That is, the majority of people at some point feel like a fraud. In Stewart’s study 20% of university students felt very strong feelings of impostorism at any one point in time.

How does impostor syndrome work? The researcher Clance outlines what she calls an impostor cycle. The cycle starts with an achievement-based task. It might be a project, assignment or new responsibility. This is followed by feelings of anxiety, worry and doubt. The individual with impostor syndrome then typically takes one of two possible paths. The first is the ‘hard work’ path - this is a period of over-preparation and frantic work. The second potential path is a period of procrastination and avoidance. There’s a sense of relief once the challenge is completed. Those who took the hard work path will then put any positive outcome down to over-preparation rather than ability. Those who took the procrastination path will put any positive outcome is down to luck. In both cases, even a positive outcome and feedback is seen as further evidence of a lack of personal ability, and so the cycle continues.

What’s the impact on the person and performance of impostor syndrome? Well, there’s the anxiety, fear and self-doubt that accompany new challenges and opportunities. And there’s often a reluctance to put your hand up for even greater challenges and opportunities. After all, those challenges heighten the risk of being discovered as a fraud.

So what can you do to avoid impostor syndrome? Here are 9 ideas:

1. Reframe challenges as opportunities to learn and grow rather than as chances to be tested and ‘found out’. Bringing a growth mindset to challenges will help reduce anxiety and increase motivation.
2. Establish an appropriate standard for your work. Perfectionism and impostor syndrome often co-exist. If your work is never good enough in your own eyes, then no wonder you feel like a fraud.
3. Reach outside of the group where you feel a fraud. Research by Bryan Stewart and colleagues has demonstrated that seeking support from within the group where you feel like a fraud is generally negative and reinforces the sense of being a fraud, while reaching outside the group to family, friends and others is generally positive. Reaching outside where you feel like a fraud recalibrates your abilities.
4. Stop comparing yourself to others. It’s tempting to select people at the top of their game as comparison points. Look to them as inspiration rather than as a benchmark of where you should be. After all, everyone’s journey is different, and you will have your own strengths that even your idols lack.
5. Keep a note of all the positive feedback you receive. When you receive positive feedback just say ‘thank you’. Don’t question it, just transfer it to a note or folder where you can review it when you face a future challenge.
6. Name it to tame it. Most people have impostor syndrome at some point. It’s a normal part of human experience, and it’s harmful not helpful. Calling it out for what it is can help you to be proactive in reframing your thoughts and approach.
7. Seek feedback on your approach and performance. Find some trusted people who can give you balanced feedback on your performance. We all need a cheer squad in life, but it needs to be a cheer squad that we trust to provide both positive and constructive feedback.
8. Be kind to yourself. There’s a classic piece of research that demonstrated people are more compliant when administering medication to their dogs than they are at being compliant with their own medication. We’re often not kind and compassionate to ourselves. Give yourself a bit of a break and treat yourself the way you would treat a friend.
9. Celebrate development and progress. We often don’t take the chance to reflect on just how far we’ve come. Ask yourself “What can I do now that I couldn’t do a year ago?”. Write out a list of strengths and achievements from the past year.

Is impostor syndrome something you’ve struggled with? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Contact me via the leadership.today website, and use the connect link.

References Clance, P.R. (1985). The impostor phenomenon: Overcoming the fear that haunts your success (p. 25). Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers.

Richard G. Gardner, Jeffrey S. Bednar, Bryan W. Stewart, James B. Oldroyd, Joseph Moore. “I must have slipped through the cracks somehow”: An examination of coping with perceived impostorism and the role of social support. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 2019; 115: 103337 DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2019.103337

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This week's podcast is a replay of our 2nd December 2018 episode on Optimism and Resilience. We will be back next week with a brand new episode.

 Summary This week we explore the links between optimism and resilience, using the example of a terrifying real life hang gliding experience.

Transcript Welcome to episode 21 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at optimism and resilience.

Have you ever had a travel experience that didn’t quite go to plan. Chris Gursky certainly has. Chris recently travelled from his home in Florida to Switzerland. He was particularly keen to have a tandem hang gliding experience over the picturesque Swiss countryside, so he booked that in for the first day of his holiday. The YouTube video of his first flight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLBJA8SlH2w&t=9s) shows an excited Chris and his pilot running towards their take off from high on a mountainside. As soon as they took off though Chris and the pilot realise something has gone horribly wrong - the harness Chris is wearing is not actually clipped on to the hang glider, leaving Chris to hang on for dear life. Chris has one hand on the steering bar and one hand on the pilot for most of the flight, not sure of how long he could hold on. The pilot tries for an early landing, but is unable to control the steering while also trying to hold on to Chris, leaving the hang glider to travel over an even greater drop - some 4,000 feet from the ground. After an excruciating two minutes, the hang glider finally nears the ground travelling around 45 miles per hour, with Chris letting go just before it lands. Chris walked away with a broken wrist from the landing and a torn bicep muscle from holding on so hard. Amazingly, despite the ordeal, Chris said “I will go hang gliding again as I did not get to enjoy my first flight.”

Chris’ story demonstrates the two main elements of resilience - holding on and bouncing back. On the one hand, resilience is about your ability to withstand difficult circumstances - to hold on despite the odds - which Chris literally demonstrated during his hang gliding experience. And resilience is also about your ability to quickly bounce back from setbacks - much like Chris’ desire to go hang gliding again, despite his near death experience.

So much of our experience of life is shaped by the lens through which we view events, rather than the events themselves. Shawn Achor in his book “The Happiness Advantage” says that if researchers knew everything about your situation, they can only predict 10% of your happiness levels. Around 50% of our happiness is determined by a so-called genetic set point, with the remaining 40% being determined by our thoughts and actions which, of course, we can alter.

Our resilience links closely to our level of optimism. Martin Seligman describes this in his book “Learned Optimism”. As the title suggests, Seligman has long argued that optimism can be learned, just as early behavioural experiments with animals demonstrated that helplessness and pessimism can also be learned. Seligman outlines three ways in which optimists and pessimists differ when seeking to explain the causes and impacts of events - personalisation, permanence and pervasiveness - the three P’s.

Let’s look at these three P’s using an example of a setback. Alan is reversing his car into a tight spot in the city when he hears breaking glass and the hiss of a tyre going flat. It turns out he has backed over a glass bottle, badly puncturing a tyre on his car.

Consider the three P’s if Alan took a pessimistic view of this situation:

• Personalisation - Alan immediately blames himself - he should have noticed the bottle and been more careful while parking the car - it’s all his fault.
• Permanence - these kinds of things always happen to him - this flat tyre is going to take ages to change and then repair - it’s ruined his whole week.
• Pervasiveness - now he’s going to be late for the show tonight, which means his girlfriend is going to be unhappy with him - he’ll be grumpy at work all week, and he just can’t be bothered going to the gym in the morning now.

What about if Alan took an optimistic view of the same situation:

• Personalisation - this could have happened to anyone, and whoever left the bottle there was pretty careless - it’s not really Alan’s fault at all
• Permanence - Alan will be able to change the tyre quickly after the show - it’s a 15 minute job at the most, and doesn’t really impact his evening or week
• Pervasiveness - it’s just a flat tyre - things in his relationship and at work are going well and the rest of his life is pretty positive - it’s no big deal

You can see how an optimistic mindset would make Alan more resilient, both in the moment with the punctured tyre, but also in bouncing back from a potentially negative situation.

Interestingly, when positive things happen, the thinking styles are reversed. The optimist will be more likely to take credit for the positive outcome, to see it as another sign of things to be grateful for, and will let the positive experience flow into other areas of their life. The pessimist, in contrast, will tend to put the positive outcome down to luck or the efforts of others, limit its impact in time, and see it as a small and contained part of their life.

You can learn to be more optimistic in the moment. Just understanding these differences in thinking styles will make you more aware of your own thought patterns in both positive and negative situations. You can then treat your initial thoughts as opinions rather than facts. For example, if something goes wrong, you might tell yourself “you’re an idiot - you can never get anything right”. Instead of just accepting this negative thought, treat it as an opinion which can be challenged. Is it really your fault? Do you always get things wrong, or are there examples of things you do well? What are some other explanations or ways of viewing the situation? Train yourself to look at alternative explanations rather than just accepting the first negative thought that comes into your head.

There’s also the ‘boring but important’ aspects of a healthy life that help to build resilience and optimism, namely diet, sleep and exercise. Connections with friends and family also matter. As does taking the time to slow down and be grateful for all the positive things in our lives - noting down three new things each day to be grateful for is a simple and effective practice that helps us to focus on the positives in life.

This week, think of Chris Gursky and his terrifying hang gliding flight. By holding on and then quickly deciding to give hang gliding another try, Chris provides a powerful demonstration of resilience in action.

References Martin Seligman - Learned Optimism

Shawn Achor - The Happiness Advantage

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This week's podcast is a replay of our 14th October 2018 episode on Leadership First Impressions

 Research demonstrates that 90% of the initial impression we form about people is based on two factors - warmth and competence. It also turns out these two factors are difficult to combine. So how do we demonstrate both warmth and competence as leaders?

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode fourteen of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

This week we are looking at leadership first impressions.

It turns out that 90% of the initial impression we form about a person is around two things - their warmth and their competence. In other words - do I connect with you, and do you know what you’re doing?

It’s important to note that warmth isn’t primarily about being liked - it’s about making a real connection. That you are a real human being that people can relate to on an emotional level.

Competence is about knowing what you’re doing. That you are a leader who is skilled and capable - someone others can respect.

These factors produce two stereotypes of leaders that perhaps you can identify with:

• The first is the competent but cold leader - they’re all business, great at what they do, but they just seem to struggle to connect with people. People respect them, but they may not put in an extra effort for them.
• Then there’s the warm and friendly but not-so-competent leader - they are great at bringing people around them, but those people gradually drift away when they figure out the leader isn’t up to the task.

These stereotypes assume that competence and warmth sit at opposite ends of a spectrum. That a leader can only be all about results, or all about people, but not both. And many leaders assume that this is indeed the case.

So if they’re forced to choose between the two, it’s perhaps not surprising that many leaders go for the “respected but not connected” version of competence without warmth. That flows into how they communicate and interact with people. Indeed, they have to guard their image of competence, so letting people into who they are as a human being is a risk - and a risk they see as not worth taking.

How does that come across to others? People who take on this competent but cold combination often try to present themselves as an expert. And there’s no shortage of experts - LinkedIn has nearly 6 million people who list themselves as experts in various fields. In fact, LinkedIn lists so many people with “keynote speaker” in their title, that to give each of them just five gigs a year would require there to be over 3,000 keynote speeches every single day. Some people really latch on to the need to lead with their expertise.

The good news is that you can combine the two - it is possible to be seen as both warm and competent. The research suggests that it is tricky, but also possible. And the research also suggests that you should lead with warmth. That making a connection with people matters, and provides a foundation to then demonstrate your competence.

I worked alongside a leader who embodied exactly this combination. He was a lovely guy to work with, but also filled you with confidence that he knew exactly what he was doing. He was incredibly calm in a crisis - his body language and tone of voice even made him seem relaxed. Even when things were going horribly wrong, he was interested in others’ views, and keen to resolve the issue. He didn’t just remain calm himself, but he helped others to calm down. This allowed people to focus on the problem and work towards a positive outcome. They weren’t worried about the leader and his response - they trusted him, they felt connected to him, and they knew he valued maintaining and building connections with his team, even when they made a mistake.

As Amy Cuddy and her fellow researchers put it - “Before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think of you.”

So here are some ideas of how you can combine both warmth and competence in the way that you present.

1. Be yourself. Be a real human being that turns up to work with strengths, weaknesses, interests and concerns. Don’t try to be perfect, but do try to become better.
2. Be interested in others. Take the time to understand where they are coming from - their interests, even their hopes and dreams.
3. Let people into your head. Share your thoughts and emotions. Sometimes the calm person can appear as if they don’t care enough. Sometimes trying to be friendly can appear flighty. Don’t let people have to guess where you’re coming from and what’s driving your behaviour - let them into your head.
4. Be prepared to present your capabilities with confidence. Try to capture in one or two sentences what you bring and what makes you unique. Then think about how you present that authentic image of you to others.
5. And lastly - get feedback. Ask people about how approachable you are, and what you might do to improve this. Ask for feedback about what makes you appear more and less competent.

I hope you find these ideas helpful as you continue to improve the way you lead. As always, if you’re interested in the research, the references are listed in the transcript at our website - leadership.today

And thanks again for those who have taken the time to rate, review and share the podcast with others. It’s great to hear your feedback and to see the hundreds of people who are downloading the podcast each week. We’ll see you next week.

Research used for this episode:

A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition.

Fiske, Susan T; Cuddy, Amy J C; Glick, Peter; Xu, Jun.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; Washington Vol. 82, Iss. 6, (Jun 2002): 878-902.

Connect, Then Lead. To exert influence, you must balance competence with warmth. by Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffing. Harvard Business Review July–August 2013.

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Welcome to Midweek Motivate. The middle of the week can be tough for leaders. The goal of midweek motivate is to give you one practical idea that you can try for yourself or with your team right away. And this week we’re looking at making the first day at a new job great.

The first day in a new job can feel quite overwhelming, but there are some simple things we can do as leaders to make the first day great.

Here are some quick tips to try with new people joining your organisation:

1. Make contact before the first day. Give the person a call the week before they start to let them know how excited you are that they are joining.
2. Buddy new people up. Introduce the new person to someone within the organisation before they start. This allows them to ask the ‘stupid’ questions - what people tend to wear, what time people typically turn up - all of those questions can be answered before they start.
3. Have everything ready. Technology, stationery, and any other resources they may need. I once started a new job and arrive to find an assortment of random boxes on my desk and no computer. I was told there were some delays with the technology and I would get a laptop the next week. I spent a whole week working on a Blackberry. Having everything ready communicates that you really care.
4. Build connections. Set up some meetings to help the person get to know the organisation and key people.
5. Be there. As a leader, show up. Make sure you’re physically there on their first day. This makes a real difference.
6. Leave a small gift on their desk. Think about something you learned about the person during the selection process and give them a small gift that reflects that interest. That’s what people talk about with their friends.

What are your tips for making the first day great? Send them to info@leadership.today

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Summary Entrance interviews beat exit interviews any day of the week. In this Leadership Today podcast we cover some questions to draw on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Transcript Welcome to episode 56 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at the power of entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Last week we explored ways to improve exit interviews. However, it’s important not just to focus on those leaving our organisation - after all, they’ve already decided to move on. We need to also capitalise on those who are newer to our organisation and the fresh perspectives they bring.

Think back to the last time you joined a new organisation. In those first few weeks you were hyper aware of what was different or unusual about the organisation - the positives, the negatives, and the just plain weird. The security access seems really tight, but people hold the door open for others all the time. People make an effort to introduce themselves and make others feel welcome. Meetings always start 10 minutes late. Most people setup their laptop and work on emails during meetings. There’s a buzz of excitement around the office. Or, it’s like a dentist waiting room in here - all I can hear is typing.

Wouldn’t it be great to capitalise on these unique perspectives as people join your organisation? Like exit interviews, entrance interviews are a great opportunity to learn. But they’re even better than exit interviews because you can still course correct. You might even pick up some frustrations and reduce unwanted staff turnover along the way.

I suggest undertaking entrance interviews at two points in time - 30 days and 90 days after joining. 30 days gives enough time to process what’s unique about the organisation before becoming fully entrenched. And 90 days provides additional time to experience some things for the first time.

I think the two-up manager, the leader two levels above the person, is in a great position to undertake these interviews. It helps that leader to remain close to the experience of new people, while also building relationships and connections. They’re also a step further away from the day-to-day which may bring a different perspective to the discussion. The person’s direct manager could also be well suited to undertake the entrance interview.

It’s important to frame the entrance interview as not being a test. You’re not putting the individual on trial here, and there aren’t right or wrong answers. This is genuinely an exercise to learn from their experiences and fresh perspective, and to make the organisation an even better place to work.

Here are some questions I suggest for the entrance interview:

• What is unusual about this organisation? Here we’re trying to get at the unique attributes, both positive and negative.
• What’s exciting about working here? These are the aspects that could motivate and engage our people.
• What’s frustrating about working here? This allows us to identify potential impediments to performance.
• What surprised you about the role? Surprises aren’t always bad, so we want to draw out both the positive and the negative.
• How would you describe the culture? What does it feel like to work here? Listen carefully to the words used and the extent to which they align with your desired culture.
• What does it take to succeed here? What is rewarded? You might be surprised at what people see. You might think hard work is rewarded, but the new person sees friendships and connections as the way to get ahead.

I think entrance interviews are a fantastic learning opportunity for leaders and organisations. They signal your interest in listening and improvement. Why not trial an entrance interview this week and let me know how you go.

As a reminder, I’ve recently launched my three week Boost Your Assertiveness course. I’m offering the course to podcast listeners for 30% off. Check the show notes for the link - https://leadership-today.teachable.com/p/boost-your-assertiveness/?product_id=1340666&coupon_code=30OFFPODCAST

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Welcome to our fourth Midweek Motivate. The middle of the week can be tough for leaders. The goal of midweek motivate is to give you one practical idea that you can try for yourself or with your team right away. And this week we’re looking at doing less with less, but more of the right things.

It’s a common expression - we need to do more with less. But I think it’s time to challenge that. Instead of doing more with less, maybe we need to do less with less, but more of the right things. The focus then shifts from activity and productivity, to importance and impact.

Here are some things you can try this week:

1. Look at your purpose. What really matters for you and for your role? And then apply that importance lens over the work you do. If there’s work that’s not important, then challenge whether you need to keep doing it.
2. Be prepared to say ‘no’, or at least ‘let me think about it’. A key to doing less with less is to carefully consider any additional work being passed your way.
3. For every new initiative, kill off an old initiative. The same goes for meetings. That’s a great way of testing just how important the new initiative or meeting is in the context of what you’re already committed to.
4. Trial some new artificial constraints. How would we do this with fewer people? How would we do this in half the time? Innovation often requires constraints. Having all the time and resources in the world can actually reduce innovation.

So this week, focus on doing less with less, but more of the right things. Look at your purpose, be prepared to say no, be prepared to kill off old initiatives, and trial some artificial constraints. Let me know how you go, and you can get in contact via the Leadership Today website - just go to the connect page - or you can email me directly info@leadership.today Let me know how you go and have a great week.

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Summary Exit interviews often stink. They end up being overly positive or overly negative. This week we explore seven ways to radically improve your exit interviews.

Transcript Welcome to episode 55 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at seven ways to radically improve exit interviews.

Exit interviews are one of those things that vary in popularity and application. Some organisations use them every time someone leaves. Other organisations may have been burned in the past or not seen the value. The idea is great - let’s find out from people who are leaving the organisation why they’re leaving and what we can do to make the place better for the people who still work here. We can do that using a structured interview just before they depart to whatever exciting opportunity comes next in their career.

In application though, the interviews tend to either be really positive or really negative. As a colleague of mine once wisely noted, you’re never more popular or better at your job than on your last day. We tend, rightly, to celebrate those who have contributed to our organisations on the day they are finishing up. We bring together a summary of their achievements, list all the great things we love about them, and talk about how much they will be missed. Friends come to the person and question how the place will ever be the same without them. All of that primes the person to say positive things in their exit interview. It turns into a “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation. The exit interview may well highlight lots of positives about the organisation, but probably understates the challenges and areas for improvement.

On the other hand you have people leaving the organisation where something has gone wrong. They may be angry or frustrated. The exit interview for them is a way to be heard. In those exit interviews the tone is more “it’s not me, it’s you - and, by the way, I’ve set the stationery room alight”. Those exit interviews end up highlighting a shopping list of problems and complaints, often more about that person than the organisation.

Whichever way the exit interview goes, there’s a risk that what we are hearing is not accurate. It seems like a missed opportunity to improve. If only we could source more honest feedback.

Well, help has arrived. Here are seven tips for dramatically improving your exit interviews.

1. Never on the last day. It’s best to conduct your exit interview as close to the time when the person tells you that they are leaving. At that point their thinking is usually clear. They will be ready to provide honest answers about why they’ve chosen to move on.

2. Split the conversation into two. During the first discussion you can focus on the reasons for leaving. It’s helpful to schedule a second conversation that’s focused on improvements. That provides the person with more time to think about suggestions for improvement rather than putting them on the spot.

3. Balance the discussion. We can tend to dive into the negatives or try to pull out too many positives. Balance the conversations with questions such as:

4. What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the most?

5. What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the least?

6. Focus improvements on the role. This focus on the role helps people to be more open about improvements without feeling like they’re being overly critical about their experiences. You could ask:

7. What could be improved about the role for the next person to fill the position?

8. Explore missed opportunities. Discuss the areas where the organisation failed to draw the best out of the person:

9. Are there particular skills or abilities you have that could have been used more effectively?

10. How long did you intend to stay versus what you actually stayed for?

11. What will be different in the next role that your present position hasn’t been able to provide?

12. Perform a clarity check. Clarity of purpose and role is critical to success, and the following questions can help with that:

13. What was your experience of the role and its responsibilities? Was it what you expected?

14. How clear were the goals and accountabilities associated with your role?

15. Was the induction and training provided sufficient for you to perform the role? How could it be improved?

16. Keep the door open. If the person’s departure is genuinely a loss to the organisation, why not leave open the opportunity of them returning one day. You might ask:

17. Would you work for us again in the future? Why or why not?

Applying these tips will help you to get the best out your exit interviews, while also making the process more positive for you and the person leaving.

Keeping all of that in mind, wouldn’t it be great if we could gain some of the benefits of an exit interview earlier in the process? Next week we’re exploring entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of those who are newer to our organisations.

As you might know I’ve recently launched my three week Boost Your Assertiveness course. I’m offering the course to podcast listeners for 30% off, taking the course cost down from $149 US to the weirdly precise $104.30 . Check the show notes for the link - https://leadership-today.teachable.com/p/boost-your-assertiveness/?product_id=1340666&coupon_code=30OFFPODCAST

Have a great week.

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Welcome to our third Midweek Motivate. The middle of the week can be tough for leaders. The goal of midweek motivate is to give you one practical idea that you can try for yourself or with your team right away. And this week we’re looking at two ways that inserting a gap can help you as a leader.

Do you find you’re getting overloaded by the volume of requests coming to you? Do you find it hard to say ‘no’ in the moment? This can be pretty common for leaders. Saying ‘yes’ to requests early in our career can help us to advance. We’re seen as the go-to person who is keen to tackle anything. But, as we progress, effective leadership is often about what we say ‘no’ to.

One practical thing to try this week is to insert a gap between any requests made of you and your response. Even if they’re simple requests, ask for some time to think about it and get back to the person. If someone asks you “Can you run that report for me today?” you might say “Let me check what I have scheduled and I’ll get straight back to you”. That provides you with some time to think about the request and your capacity to complete it.

The second way inserting a gap can help is when we find ourselves having a strong emotional response at work. Rather than just speaking our mind in the moment, it can be helpful to take a quick walk around the block. And rather than firing off an email when we’re frustrated, we might save it as a draft to review the next day. Many a career has been saved by that simple tip.

So over the next few days think about inserting a gap to grab back control over your time and your emotions. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes.

Well hopefully you’re finding the midweek motivate helpful in boosting your motivation in that little midweek slump that we all tend to hit. If there’s any particular tips that you’ve found helpful why don’t you email them through to me. You can contact me at info@leadership.today or you can go to the leadership.today website and connect with me via the connect page. There are options to follow me on LinkedIn, join our Leadership Today facebook page, or send us a message. Have a great week and we’ll speak with you again next week.

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Summary

How are your listening skills? This week we’re looking at five tips to level up your listening.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 54 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at five tips to level up your listening.

Have you ever had that experience of talking to someone, only to notice that they’re not really paying attention? How are your listening skills? What’s the balance like between your speaking and listening?

Listening is an essential part of effective leadership. Listening underpins core skills such as influencing and assertiveness. If we want to influence someone we need to know where we are influencing them from, not just where we want to influence them to. To do that effectively, we need to really listen to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. We need to listen to the content and also the emotion.

So, rather than just give you some tips about listening, I’m going to test your listening skills through this podcast. During the podcast I’m going to ask you to complete a pretty simple addition of some numbers. Just keep track of the total as the podcast continues. And keep the number in your head - you’re not allowed to take notes. Okay, so we’re going to start with 1,000.

It’s helpful to think about the common levels of listening. The first level is ignoring. To be fair, you could argue that this isn't really a level of listening. It's almost like actively not listening. Smart phones are great for this - if you've ever tried to have a conversation with someone while they play with their phone, you'll know exactly what I mean. +10. So you should have a total of 1,010, and that’s my last hint.

The next level of listening is pretending. Here I'm trying to give the impression that I'm listening while I'm really not listening. I might nod my head occasionally, say 'mmm-hmmm', but people pick up really quickly when we're just pretending to listen. +1000

The next level up is selective listening. This is better than the previous two levels of listening, but still isn't great. Here we're listening to the other person, but just to elements of what they're saying. Maybe we're just hearing the parts we agree with, or we're listening out for things to disagree with. Either way, there's a whole lot of other information that we're missing out on when we listen selectively. +30

The fourth level of listening is listening to respond. Here my listening is attuned to opportunities to turn the conversation back to my interests. Or I'm listening to argue back, so am only really hearing part of what you're saying. I'm not asking questions unless they will help me to respond. +1000

The fifth and final level is listening to understand. Here my objective is to really understand your perspective. I'm asking open questions and confirming my understanding. I'm not worrying so much about the next question, but am making sure I'm concentrating on what you're saying. I'm listening not just to the words, but for the emotions behind the words. I'm keeping the conversation focused on you. +50

So we want to move our listening up these levels in order to have assertive and influential conversations. Our attention spans can often work against this. If you've ever listened to a podcast or audio book on double speed you will know exactly what I mean. +1000.

Our brains can comfortably process verbal information coming at us at double speed. Which means, when someone is talking normal speed, it's tempting for us to try to divert some of our attention to other things. What should I have for dinner tonight? What meeting do I have coming up next? But we are actually not great at multi-tasking, and anything else we're thinking about will take us away from the task of listening to understand. +10

Okay - that’s all the numbers. What total did you end up with? Did you get 4,500? If so, unfortunately that’s not the correct answer. The correct answer is 4,100, but lots of people end up with 4,500 as their brains try to simplify the task and round up to the nearest 500. If you chose to perform the calculation through this podcast, you probably didn’t end up listening very well or calculating very well. It’s exactly the same when we’re distracted during every day conversations. Trying to think about something else while you’re also trying to listen means you’re probably not doing either very well. It’s far better to have a 10 minute conversation where you’re 100% listening than a 20 minute conversation where you’re 50% listening.

Here are five simple tips to try out this week:

1. Paraphrase what you’ve heard back to the person. That demonstrates you’re really listening and also quickly uncovers any misunderstandings.

2. If you’re in a meeting, take notes. Note taking is a great way to maintain focus and summarise themes.

3. Don’t just listen to the facts, but also listen for emotion. How do you think the person is feeling?

4. Don’t worry about what’s next. Be comfortable formulating your next question once they’ve finished what they’re saying, rather than part way through.

5. Watch your body language. Make sure you’re facing the person and making eye contact. Nod occasionally to demonstrate your interest.

Hopefully today’s podcast encourages you to pay attention to your listening in the coming week. If you liked today’s content, the levels of listening were drawn from my new Boost Your Assertiveness online course. You can find a link to the course via the leadership.today website or in the show notes.

I hope you found the content helpful and I look forward to speaking with you next week.

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Welcome to our second Midweek Motivate. The middle of the week can be tough for leaders. The goal of midweek motivate is to give you one practical idea that you can try for yourself or with your team right away.

Our workplaces are full of so many distractions. Loud conversations, noisy equipment and other background noise can distract us.

People try to counteract this in lots of ways, and headphones are right up there as the distraction-reducing weapon of choice. I even saw someone once who had a large pair of over-ear headphones on with the cable dangling down to the ground - they didn’t even plug the headphones in, but used them as some kind of open plan hearing protection.

So you have some deep focused work to get done and you’ve reached for the headphones. What next?

The key here is to not replace one distraction with another. We humans are hopeless at multitasking, particularly when it comes to perception and concentration. It might be tempting to put on an audiobook or podcast but, despite my clearly vested interest in telling you otherwise, neither is a great idea. Our brains will be trying to decode the voices coming into our ears, and that will continue to distract us from our work.

Okay - so if audiobooks and podcasts are out, what about music? Music is likely to be a better option, but not all music is created equal when it comes to concentration. Music with lots of lyrics, particularly unfamiliar music, again is likely to distract us.

So a better option is to go for familiar music that doesn’t have lyrics. But that potentially sounds kind of boring. Another trick is to loop one song on repeat. Just pick a song you like to match the mood you want to be in while undertaking the deep work, and put it on single-track repeat. You will find that your brain quickly tunes out the music while it also buffers you from other distractions.

Give it a try today and let me know how you go and let another colleague know about the podcast as well. Have a great week.

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Summary
In today’s episode, we outline the ten best podcasts for leaders in 2019.

Transcript
Welcome to episode 53 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

As leaders, podcasts offer a tempting solution to continuing our professional development and keeping in touch with broader trends. We can simply pull on the headphones and learn about almost anything. But with over 700,000 active podcasts, it can be hard for a leader to know where to start. Fortunately I’ve done the heavy lifting for you, with today’s episode outlining the ten best podcasts for leaders in 2019.

It’s important to note that these are the ten best podcasts for leaders - they’re not the ten best podcasts about leadership. Instead, they provide a broad range of perspectives, topics and approaches.

You’re unlikely to love them all - there’s clearly an element of preferences around style and content. But if you pick up one or two new podcasts then hopefully this episode has served its purpose.

And, for the pedantic, I’m actually going to list 14 podcasts - there were a few ties along the way. I have links to all of the podcasts in the show notes.

So, for dramatic effect, I’m going to start at number 10 and work my way up.

As leaders it’s important to challenge our perspectives and broaden our thinking, which brings me to number 10.

10 - Akimbo by Seth Godin
https://www.akimbo.me

Seth Godin is one of the most popular and successful authors and bloggers of our time, producing content at a frenetic pace. It’s a little hard to tie his Akimbo podcast down, but he’s bound to challenge your thinking and bring new perspectives to the way you lead. There’s a solid 15% of what he says that I tend to either disagree with or think he has gotten completely wrong. And there’s a solid 15% that makes me think about the world in a completely new way, so that seems like a fair trade off. Episodes vary dramatically in length from 20 minutes to 45 minutes.

Teamwork, engagement and culture are rich topics to explore and it’s helpful to have a seasoned expert to guide the way. And who better to that than Patrick Lencioni at number 9.

9 - At The Table with Patrick Lencioni
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-the-table-with-patrick-lencioni/id1474171732

Patrick is a well known author of books including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The podcast is setup as a chat between Pat and a few of his work colleagues. The format is pretty casual and relatively new, so they’re still bedding down the style a little bit. Episodes are around 30 to 40 minutes.

People are diverse and difficult to understand, but having deep insight into what motivates and drives others is a key part of leadership. That’s where podcast number 8 comes in handy.

8 - Hidden Brain from NPR.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain

Hosted by Shankar Vedantam, this podcast is a gem which combines science and storytelling to uncover the often subtle forces that drive our behaviour. Always thought provoking and really well produced. Episodes range from 25 minutes up to an hour.

Setting up workplaces that are engaging and motivating is what leaders do to achieve results, and that’s the focus of podcast number 7.

7 - WorkLife with Adam Grant from TED.
https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife

As an organisational psychologist, Adam’s podcast focuses on motivation and meaning at work. He’s a university professor and the author of several books, including cowriting the excellent Option B with Sheryl Sandberg. Get your thumb ready to skip past the adverts, but otherwise it’s well worth adding to your list. Episodes are released in seasons and are around 30 to 45 minutes.

We operate within a broader economic and historical landscape, and our number 6 podcast combines both.

6 - 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - BBC World Service
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b1g3c

To be honest, history and economics were two subjects I wasn’t great at, but Tim Harford combines the two brilliantly. Each week he explores an aspect of our modern economy by focusing on an invention or discovery that changed the path of business and human life. Episodes come in around 10 minutes.

How do you get the best out of your day? That’s where number 5 comes in.

5 - How I Work - Amantha Imber
https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast/

If you enjoy listening to me each week, then why not add another Australian psychologist to your podcast playlist. Amantha’s podcast is typically interview based, with some shorter tip-based episodes. The focus is on personal productivity - how successful people from a range of backgrounds get the most out of their day. That ranges from musicians to entrepreneurs and even a magician. Interview episodes are around 50 minutes and come out weekly.

Economics doesn’t have to be boring, as the two podcasts at number 4 demonstrate.

4 - Planet Money - NPR AND Freakonomics
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money

http://freakonomics.com/

Planet Money is one of the podcasts I enjoy the most. A really interesting take on economics presented in an engaging way. The show has fantastic hosts and a great format. Freakonomics builds off the success of the book by the same name. Again, an interesting take on economics. It can be a bit hit and miss, so it’s worth working through the enormous back catalogue to pick out topics of interest. Either are great ways to build your confidence as a leader around economic trends. Planet Money is around 20 minutes, and Freakonomics is around 40 minutes to an hour.

Maybe you need some practical leadership tips. Our two podcasts that tied at number 3 can help you there.

3 - Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast AND Lead to Win with Michael Hyatt
https://www.life.church/leadershippodcast/

https://michaelhyatt.com/leadtowin/

Craig Groeschel is a prominent leadership speaker who is also the founder of a large multi-site church in the US. He presents really practical content that’s equally applicable in business and not for profit settings. If you’re after practical leadership advice, the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast is hard to beat. Another one to check out is Lead to Win. Again, some great practical content, although a little heavy on the self-promotion at times. Both are around 25 minutes.

Keeping up to date with the latest news can be hard, particularly if you want to take a broader view. The two podcasts at number 2 are designed to do exactly that.

2 - The Inquiry - BBC World Service AND Economist Radio - Economist
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p029399x

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/

When it comes to taking a global perspective, it’s hard to beat the BBC and the Economist. The Inquiry is topical and comes out weekly, whereas Economist Radio comes out on weekdays and covers several stories. As leaders it’s challenging to step out of our own organisations and take a truly global context. Either podcast will help you to do that.

It’s fantastic to learn from the experiences of people who have grown successful organisations, which brings us to number one - which is, again, a tie.

1 - How I Built This with Guy Raz AND Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this

https://mastersofscale.com/

You should give both of these podcasts a go. How I Built This provides fascinating background to entrepreneurs and their journeys to build successful businesses. The episode with James Dyson is a great place to start. My only complaint is that they do throw in quite a few reruns into your podcast feed without marking them up as reruns. Masters of Scale is incredibly well produced, drawing together interesting guests into well formulated stories around a theme. Episodes range from about 40 minutes to an hour.

So, as you’re likely to hear on each of the podcasts I’ve recommended, why not help others to find this podcast by providing a rating and review. It does help us to creep up the charts which in turn helps others to find us.

And finally, a couple of pieces of news from Leadership Today. We have just launched the Midweek Motivate. If you already subscribe to the Leadership Today podcast it’s a bonus episode that will turn up in your feed every Wednesday. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, why not just click on the subscribe button now. The goal is to provide one practical tip that you can apply right away to help get over that midweek leadership slump. And our Boost Your Assertiveness three week online course is live. Go to leadership.today to check out a free preview of the first two days of content.

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Welcome to our first Midweek Motivate. As the name suggests, these episodes come out in the middle of the week - right at the point where your enthusiasm as a leader may be starting to dip. The goal of midweek motivate is to give you one practical idea you can try for yourself or with your team right away. Our main Leadership Today episodes that come out on Saturdays are short - coming in at under 8 minutes each. But midweek motivate is even shorter, so let’s get into today’s topic - removing frustrations.

Even the most engaged employee can become undone by frustrations. Those annoying obstacles that get in between our motivation and our performance. It might be the computer that needs rebooting, a clunky process that takes way too long, or a colleague who seems to be working against us rather than with us. Tools, processes and people - so many opportunities for frustrations.

But your most engaged team members probably don’t want to speak to you about their frustrations. They don’t want to be seen as negative or complaining. So they take all these small frustrations and put up with them for as long as they can, until it all explodes.

I had a team member whose computer keyboard had an unreliable letter T. If they typed a word with the letter T in it, sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn’t work. How frustrating is that? They had gone to IT but they didn’t have any spare keyboards. So they just put up with it - day after day after day. That is until we had our monthly meeting, and I asked one simple question. “Is there anything that’s frustrating or getting in your way at the moment?”. 30 minutes later I was back from the local stationery store with a new keyboard. But what if I hadn’t asked the question?

So this midweek motivate challenge is to ask that very question of one of your colleagues or team members - “Is there anything that’s frustrating or getting in your way at the moment?”. Then listen, provide suggestions, or just help them to get it out of their way.

Give it a try and let me know how you go.

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SUMMARY This week we’re looking at research that demonstrates faking extraversion as a way to boost well-being. Seriously - what’s all that about? And what might it mean for leaders?

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode 52 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at research that demonstrates faking extraversion as a way to boost well-being.

There is a well established link between the personality trait of extraversion and positive affect. That is, the more extraverted someone is, the greater their positive feelings and broader well-being. Now, I’ll just pause there to allow time for our introverted half of the audience click on unsubscribe. But as the cigarette company funded Hans Eysenck demonstrated, extraverts are more likely to smoke and over eat, so it’s not all smooth sailing on the other side of the fence. I’ll pause there to allow time for the remainder of my audience to also click on unsubscribe.

Okay - so our personality preferences all come with benefits and draw backs. But exploring the potential benefits of acting more extraverted on well-being is a legitimate area of study. Well, as of August 2019, the initial results are in.

The researchers from the University of California proposed that behaving in an extraverted way should provide a short-term boost in well-being.

How did they get people to act more introverted and extraverted? Well, they actually had each person do both. Participants were split into two groups, with half instructed to behave like an extravert for a week, then as an introvert for a week, with the other half doing the opposite. The participants completed various assessments along the way. In the extraverted week participants were asked to act as talkative, assertive and spontaneous as they could. In the introverted week they were asked to act as deliberate, quiet and reserved as they could.

During the extraverted week, people saw a significant increase in well-being. This included higher ratings of positive affect, connectedness and flow. The researchers also found that asking people to behave in an introverted way decreased well-being.

These findings are similar to other research quoted in the study where people commuting to work on trains and buses were asked to either speak with a stranger or remain silent. Those who spoke with strangers saw a boost to their positive feelings, while those who remained silent didn’t.

But what makes the difference? Was it being talkative, being assertive, or being spontaneous? And do I really need to act outside my personality preference to get the well-being benefits linked to extraversion?

After reading the study, I think these behavioural changes are all possible without working outside of our personality preference. You can be more assertive while still being introverted. It’s a behaviour. You can make a greater effort to connect with other people while still being introverted. Again, it’s a behaviour. And you can choose to be more spontaneous and adventurous while still being introverted. I believe it’s better to think of these as generally beneficial activities and ways of interacting, rather than attempts to change our personalities.

I think one of the key takeaways from this research for leaders is the importance of building connections with others. That, independent of our personality preference for introversion or extraversion, we all need other people and we all want to belong. One of the leadership styles I explore with groups is what I call Connecting. This isn’t just about connecting directly with individuals you lead, it’s also about helping those you lead to make connections with others across the organisation. This helps to provide support while also boosting a sense of belonging, just like those people on the bus or train taking the time to talk with a stranger. As leaders, we can boost well-being and performance by using a Connecting leadership style.

The other key takeaway is helping people to boost their assertiveness - being able to explore other’s perspectives while also presenting my own views and opinions clearly and confidently. If you want to learn more about that, you can check out episode 6 on Assertiveness, and you can also keep an eye out for my online Boost Your Assertiveness course which I’m currently trialing prior to a September launch. But as a leader, I can encourage people to share their views, and also take the time to listen to alternative views. We can boost the assertiveness in our organisations, not just in our people.

If you’re interested in exploring the benefits of introversion, I recommend Susan Cain’s excellent book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. She also has a great TED talk which I’ve linked to in the show notes. There are benefits from talking less and listening more. I think it’s entirely possible to work on our listening at the same time as we work on building connections and assertiveness. Unlike extraversion and introversion, they’re not opposite ends of a scale.

Now, I came across the research on extraversion and well-being via the excellent British Psychological Society Research Digest. I highly recommend checking that out and I’ve provided a link in the show notes.

REFERENCES Susan Cain TED talk - The Power of Introverts. https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts?language=en

Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352153

British Psychological Society Research Digest - https://digest.bps.org.uk/

Margolis, S., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2019, August 1). Experimental Manipulation of Extraverted and Introverted Behavior and Its Effects on Well-Being. Journal of Experimental Psychology:

General. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000668

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Summary

Confidence is a key part of leadership effectiveness. It’s much easier to follow a confident leader than one who appears to doubt themselves. But what is confidence, and how can we develop it?

Transcript

Welcome to episode 51 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re exploring confidence in action.

Confidence is a key part of leadership effectiveness. It’s much easier to follow a confident leader than one who appears to doubt themselves. But what is confidence, and how can we develop it?

First a thought - yes, it is possible to be overly confident and to overestimate our abilities. Check out episode 49 on accurate self-assessment for ways to avoid that.

Self-confidence is underpinned by two concepts:

Self-esteem - this is the belief that you have an inherent value. Furthermore, it’s a belief that this value isn’t based on what you do or offer others, rather it’s something that all human beings share. You might also think of self-esteem as self-worth or self-respect. How can you have self-confidence unless you believe you are of value?

Self-efficacy - this is the belief that you have capacity to influence events in your own life. It’s a sense of control - that you’re not just a victim of your circumstances, but have the ability to shape the world around you. That no matter what cards are dealt to you, you still have choice and influence. Self-efficacy is necessary for self-confidence. How can you have self-confidence if you don’t think you can impact your circumstances?

You may have noticed that both self-esteem and self-efficacy are grounded in beliefs. They are both about how we think about ourselves and the world. They’re not primarily about feelings, although they will absolutely impact the way we feel. And they’re not primarily about action, although they will absolutely impact the way we act.

Self-confidence is a little different. It is grounded in thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Self-confidence is the belief that you can face day to day challenges. It’s a level of trust in your abilities, capacities and judgements. You can think confidently. You can feel confident. And you can act confidently. Importantly, you can take confident action even when you don’t feel confident. And taking confident action can help you to feel more confident.

So what holds us back from thinking, feeling and acting confidently:

Spotlight effect - this is the misguided belief that everyone is watching and judging what we’re doing all the time. It’s easy to feel like we’re always the centre of attention in our world, but that’s probably not the case. More likely is that people are thinking about themselves more than they’re thinking about you. So the fear and anxiety of feeling like we’re in the spotlight can hold us back - it’s a harmful belief that we can reduce once we’re aware of it.

Catastrophic thinking - this can lead us to overestimate the potential downside and underestimate the potential benefits of taking action. We can all benefit from taking a more optimistic view.

Thinking we need to feel confident before taking action - confidence is, in large part, about taking action even when we don’t feel confident. Try measuring your confidence on the actions you take rather than the feelings you experience.

Perfectionism - the need to get things perfect the first time can hold us back because, let’s face it, it’s never going to be perfect the first time, or the second time, or any other time. Instead, set goals around trying new things and improvement rather than perfection.

Confidence is often about what I describe as flight time. Just like when you’re learning to fly a plane, the number of hours of experience matter when it comes to boosting your confidence. Keep putting yourself in situations that expand your capabilities, that stretch you into new territories, and that encourage you to take action. Because, over time, you’ll find out for yourself that your actions can shape your thoughts and beliefs, and ultimately change the way you feel. The pathway to feeling confident is through taking confident action.

If you want to explore more of the themes in this episode further, I suggest checking out two other episodes where we explore growth mindset. That’s episode 9, “Why following your passion isn’t enough”, and episode 42, “The power of ‘I don’t know’”.

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Summary Imagine if there was something you could do to elevate your mood, reduce stress, increase creativity, boost memory, build team cohesion, help physical health and maybe even reduce mental illness. Research demonstrates that getting back to nature can do all of that and more for you and your team.

Transcript Welcome to episode 50 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re exploring seven reasons to get back to nature.

At this point you may be slightly concerned that your podcast feed has been cross contaminated with the “Healthy Living for Hippies” podcast. But, as you know, this podcast is all about research-based tips for improving our leadership. Well, imagine if there was something you could do to elevate your mood, reduce stress, increase creativity, boost memory, build team cohesion, help physical health and maybe even reduce mental illness. As a leader, you would be pretty interested in that for yourself and for your team.

It turns out there are an increasing number of research studies highlighting the importance of people having access to nature. To be clear, this is not just about getting outside or exercising - we already know those things are great for us. These studies are specifically about access to nature such as green areas, park lands and forests. These are peer reviewed studies that are careful to control for things like over-crowding and socio-economic status.

The research highlights seven benefits of getting back to nature:

1. Elevate Mood - Researchers studied hundreds of tweets posted by people from 160 parks in San Francisco. They found that people are happier in parks. And that level of happiness related to the amount of tree cover and foliage. So people in paved open spaces showed a modest uptick in mood, while those in larger regional parks with a lot of trees and foliage saw a boost in mood equivalent to the mood uplift typically only seen on Twitter at Christmas. And the effect lasted up to four hours. People’s language became more positive, and people shifted to using more collective rather than individualistic language.
2. Reduce Stress - Looking at a green landscape, even from indoors, lowers your heart rate and stress levels. It shifts you from the sympathetic nervous system (think fight, flight and freeze) to the parasympathetic nervous system - sometimes called the ‘rest and digest’ mode.
3. Increase Creativity - People who had just completed a four day hike in nature were 50% more creative than before they began the hike.
4. Boost Short Term Memory - Students at the University of Michigan completed a memory test and were then randomly divided into two groups. One group walked in a garden setting, while the other group walked down a city street. The group that walked in nature did 20% than the first time they completed the memory test, while the city street group showed no improvement.
5. Build Social Cohesion - Researchers studied people living in identical apartment blocks, some with green areas and others that had been paved over. They found the people with greater access to green spaces demonstrated a range of community benefits, including higher levels of social support and cohesion. A similar study in the US even demonstrated 9% reduction in gun violence in areas where empty blocks had been converted to green spaces versus areas that had just been cleaned up.
6. Help Physical Health - Natural killer cells have an important role to play in our immune system in rejection of tumours and viral infections. Researchers demonstrated that a three day weekend in a forest boosted natural killer cells by 50%, while the same three day weekend in an urban area did nothing to natural killer cell levels. And the effect lasted for at least 30 days, when natural killer cell levels remained 25% higher than baseline.
7. Reduce Mental Illness - Researchers found poor air quality is correlated with higher rates of bipolar disorder and major depression. Other research in London demonstrated the number of prescriptions for anxiety and depression medications was significantly higher for areas with less greenery, controlling for socio economic status and other factors.

So how does this nature-impact work? The mechanisms for these effects are still largely unclear. It’s not just the about the sight of nature - even natural scents can lead to some benefits. It doesn’t appear to be just about removing the negative effects of crowding or noise either. It’s an emerging area that’s really interesting to follow.

But what does that mean for me and the way I lead. Here are four things to try in the coming week:

1. Don’t just get outside and exercise, seek out nature - after reading this research I’ve varied my morning running route to take me through an area with more trees and greenery. Think about opportunities you might have to do the same.
2. Notice nature in your everyday - recently I was facilitating a program in the middle of a major city, but there was a large tree outside the window I could turn my attention to during the breaks. Is there some green area you can see from your workplace? Make sure you actively look at it across your day.
3. Get the team outside - think about ways you can encourage others in your workplace to get into nature. Maybe it’s a weekend hike or shifting your team retreat to somewhere with more greenery and forest. Or maybe its having a walking team meeting in a local park.
4. Humble office plants - perhaps your workplace isn’t near much greenery, so you might try to bring some of those cues from nature inside with plants. I’ve seen workplaces use vines and climbers as a cheap and low maintenance way to quickly inject some greenery inside. It plays a little bit to my “Day of the Triffids” phobia, but otherwise it sounds like a great idea.

If you want to learn more about some of this research, I have a link to the excellent Hidden Brain podcast episode in the show notes which includes an interview with psychologist Ming Kuo from the University of Illinois. I’ve also included other references to the research quoted in this podcast.

Thanks for joining me for this podcast. I hope you’re finding the content helpful. A special thanks to those who have already reviewed and shared the podcast with others, and to those who have passed on encouraging feedback via the leadership.today website - I really appreciate it. Now get outside and have a great week.

References Aaron J. Schwartz, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Jarlath P. M. O'Neil‐Dunne, Christopher M. Danforth, Taylor H. Ricketts. Visitors to urban greenspace have higher sentiment and lower negativity on Twitter. People and Nature, 2019

Khan A, Plana-Ripoll O, Antonsen S, Brandt J, Geels C, Landecker H, et al. Environmental pollution is associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in the US and Denmark. PLoS Biol, 2019

Hidden Brain Podcast - You 2.0: Our Better Nature - https://www.npr.org/2019/08/12/750538458/you-2-0-our-better-nature

Robb C Get Outside! How Nature Enhances Work Productivity. Thrive Global

https://medium.com/thrive-global/get-outside-how-nature-enhances-work-productivity-25e26386c348

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Summary Accurate self-assessment sits at the core of leadership effectiveness. This week we look at five ways you can help ensure you have a clear picture of your strengths and areas for development.

Transcript Welcome to episode 49 of the Leadership Today podcast. This week we’re exploring a question sent in by a listener named Laura. She asks “How would you go about critically analysing and reflecting on your own leadership skills, individual traits, abilities and effectiveness?”

Central to this question is accurate self-assessment. Daniel Goleman sees accurate self-assessment, the ability to accurately assess our strengths and areas for development, as a central part of Emotional Intelligence. It’s the foundation upon which we can develop further.

As we discussed in last week’s episode, the Johari Window highlights that there are things we know about ourselves that others also see in us. That’s the quadrant where you will find accurate self-assessment.

Two major forces that work against accurate self-assessment. The first is that most people overestimate their performance - they see themselves operating at above average levels compared to those around them. We explored this in our prisoners and performance ratings episode. Put simply, most people believe their performance is better than most people, and this clearly can’t be the case. Pair that with the second aspect, which is that many leaders suffer from imposter syndrome - they feel like a fraud and that they don’t have the necessary skills, qualifications, capabilities etc. to be an effective leader. I’ve coached many leaders who experience both of these at the same time - they feel like they’re an imposter in their role, while also feeling like their performance is still above others in the organisation. These two factors combine to mean most leaders have room for improvement when it comes to accurate self-assessment. So what can we do about it?

Feedback is the first and main way to increase the accuracy of our self-assessment. I was serving on a senior leadership team when I received some feedback which increased the accuracy of my self-assessment by highlighting a blind spot. As I walked out of a leadership team meeting, one of my colleagues asked if I was alright. I felt alright, so I said “yes”. She then said “the reason I ask is that during that meeting you looked really angry”. Now, this was completely out of the blue for me. I didn’t feel angry during the meeting. It was a challenging meeting with lots of complex things to think about. It turns out, that when I was thinking about something complex, my resting face looked angry. The feedback helped to make my self-assessment more accurate - I thought I was doing okay in meetings, but this behaviour was getting in the way. I focused more on smiling during meetings, nodding in agreement, asking more questions when I was uncertain and letting people know when I needed more time to think about something.

A second approach is to identify your strengths. How would you respond if I asked you to write down a list of 20 things that you are good at? When I’ve asked people to do exactly that during leadership development programs, most people initially see it as an impossible task - how could I possibly write down 20 things I’m good at? They then typically start the list with a few ideas, before asking “What’s your definition of good?”. And that’s the critical question. What does it take for something to make it onto your “I’m good at this” list? Does ‘good’ mean you have to be the best in the world? Better than everyone else at your organisation? The best you can possibly be in that area with no room for further improvement? Each of those definitions shortens your list of potential strengths. We often set the bar for what we consider to be our strengths way too high. One practical step you can take from today’s podcast is to list your strengths, making it as long and as comprehensive a list as you can. Ask others who know you well what they see as your strengths - don’t argue back, just add them to your list. We’re far better off developing by focusing on our strengths than by obsessing about our weaknesses.

Laura also asked about individual traits, and this links to the third approach I recommend to build the accuracy of your self-assessment. I encourage you to undertake a broad-based personality profile to identity likely strengths and risks in relation to your role and career ambitions. There may be options to complete one of these through your organisation. The tool I use covers 15 personality traits across the domains of people and relationships, tasks and projects, and drives and emotions. This helps to compare your preferences to others to see what is unique about you and your approach to work. If your organisation doesn’t use these tools, contact me via the leadership.today website - I can set you up for the questionnaire and walk you through the feedback over the phone or via video conference.

The fourth area is effectiveness. I encourage people I coach to look at input measures as well as outcome measures. Our work rate is really important, and this can get lost when we’re just focusing on outcomes. If I take this podcast as an example, the number of podcast downloads and the number of reviews posted are both outcome measures. I actually don’t have much direct influence over either. However, the input measures of writing and recording a podcast each week is something I can control, and these inputs are necessary in achieving the outcome measures.

The fifth suggestion I have is to measure progress. We often underestimate just how far we’ve come in our development because we don’t reflect back to how much we’ve learned. Look back one month, three months or six months and think about the things you have achieved. Also list the skills and capabilities you have developed over the last year. And if the list is short, then build ongoing development into your calendar.

Accurate self-assessment is crucial for high performance and satisfaction. I encourage you to seek feedback, identify your strengths, assess your personality traits, measure your effectiveness by input measures, and measure your progress.

Thanks again for listening and sharing the podcast with others. If you have a question or feedback, go to the leadership.today website and head to the connect page where you can send me a message.

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Summary Reaching into our untapped potential is a trip into the unknown. In this episode we use the Johari Window as a framework to identify four ways to explore our untapped potential.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 48 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at untapped potential through the lens of the Johari Window.

One of the best known frameworks in self-development is the Johari Window. I remember a presenter using an overly-posh voice to call it the “Yoharri Window” as if they were a 1960’s mystic whispering to a botanically infused George Harrison. In truth, the name Johari comes from the two researchers that developed the framework - Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham - Jo and Hari. Let me give you a super fast overview so we can then talk about untapped potential.

The method Jo and Hari developed back in the 1960s involves individuals selecting words that they feel best represent them from a list of adjectives. Then others that know the person also select words to represent the individual. In the final step, these words are sorted into four quadrants based on the level of independence or overlap between the lists.

The words that are in common go into the top left quadrant, representing things that the individual knows about themselves that others also see in them. Perhaps the individual sees themselves as outgoing and confident, and others also recognise these traits. This quadrant is the Arena - it’s what we present to the world.

Words that others identify that the individual doesn’t select for themselves go in the top right quadrant. These words reflect aspects that are known to others, but not known to the individual. Perhaps others see the individual as competitive and active, while the individual doesn’t see those qualities in themselves. This quadrant is typically called the Blind Spot. We can extend the Arena quadrant and decrease our Blind Spot through feedback. The Johari Window exercise itself was intended as an opportunity to do exactly that. As we see ourselves the way others see us, we build our self-awareness.

Words that an individual identifies for themselves that others don’t use go in the lower left quadrant, titled the Mask. These are things we see in ourselves that others don’t see. Through disclosure we can extend our Arena and decrease the Mask. Doing this can help us to build relationships with others, as we become more known.

That leaves one remaining quadrant - the Unknown where things are unknown to us and unknown to others. It’s usually at this point that discussions move on - where we explore the benefits of feedback and disclosure further. However I think there are benefits to exploring this quadrant further. Sticking to the other quadrants is really about expanding knowledge about who we are now. We can let others know more about who we are now. Or we can seek feedback to learn more about who we are now. The final quadrant provides a different opportunity. Instead of just expanding knowledge, it’s actually about expanding who we are now.

So how do we explore the untapped potential resting in the unknown?

1. Try new things - expand your interests, even if they don’t appear to be directly applicable to your work. The calligraphy classes Steve Jobs attended out of interest lead to typeface being one of Apple’s early differentiators in desktop publishing.
2. Seek additional responsibilities - take the box you have been given in your job and push it outwards. Work with your manager to take things off their plate.
3. Connect with new people - work with people in your network to make new connections to explore their experiences and backgrounds.
4. Relentlessly seek feedback - as you are expanding into the unknown, you will benefit from targeted feedback. Don’t just ask for general feedback, ask about specific elements relating to your new efforts.

The Unknown quadrant is about exploring new areas and trying new things. The Johari window is a helpful framework to help us to know ourselves and be known by others as we are now. But it also provides a reminder that our boundaries are not fixed, rather they are there to be tested and expanded.

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Summary The best leaders prioritise treating people well, and reap the benefits through higher performance and greater commitment. But time pressure can make this difficult. Here are five ways busy leaders prioritise treating people well.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 47 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at five ways busy leaders prioritise treating people well.

Treating people well matters, and not just because it’s the right thing to do. Research shows that people who feel they are treated fairly perform better, and have higher team and organisational commitment. People who are treated fairly deliver better results and stay longer.

But what does it mean to be treated fairly? Researchers divide fairness into four factors:

1. Equitable rewards - people want to see a link between performance and reward
2. Transparent procedures for rewarding people - people are clear about the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of reward and recognition - they know what is rewarded, and the way it is rewarded
3. Clear decision making - people are clear about the logic behind decisions, not just the decisions themselves
4. Dignity and respect - people feel they are treated in a considerate way

No doubt you agree these all sound great, and the best leaders you have worked for have probably done all of those things. So why doesn’t it happen more often?

Research published in Harvard Business Review helps to explain why fairness can be such an issue. Through a series of studies the researchers found short-term high workloads were associated with leaders placing less attention on fairness. Even more concerning, they found that chronic and ongoing high workloads were associated with leaders persistently prioritising tasks over people.

The problem is that leaders who are under time pressure tend to put technical tasks ahead of people, and as a result their treatment of people suffers.

The risk is that performance drops off and people think about leaving. Not only that, the best leaders feel compromised - they may want to treat their people better, but feel they don’t have the time or permission to do that effectively. So, what can we do about it?

Here are five ways busy leaders prioritise treating people well:

1. Great leaders still set aside time for their people: treating people fairly is rarely urgent, so the best leaders schedule time for their people. And they keep to those times even when they’re busy. If you’re interested in exploring that further you can check out episode 4 about monthly 1 on 1 meetings that work.
2. Great leaders prioritise the process not just the task: researchers often refer to this as procedural fairness. People want to know that procedures have been established and are followed without exceptions.
3. Great leaders agree and communicate what should be rewarded: they work with other leaders to establish values and performance standards.
4. Great leaders differentiate based on performance: this isn’t necessarily about money, but could include secondments, promotions, conferences, training, additional leave. They also ensure that under-performers know they’re underperforming, then they help them to improve, they move them to a more appropriate role if needed and, if all else fails, they move them on.
5. Great leaders share the ‘why’ behind decisions, not just the decisions themselves: in the absence of this, people make things up to fill in the gaps. The best leaders make sure the gaps aren’t there in the first place.

The world needs more leaders that prioritise treating people well. We also need organisations to value and reward fairness. Once leaders have permission to put people first they’re far more likely to be fair. It’s not just because it’s the right thing to do, but it also produces better results and helps to retain our best people.

References When Managers Are Overworked, They Treat Employees Less Fairly - Elad N. Sherf, Ravi S. Gajendran, Vijaya Venkataramani - JUNE 04, 2018

https://hbr.org/2018/06/research-when-managers-are-overworked-they-treat-employees-less-fairly

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Summary One of the elements that gets in the way of being assertive as a leader is an inability to say 'no' to requests, or automatically saying ‘yes’ to everything that comes our way. We explore ways to say ‘no’ without being a jerk.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 46 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at saying ‘no’ without feeling like a jerk.

One of the elements that gets in the way of being assertive as a leader is an inability to say 'no' to requests. Or, the flip side, is automatically saying 'yes' to every request that comes our way.

True assertiveness requires us to say 'no'. If we can't say 'no' then our time and efforts become subject to others' needs rather than our own. How can we lead others effectively if we can't choose our own priorities? We also risk becoming overloaded, ending up struggling to fit everything into our work week, and neglecting some of the truly important parts of our role.

Saying ‘yes’ often early in our career can make a lot of sense. You’re seen as someone who is keen to help out and add value. The catch is when we carry that impulse to say ‘yes’ and take more and more on into the rest of our career.

Often times this inability to say 'no' comes down to a tension between "I don't want to do it" and "I want to help". Being helpful is a wonderful trait. But being helpful doesn't necessarily mean saying 'yes' automatically.

This is where a "no but..." response can work well. It allows us to still be helpful without automatically agreeing to the request. For example, you could still be helpful by providing advice. "No - I won't be able to do that research for you, but you might find this online resource helpful". Or you could help the person to make a new connection. For example, "No - I can't cover your shift on Saturday, but you could speak with Brett in Human Resources to see if anyone is looking for extra shifts." Or you might vary the timeframe. "No - I won't be able to finish that report today, but I could have it ready by Friday". Or you could vary the task. "No - I won't be able to attend that meeting, but I'm happy to look at your presentation and provide some feedback". Advice, connections, varying the timeframe and varying the task can help us to say ‘no’ while still being helpful.

Another really useful technique is to insert a gap between the request and your response. Just because someone makes a request of you doesn't mean you have to respond straight away. It's perfectly reasonable to let them know that you will think about it and get back to them by a particular time. But what if it's urgent? Well, just because something is urgent for someone else doesn't automatically make it urgent for you. And I'm also not suggesting it needs to be a long gap. If they're on the phone you might say you will call them back in five minutes. It just needs to be enough of a gap so that you can consider whether you have capacity and interest to do what's being asked of you.

Clearly the context matters. My advice to a teenage son on work experience is to say 'yes' to absolutely everything they ask you to do. But the more senior your position, the more important the ability to say ‘no’ becomes. My advice to a CEO is to never say 'yes' to anything in the moment unless they’re 100% convinced it's the right call.

So, saying 'no' while being helpful, and inserting a gap are two great approaches to increasing our assertiveness.

I’ve had the privilege to work with thousands of leaders to help them achieve results through people. I have seen many people who struggle with their confidence, with speaking up and presenting their ideas, with being more assertive without becoming aggressive, and with saying ‘no’ to unreasonable requests. In short, the majority of leaders I’ve worked with want and need to boost their assertiveness to become more effective. They recognise that assertiveness is crucial to achieving results both for themselves and their organisation. But they often don’t know where to start. That’s why I’ve developed the Boost Your Assertiveness at Work in Three Weeks program. The course is launching in early September, and those who subscribe to our email list will receive a special offer. If you haven’t already signed up, you can do that via leadership.today website and follow the connect links. If you enjoyed today’s episode, I’m confident you’ll love the online course. Have a great week and I’ll speak to you next week.

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Summary Delegation - it’s something that every successful leader needs to do in order to perform and progress, yet most leaders under-delegate. This week we explore ways of overcoming a fear of delegation.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 45 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at ways of overcoming a fear of delegation.

Chances are that, like most leaders, you struggle with delegation. And this under-delegation has a significant impact on personal, team and organisational performance.

People don’t delegate enough for a range of reasons, but here are some typical ones:

1. It will be faster to just do it myself - delegating takes too much time and is inefficient
2. Performance will drop - the person I delegate it to just won’t do it as well as I could, so delegation is bad for quality
3. I don’t trust people to get it done - delegation leads to unreliable results
4. I don’t want to trouble people - delegating work to others is a hassle for them

If any of those reasons or excuses for not delegating ring true for you then congratulations - you’ve found the level of job you will remain in for life. And I’m saying that as someone who really struggled with delegation - there’s no judgement here! But the extent to which we delegate is the pace at which we progress.

However there is hope - becoming better at delegating just requires a shift in mindset and a few simple techniques.

First the shift in mindset. If you think delegation is just about getting things done, then the earlier reasons not to delegate make perfect sense. Yes - it could well be faster to do it yourself. Yes - you will probably do it better. Yes - if you don’t delegate you’re not dependent on anyone else that can let you down. And yes - your people won’t be hassled by additional work. But all of these reasons not to delegate are short term focused.

If we take a longer term view we see that delegation is actually about developing others which in turn increases the capacity of the organisation to deliver. Delegation is about individual and organisational growth.

That shift in thinking made all the difference for me. Suddenly the things that I used to hold on to were great opportunities for my team to stretch themselves and grow. Delegating helped them to progress, and it also helped me to progress. Shifting the question from “should I delegate?” to “should I develop others?” will make you much more willing to delegate.

So let’s say I’ve encouraged you to give delegation another try. A reasonable question is what to delegate. It’s important to delegate meaningful things that will challenge others - things for which they can take full accountability. In fact, a useful exercise is to think about if you had to delegate all of your work, how would you do it? How can you start preparing your team now to be able to take on even the more challenging parts of your role? I’m not suggesting you then delegate all of your role, but it may unlock some additional opportunities to delegate and develop others.

When shouldn’t you delegate? You need to be careful delegating when there’s a combination of time pressure and lack of capability. When you don’t have time to develop and support the person, you’re setting yourself and them up for failure. If it’s genuinely urgent and important, then it’s typically best to do it yourself. But if everything is always urgent and important then that’s a pattern that you need to challenge.

So how should we delegate? Here are four principles to keep in mind:

1. Be clear about the purpose - why does this delegated responsibility matter in relation to the organisation, the individual and their development.
2. Focus on the outcomes not the process - resist the temptation to tell them how to achieve results, but rather give them the end outcome that’s required.
3. Be available to coach - let the individual know that you’re available to coach them through anything they are struggling with, and set aside time to do this.
4. Build in update points - set some milestone points up at the start when you will check in with the person. This will help you to manage your anxiety levels around how the work is progressing without hovering around or inserting yourself in the process at unexpected points.

Delegation is something that every successful leader needs to do in order to perform and progress. Give it another try this week and let me know how you go.

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Summary Reflection is important in our development as leaders. In that spirit, this week we look at 10 things we've learned from year one of the Leadership Today podcast.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 44 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week is a little different as we look at 10 things we’ve learned from year one of the Leadership Today podcast.

It has been one year since we launched the Leadership Today podcast, and it has been a privilege to play a small part in the development of thousands of leaders. Across the year there have been some stand out lessons about leadership, and also things I’ve learned from producing a weekly leadership podcast.

Here are ten leadership lessons from the back catalogue of 43 episodes that have stood out:

1. The power of habits - so much of our effectiveness as leaders rests in non-urgent but important activities. Habits allow us to prioritise these activities. This could include routines around planning, reflection, exercise and connections with others. None of these things are ever urgent, so building habits is a great way to ensure they get done.
2. Mindset matters - taking on a positive growth mindset helps us to make better decisions, to stretch ourselves into new areas, and to develop our capability.
3. Leaders can’t motivate anyone directly, but they can construct motivating environments - our key role as leaders is to set up and maintain the conditions for success.
4. Great leaders regularly share the vision and connect it to the things people care about - this requires us to formulate a clear picture of the future and to be interested enough in our people to see how it links to what motivates and interests them.
5. Influence and assertiveness are the vehicles to making a positive impact - you can have the best ideas in the world, but if no one knows or cares then our ideas are worthless. Fortunately we can all build our influence and assertiveness.
6. Seek and provide feedback - people can’t grow and thrive in a feedback vacuum. Look for opportunities to provide feedback daily, focusing on the positive more than the corrective. And make sure you surround yourself with people who can provide feedback to shape your own development.
7. Resilience is partly about people and partly about environments - as leaders we can create toxic work environments that undo even the most resilient person, or we can craft work environments that foster resilience. So many organisations are rolling out resilience programs in an attempt to toughen up their people, when the real problem rests in job design and organisational culture.
8. Learning is both hard and motivating - anyone can become a great leader, but it takes effort and you never truly ‘arrive’. If we continue to stretch ourselves, there’s always moments of conscious incompetence and feeling clumsy before we become good at something.
9. Take time to reflect - regularly review how you’re spending your time, and how that aligns with your values and what matters to you.
10. Create a legacy - investing in the next wave of leaders makes you a far more effective leader. There is so much we can learn from our people - we don’t need to be the ones with all the answers, but we do need to demonstrate interest in and invest in our people.

Hopefully there’s something amongst those lessons that has resonated with you. I encourage you to step out and try something new - don’t die wondering. Have a great week, and I look forward to sharing the next year with you as we continue to develop our leadership together.

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Summary As leaders we need to make wise decisions in often complex and emotionally charged situations. This week we look at two techniques for making wiser decisions.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 43 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at two techniques for making wiser decisions.

As leaders we need to make decisions in often complex and emotionally charged situations.

When it comes to making decisions, we are often encouraged to think of our brain like it’s a computer - that our consciousness is the sum total of electrical impulses rushing around circuits producing a stream of thoughts. However, our brains aren’t just thinking machines - they’re also emotion machines. What the computer analogy overlooks is the electro-chemical nature of the brain - that our thoughts and emotions aren’t just about electrical impulses, but also about the chemicals that interact with and moderate these systems. Our brain constantly influences, and is influenced by, our emotional state.

Our emotional state can help or hinder our decision making. When we’re in a positive emotional state we make better decisions and more readily identify the up side potential of situations. When we’re anxious or stressed we tend to focus on the negatives and become less creative and more risk averse.

To make wiser decisions, it’s helpful to separate out the thoughts and feelings associated with the situation - to recognise the feelings, and act on the facts. One way to do this is to take a third person perspective. Research outlined by David Robson shows that thinking in the third person improves decision making. This approach increases our willingness to consider others’ perspectives, and also allows us to be more open to new ways of thinking about the situation.

Let’s consider an example - that I have a difficult meeting coming up with one of my team members.

Using this approach I switch from saying to myself “I have a challenging conversation coming up with John” to “Andrew has a challenging conversation coming up with John”. I can then work though a series of questions:

1. How do I feel about the situation? What emotions am I experiencing? Perhaps I’m feeling frustrated with how John has approached an issue and am worried about how he will respond to the feedback I need to give him. Even the process of naming the emotions reduces some of their ‘charge’ and control over our thinking.
2. What are the facts of the situation? What’s the data that others would also see and agree with? Before I have my meeting with John, it would be helpful to note down the facts as they relate to the conversation we’re about to have.
3. What advice would I give to a friend in the same situation I’m facing? This helps us to consider the situation at a distance. With John this would allow me to view the situation at arm’s length rather than getting too caught up in the details and history.

One other approach that can help you to act more wisely is to make a decision and then choose to run with it. Once you’ve considered all the factors, commit to your course of action for a set period of time without revisiting it. This approach can help to reduce the rumination and worry that leads us to make poor decisions. For example, research shows that people who check their stock market investments more frequently end up making worse investment decisions and earn lower returns than those who check less frequently. Those who check frequently tend to focus on the negatives and pull out of investments too quickly. It’s similar to people who are always thinking about getting a better job and keep checking for new opportunities - they tend to end up constantly worried and less satisfied with their current job than if they had committed to the job for a period of several months.

This week I encourage you to look for opportunities to apply these two approaches - considering situations in the third person and then sticking to your decisions.

References https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/05/24/a-new-trial-of-an-ancient-rhetorical-trick-finds-it-can-make-you-wiser/

https://www.betterment.com/resources/high-frequency-monitoring/

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Summary

Recognising that we don’t have all the answers makes us more effective as leaders - there is power in saying “I don’t know”.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 42 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week’s episode is the power of “I don’t know” - how, as leaders, recognising that we don’t have all the answers can make us more effective.

Some leaders feel that, to be truly effective, they need to have all the answers. These leaders think saying “I don’t know” demonstrates weakness, inadequacy or being unqualified for the job. That was my experience when I first moved from being an individual contributor to leading others. As a management consultant, much of my value was in my knowledge, experience and expertise. So I initially carried that same mindset into leadership. And the research shows that’s exactly what many leaders do - they try to stay in the role of ‘expert’. However, needing to have all the answers places an extraordinary burden on an individual. And our people just don’t buy it - it comes off as an act and a facade that no one can maintain forever.

Recent research shows that people who think they know it all routinely overestimate their cognitive capability - put simply, they aren’t as smart as they think they are. And this mindset has flow on impacts for the way they approach learning and new opportunities. Why would you try to learn more if you think you already know enough? Sure enough, the research shows that “know it alls” end up being less reflective and less curious than others. They stop learning and growing, limiting their future potential.

Other leaders recognise that they can’t know everything - that there’s always more to learn. Researchers call this mindset “intellectual humility”. It’s like having a growth mindset towards knowledge.

Research shows that people with intellectual humility benefit in six ways:

1. They have greater general knowledge - those who can admit they don’t know actually know more than others
2. Their knowledge is more accurate - they are right more often than other people
3. They are more reflective - they take more time to think about their approach
4. They enjoy mentally challenging tasks - stretching their minds further
5. They are intellectually curious - they seek out new knowledge and experiences
6. They are motivated to learn for the sake of new knowledge - they have wide interests, not just those needed for their job

It pays to recognise that you can’t know everything and that there’s always more to learn.

There’s a difference between saying “I don’t know” and not actually taking the time to find out. I once heard about a manager whose nickname was ’Mirrors’ - because whenever people asked him a question he’d always say “I’ll look into it”. But he didn’t follow through. This erodes trust - you need to close the loop.

Three things to try this week:

1. Recognise it’s okay not to know everything - it’s a change in mindset, so think about the mindset you’re currently bringing and challenge it
2. Be curious to learn more - not just in your field of expertise - a while back I completed an online MasterClass by the comedian Steve Martin which taught me a lot about story telling and structuring communication - I didn’t complete the course to help with my work, but the applications to my work have been surprisingly beneficial
3. Coach rather than tell - foster an inquisitive mindset in your team - help them to see that they don’t need to know everything either

Just something quick before you go. The Leadership Today podcast has hit the Apple Podcast charts in a diverse range of countries including USA, Great Britain, Canada, India, Ireland, Brazil, Colombia, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Slovakia, Australia, and New Zealand. Whenever the podcast or an episode gets into the charts, it helps a whole bunch of new listeners who can benefit from the material to find the podcast. We don’t have advertising and genuinely see this podcast as a gift to help leaders achieve results through people - there isn’t a catch. So I would really appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to provide a rating or review - in Apple Podcasts would be great, but whatever platform you use. Plus it’s fantastic to hear your feedback on the show - you can contact me via the Leadership Today website. Thanks.

Reference

Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso, Megan C. Haggard, Jordan P. LaBouff & Wade C. Rowatt (2019) Links between intellectual humility and acquiring knowledge,The Journal of Positive Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2019.1579359

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2019.1579359

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Summary

This week we explore whether putting employees first ahead of customers and shareholders leads to better customer service and financial results.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 41 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore whether putting employees first, that is ahead of customers and shareholders, actually produces better customer service and financial results.

Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, once famously said “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers.” It’s a sentiment that stands in stark contrast to “the customer is always right” and “shareholder value” formulas tracing back to the early 1900’s.

During an interview with Inc, Branson continues “It should go without saying, if the person who works at your company is 100 percent proud of the brand and you give them the tools to do a good job and they are treated well, they're going to be happy… Effectively, in the end shareholders do well, the customers do better, and your staff remain happy”.

This sounds like a nice management philosophy, particularly from an employee perspective - what employee wouldn’t want to be put first? But does the research back up this link between employee engagement, customer satisfaction and financial performance?

Large scale research into the link between employee engagement, customer satisfaction and results is actually less common than you might think. A 2008 study by Maxham, Netemeyer and Lichtenstein covered over 1,600 retail employees, servicing over 57,000 customers across 306 stores. Their research found direct links between employee engagement, customer satisfaction and financial performance.

The research highlighted three main findings:

1. Conscientious employees who feel they are treated fairly and who identify with the organisation perform better in their jobs.
2. Increased job performance, not just doing their job well, but going above and beyond for the customer, leads to higher customer evaluations.
3. Customer evaluations around satisfaction, purchase intent, loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals, lead to higher customer spending and store sales growth.

The researchers found that even a one point increase in customer evaluations was associated with customers spending over $12 more per transaction, a 15% increase. And as customer evaluations increased, transaction values and sales growth increased at an even greater rate - it wasn’t just a straight line relationship. Other analysis of multiple studies by Harter and Schmidt also supports these links.

I think this research has four main implications for leaders:

1. Hire well - hire conscientious people who love your organisation and want to go above and beyond.
2. Treat employees well - fairness matters, give them great leaders to work for who also love the organisation and want to go above and beyond.
3. Focus on systems and front line frustrations - as a customer it’s common to hear people apologising for their system or some clunky process. Ask your frontline teams about frustrations and remove them. A CEO of a major bank I worked for would call several bank tellers once a month to hear about their experiences on the front line, cutting through multiple layers.
4. Look to other examples - research broader trends in customer service, including the interesting things others are doing outside your industry.

If we take these steps, we will be well on our way to putting our people first, and delivering better results for customers and shareholders.

References

https://www.inc.com/oscar-raymundo/richard-branson-companies-should-put-employees-first.html

Harter & Schmidt (2002) Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology.

Maxham, Netemeyer & Lichtenstein (2008) The Retail Value Chain: Linking Employee Perceptions to Employee Performance, Customer Evaluations, and Store Performance. Marketing Science.

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Summary We have come to celebrate workaholics in our organisations - those people who always seem to be busy and putting in long hours. But is it possible for a person to be too engaged with their work? And does that lead to burnout and negative performance?

Transcript Welcome to episode 40 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore whether workaholics are bad for business.

We have come to celebrate workaholics in our organisations - those people who always seem to be busy and putting in long hours. But is it possible for a person to be too engaged with their work? And does that lead to burnout and negative performance?

Most models of employee engagement don't examine what actually drives people to work hard and contribute more to an organisation. This muddies the water between what researchers call workaholism and work engagement. As a result, employee engagement scores and measures of performance don't always align. Organisations with high employee engagement can sometimes be perplexed by relatively poor performance and the high incidence of burnout and other negative health outcomes amongst their people.

One study by van Beek and her colleagues separated workaholism and work engagement into two distinct concepts. The researchers then looked at various combinations of the two including the impact on burnout. They defined workaholism as the tendency to work excessively hard and being obsessed with work - working compulsively. In contrast, they saw work engagement as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind characterised by energy, dedication and becoming absorbed in your work.

Their research showed that workaholism and work engagement both lead people to work harder and for longer hours. But it was the incidence of burnout amongst these groups that was most interesting.

Perhaps not surprisingly, being a workaholic increased the incidence of burnout over non-workaholics. The researchers linked this to work-home interference, poor social relationships, and high levels of job strain. In contrast, being engaged with work decreased the incidence of burnout versus the non-engaged. Interestingly, combining the two, that is being a work-engaged workaholic, decreased the level of burnout below that of your regular workaholic. It also reduced the incidence of burnout to below that of non-engaged non-workaholics. Being positively engaged with work appears to dampen the negative impact of being a workaholic when it comes to burnout.

This research suggests that improving work engagement will lessen the chance of burnout, even for the workaholics in our organisations. As leaders we can help workaholics in our teams to become aware of what motivates them, allowing them to identify greater meaning and purpose in their work. Understanding the difference between workaholism and employee engagement can do wonders to increasing the sustainability of performance in your organisation. Leaders can set up the conditions that encourage our people to become absorbed in their work versus becoming obsessed and compulsive about the work they complete.

Reference Ilona van Beek, Toon W. Taris and Wilmar B. Schaufeli (2011) Workaholic and Work Engaged Employees: Dead Ringers or Worlds Apart? Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol 16, No 4, 468-482.

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Summary Trust is the essential currency of any organisation however, it seems to be in short supply these days. This week we look at four ways in which leaders can build trust.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 39 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at four ways in which leaders can build trust.

Trust is the essential currency of any organisation, however it seems to be in short supply these days. And trust has a huge impact on the effectiveness of teams and organisations. Without trust, three things happen:

1. People hesitate - they become reluctant to act, and instead sit back, giving less than their best
2. People make up stories - they try to make sense of what’s happening, and create stories, usually negative, that help to explain actions and events
3. People leave - as the trust bank account dwindles, staff turnover increases

So why is it that we trust some people more than others? Psychological research gives us some important insights. We trust people that we believe have good intentions for us, and who follow through on those intentions.

First, let’s look at the good intentions part - we trust people who have good intentions for us. It’s important to note that it’s good intentions for us that matters - having good intentions for the organisation or even others is not enough. For a leader to build trust, they need to understand what matters to their people. You can’t build trust without uncovering the needs and interests of your people. Without that, people begin to question the leader’s motives and anticipate a negative impact of their actions.

And, second, a leader you can trust is someone who follows through. They’re predictable and act in the way you expect. It’s not enough to just say the right things - trustworthy leaders follow through.

I was a leader in a management consulting firm as we sailed towards the Global Financial Crisis. After several years of record growth, clients were suddenly delaying projects as they tried to cut back on spending. As a result we made a decision to decrease our costs by 10% which, in a consulting firm, equates to people. I laid out the facts to my team - that our revenue was falling and we had to reduce costs or start laying off staff. We wanted to keep people, and were exploring ways to achieve a cost saving while having the smallest impact on people possible. We worked together to propose everyone on the team voluntarily move to a nine day fortnight, meaning they would lose one day of work every two weeks and take a 10% pay cut. People signed up to this because they understood we had their best interests at heart - people wanted to keep their jobs, and this was one way of ensuring they could do that. We also found that people quite liked having a day off every two weeks, and that productivity even lifted despite fewer days being worked. And I moved to a nine day fortnight too, which was an important demonstration of my personal commitment to the change. Without trust, people might have seen the change as a money-grabbing exercise and been less engaged with their work and the organisation.

Here are four ways you can build trust as a leader:

1. Uncover your team members’ interests and needs - in that way you can align your actions to their needs
2. Share your intent - let people know what you’re trying to achieve, and how that aligns with their interests, being as open as you can
3. Follow through - do what you said you would do
4. Let them know you’ve followed through - don’t just leave them to join the dots, help them to see that you have followed through

I believe any leader can build trust, but it needs to be authentic. People are finely tuned to when someone’s words don’t align with their actions. So keep in mind what it takes to be a trustworthy leader - it’s someone who demonstrates good intentions for others, and follows through on those intentions.

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Summary As a leader, it’s likely that you have had to deliver bad news. It can be extremely difficult to do well. This week we look at practical ways to deliver negative news, and hopefully not become the messenger that gets shot in the process.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 38 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at practical ways to deliver negative news, and hopefully not become the messenger that gets shot in the process.

No doubt you’ve heard the saying “Don’t shoot the messenger”. You might think it’s just another saying, but recent research suggests that is exactly what we do. Through a series of experiments the researchers at Harvard found that people end up not liking those who bear bad news, even when the person wasn’t the decision maker. And the impact is literally on ratings of the messenger - people don’t end up thinking any less of another representative standing next to the messenger while the bad news is shared. The effect of people disliking the messenger is particularly strong when the bad news isn’t expected or doesn’t make complete sense to the person receiving the news. The researchers saw such news as challenging our assumptions that the world is “just, predictable, and comprehensible”. In such circumstances we tend to question the motives of the messenger - what are they really trying to do, and what are they getting out of it?

Once the bad news is delivered, people may be less likely to then want to interact with the messenger, but the messenger is often the very person who is best placed to offer support for next steps.

As a leader, the most difficult news I had to deliver was making people redundant - people I knew well and liked that we had to let go for reasons entirely out of their control. We had about as good a process as we could around that, but the relationships with the individuals were permanently damaged. Just like the research suggested, they naturally thought less of me as the messenger. After all, who wants to keep in touch with the person who made them redundant?

But there are some steps we can take to help avoid being the messenger that gets shot:

1. Be direct and clear - it can be tempting to try to soften the news, but just end up making it less clear. What are the fewest words you can use to distil the message down to the core.
2. Let them know the reasons behind the decision or information - be honest about what you do and don’t know.
3. Let them know how you feel and your motives - you are a human being delivering a message to another human being.
4. It’s not about you - conveying the message is primarily about them, so don’t make it about you.
5. Acknowledge the emotions - that the news is likely to impact them, and that’s perfectly understandable.
6. Check in for understanding - ask them to share the news in their own words and clarify anything that isn’t clear.
7. Commit to supporting them - let them know that you’re here to help.
8. Look after yourself - sharing bad news can knock you around, so find others who can support you.

If we follow each of these steps, we’re in a much better position to deliver negative news in a way where people can hear it, process it, and then seek additional support.

Reference https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/05/08/shooting-the-messenger-is-a-psychological-reality-share-bad-news-and-people-will-like-you-less/

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Summary

This week we explore why everyone is a born leader - that we all have a head start in some facet of leadership.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 37 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are exploring why everyone is a born leader.

I was just about to give a presentation at a conference recently when someone said “I see you’re talking about leadership today - don’t you think leaders are born?”

My answer, having had over 20 years to research and think about it, might surprise you. The answer is yes - I do think leaders are born. But probably not in the way you expect.

When most people think about ‘born leaders’ they’re usually thinking about things like charisma, confidence, and extraversion - those up front skills that draw others in and create enthusiasm. The reality is that some people have a head start in these areas through genetics and the environment in which they grow up, so you might consider them to be born leaders. But these skills and traits are just part of effective leadership. In fact, not every great leader is charismatic, confident and extraverted. There are many different ways to be an effective leader. Research into leadership and Emotional Intelligence highlights a suite of competencies that can help people to be great leaders, each of which can be learned and developed.

I recall an interview with Daniel Goleman, whose books on Emotional Intelligence helped popularise the concept in the 1990s and beyond. Goleman was asked what he thought about Steve Jobs as a leader, and whether Jobs had great emotional intelligence. Now, this was a loaded question, particularly since Jobs had only just passed away earlier that same year. Jobs was clearly a very successful leader who transformed the way we think about technology, music distribution and even animated movies. But he was also renowned for being extremely demanding to the point of being aggressive, often belittling people in front of others. In fact, his close friend and Apple designer Jony Ive described it like this: “I once asked him why he gets so mad about stuff. He said, 'But I don't stay mad.' He has this very childish ability to get really worked up about something, and it doesn't stay with him at all. But, there are other times, I think honestly, when he's very frustrated, and his way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And I think he feels he has a liberty and licence to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don't apply to him. Because of how very sensitive he is, he knows exactly how to efficiently and effectively hurt someone. And he does do that.” That doesn’t sound very emotionally intelligent.

But Goleman drew out Job’s vision and inspirational leadership - his ability to come up with new ways of thinking and bring people around that vision. You only have to watch the launch on the first iPhone to see these strengths in full display. Goleman also pointed out that emotional intelligence is a spectrum of abilities, and that you don’t have to be great at all of them to be great as a leader.

In fact, great leadership can be built on empathy and insight into others. Or resilience and the ability to bounce back quickly from setbacks. Or warmth and the ability to connect with others. Or analytical capacity - being able to pull things apart into their component parts. Or conceptual ability - being able to link disparate ideas into a unified whole. Once we broaden out the list of capabilities associated with success as a leader, you start to recognise that we all have a head start in at least a few areas. That we are all born leaders in our own way.

When I’m facilitating I often ask groups to repeat some statements about leadership. There’s something powerful about a group of 50 or 100 people all saying the same thing. The two statements that have the biggest impact are “Anyone can become a great leader” and “The best leader you can be is yourself.” This week I challenge you to think of yourself as a born leader, with just as much capacity and potential for great leadership as anyone else.

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Summary

Leadership isn’t just what you do in the moment - it’s the legacy you leave. This week we look at four steps to building a legacy of leaders.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 36 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at four steps to building a legacy of leaders.

Leadership isn’t just what you do in the moment - it’s the legacy you leave. In fact, the most effective leaders create a lasting legacy in people - they create more leaders. The effectiveness of a leader is best measured at least 5 to 10 years further on. Great leadership takes time - there aren’t many quick wins. It’s best to think of leadership as a long-term investment.

I recently spoke at a conference in Malaysia with a group of Doctors, mainly heads of departments in major hospitals from around the world, on this very topic. Hospitals are a tricky environment in which to identify and develop leaders - there’s time pressure, people spreading their hours across multiple hospitals, highly technical work - lots of things to grapple with. Perhaps you have similar pressures in your environment as well. But there are still steps we can take to make progress.

There are four things each of us can do to build a legacy of leaders:

1. Build Understanding - develop a clear and shared view of what ‘great leadership’ looks like in your context. People have often had poor experiences of leadership or have a limited view of what leadership is - that it’s about bossing people around or being taken away from the work that I enjoy. In workshops I ask people to share examples of great leadership. I’m always impressed by the range of answers given. The exercise helps people to understand that leadership isn’t one thing, and that people can be effective leaders in many different ways. That the best way to lead is firstly to be yourself. This helps people to broaden their view of what leadership looks like, and consider whether leadership may, in fact, be for them. That anyone can be a great leader - we all have something to bring and capabilities that we can develop.

2. Explore Aspiration - it’s essential to have development discussions to explore a person’s level of interest in leadership. I worked with a large organisation that had identified hundreds of people in a leadership high potential pool. But the people didn’t know they were in the high potential pool. It was all too common for someone from the pool to be tapped on the shoulder and offered a leadership role, but they had no interest in leadership. No one had even asked them if they aspired to a leadership position. Exploring aspirations makes a real difference.

3. Develop Capability - allow opportunities for practise, feedback and coaching. This can include step up, secondment and project opportunities, but with focused development attached. I’m a big fan of monthly one-on-one meetings that include discussion around an individual’s development. And you don’t need to do all the capability development yourself. You can help them to find mentors both within and outside the organisation that can focus on specific areas they’re interested in developing.

4. Provide Capacity - people need time to develop leadership capability, and this needs to be factored into the job design. A great question for discussion is how much time a person should have each week for leading others versus personally delivering work. Now I know you can’t necessarily carve out specific activities as pure leadership, but it intrigues me when people provide really low numbers - like 3 or 4 hours a week. A study in Harvard Business Review found CEOs spent between 32% to 67% of their time with their direct reports. In fact, they spent more time with their direct reports when they had greater confidence in them. Other research suggested each employee should have around 6 hours a week interacting with their leader to maximise engagement, rising to 10 or even 20 hours for innovation focused work. And increased face to face time with their leader saw a dramatic reduction in the volume of emails they sent and received. This data also suggests each leader should have a cap of around seven direct reports to be most effective - beyond that, the leader can’t dedicate enough time to leading people.

I encourage you to spend some time this week considering your own legacy as a leader, and how you can create even more leaders who can multiply your efforts and impact.

References

https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-leaders-calendar

https://www.fastcompany.com/3032972/why-managers-should-spend-exactly-6-hours-a-week-with-each-employee

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Summary Most of us have what I call infinite jobs - where we could just keep working more hours and never quite get everything done. This week we look at practical ways to manage infinite jobs, improving our productivity while also regaining control over our hours.

Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 35 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at practical ways to manage infinite jobs - improving our productivity while also regaining control over our hours.

There are two types of jobs - what I call finite jobs and infinite jobs. Chances are at some point in your career you’ve had a finite job - one where you had set work hours, and were paid for every hour you worked. For example, retail jobs are typically finite jobs - you start your shift at a particular time, complete as much work as you can during your shift, then walk away at the end of your shift. Whatever work was left over is either there for you the next day, or handed across to someone else. And there’s no expectation to work beyond the hours you’re given - remember those days? In this environment, leaders assess the overall workload and determine the resources needed to deliver. If more work needs to be done, more resources are allocated.

Infinite jobs are quite different. These jobs have objectives to deliver - some being set up front, and some which emerge over time. Here you’re not really paid by the hour. Your contract may specify that you’re employed to work 38 or 40 hours, but you’re really employed to deliver results. Contracts might refer to ‘reasonable overtime’ or something similar. Or you might be running your own business, where you just work the hours you need to deliver results. Infinite jobs are different because there isn’t an end point. You could potentially keep working more and more hours and never ‘finish’ an infinite job. There’s always more you could do - more clients to contact, more processes to improve, more development of people to undertake. The vast majority of leadership roles are infinite jobs, so chances are you’re currently in an infinite job. And more finite jobs are either being automated or converted into infinite jobs. The reality of the modern workplace is that more and more of our work will not have a natural end point.

So how do you manage an infinite job? I remember when I first took on a leadership role. I had worked as a management consultant, so was pretty familiar with having an infinite job, but was able to manage my time reasonably well despite the high demands. But nothing had prepared me for leadership. My work hours began to increase. I started with a bit over 45 hours a week, but found it quickly rose to 50 hours, then 55, then 60 plus. I was getting into work earlier and earlier to try to get something done before my team arrived, then worked later and later to catch up on things at the end of the day. Then I would log in again after dinner, finding myself swapping instant messages with the rest of the leadership team until late at night, before crawling into bed and starting it all over again the next day. I felt exhausted and dissatisfied, and there was still more to do. When the weekend rolled around I’d sleep for much of Saturday morning and try to recover in time for Monday, but would find myself gradually become more and more worn down.

Eventually it dawned on me that there actually wasn’t an end point to my job. There was never going to be a point where, as a leader, I could say “I’m finished” or “job done”. In fact, the more hours of work I completed, the more work I generated for myself and others. I wasn’t even approaching completion - even though I was hitting all my targets, I was pushing completion even further down the road. There was an ever-present level of stress and dissatisfaction - a constant worry that I was missing something or had more to do. Maybe you can relate to my experience - and maybe you’re in the middle of it right now. The key lesson for me from this experience was we can’t manage an infinite job by just adding more and more hours to our work week. We need to change the way we think about and manage our work.

A framework you’re probably familiar with involves thinking about our work in terms of the Important versus Urgent - basically that every task we complete can be thought of in terms of how important it is, and how urgent it is. While he wasn’t the first to think of this framework, Steven Covey popularised it in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Even 30 years on this book is still worth a read. Covey highlighted that we tend to get caught up in urgent work, and don’t prioritise important work enough. Clearly, if something is both urgent and important, then we should tackle that deadline, crisis or emergency straight away. But much of our time is spent with seemingly urgent but not important tasks which we should delegate to others. And we definitely need to get rid of the not urgent and not important distractions that soak up our time. But the other category - the not urgent but important - is what most leaders end up neglecting. This can include planning, reflection, long term development, networking and relationship building, creative thinking - all the things that so often get pushed aside in an infinite job. So how do we make sure we have time to do this important work, while also making our infinite job a little more finite?

Here’s an approach you might want to try:

1. Determine your ideal work hours. For most people you should aim to reduce what you’re doing at the moment, but why not start with around 40 hours as a target. A company called Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand experimented with people working four eight-hour days a week but being paid for five. Aside from the numerous benefits to individuals, they actually saw an overall productivity increase - people completed more in 32 hours than they used to complete in 40 hours. People came up with all sorts of creative ways to be more productive in their infinite jobs. We will fill whatever hours we set, so take this moment to reset.
2. Use your calendar to schedule everything - and I mean everything. This includes putting things in your calendar that unexpectedly come up so you have a record at the end of the week of how you’ve actually spent your time.
3. Identify your priorities and schedule the not urgent but important work for when you’re at your best. Each of us has a time in the day when we’re best at focused work, and that’s where the important but not urgent work should sit.
4. Schedule in breaks - at least three if not four per day. Actual get up, go for a walk, chat with someone else - take at least 10 to 15 minutes to re-engergise and refresh. You will be amazed how much more productive you are with some well-placed breaks every 90 minutes.
5. Leave time for the inevitable urgent and important activities - leave blank periods in your schedule. It’s tempting to schedule every minute then be disappointed when other things come up. I recommend trying to leave an hour or two per day for most people, but it could vary depending on your job.
6. Be ruthless when it comes to meetings - if there isn’t a clear purpose, agenda and role for you, don’t go. Sure, you might need to negotiate that, but if you’re spending more than a couple of hours per day in meetings, you’re unlikely to be performing at your best.

The beauty of this approach is that you’ve set the overall number of hours, and you can’t be doing two things at once. So if you’ve filled your calendar and something else comes up, you need to get rid of or reschedule something else. You’ve effectively made your job finite by setting your work hours.

Now, you might ask, what if I can’t get everything done in those hours? Well, now your calendar is evidence of your overall workload which will help when negotiating additional resources or a change in accountabilities. Just like those employees in New Zealand, you’ll be amazed at how creative you can get when you make your job more finite.

Reference:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/19/work-less-get-more-new-zealand-firms-four-day-week-an-unmitigated-success

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Summary

Nearly half of all employees often experience negative work-related stress, flowing through to lower levels of engagement and motivation. As leaders, we can dramatically reduce this figure, and transform the performance of individuals and our organisations.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 34 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at how leaders can move their people from ‘stressed’ to ‘strong’.

Negative work-related stress takes a significant toll on individuals and the organisations for which they work. My recent research with over 1,400 not for profit leaders and employees reveals 46% of people report often experiencing negative work-related stress – a group I call “The Stressed”. Furthermore, 80% see their work as demanding – a group I call “The Stretched”.

The experience of these two groups is quite different. Those who often experience negative work-related stress have 17% lower employee engagement ratings compared to the rest - “The Stressed” are less likely to be engaged with their work and organisation than others. And this negative sentiment is reflected in all aspects of employee engagement, particularly in a 24% lower rating of their likelihood to recommend their organisation to others as a place to work.

In contrast, those who find their work demanding have 21% higher employee engagement than those who don’t see their work as demanding. “The Stretched” are much more likely to be engaged with their work and their organisation. This group’s level of motivation to do their best work for the organisation is particularly notable, being 29% higher than the rest of the people surveyed.

However, there is overlap between these two groups. It’s possible to be both “Stressed” and “Stretched”, or any other combination of these two factors.

In the research I separated out those who find their work demanding, but don’t often experience negative work-related stress – a group I call “The Strong”. This 38% of employees report 34% higher levels of employee engagement than the rest of those surveyed. Their ratings of whether they would recommend their organisation to others as a place to work are 40% higher than others. They’re much more likely to be motivated to do their best work for the organisation, and are also more likely to want to stay with the organisation. The positive impact of being amongst “The Strong” flows through to all elements of employee engagement.

This raises an important question – what is different about the experience of individuals that might account for these dramatically different outcomes in employee engagement?

It turns out that “The Stressed” provide particularly poor ratings of the level of autonomy they have in how they achieve outcomes, being 21% lower than the rest of those surveyed. Their ratings of the opportunity to develop capability in areas that are important to them are 17% lower than others. This is consistent with broader research into stress at work – a lack of autonomy and capability to do your job well is a recipe for negative stress.

In contrast, “The Stretched” are 32% more likely to see their work as contributing to a cause greater and more enduring than themselves. This sense of purpose appears to buffer people from the adverse impocts of negative stress, helping the individual to interpret challenges and demands in a more positive light. It’s much easier to see a demanding job as a good thing if you believe you are making a positive impact on something that matters. The ability to develop meaningful connections at work also appears to help, with “The Stretched” rating this 24% higher than others.

“The Strong” have particularly positive ratings of purpose, development, connections and autonomy. These four work environment factors are also significantly positively correlated with employee engagement. Each of these factors individually accounts for 28% to 40% of the variance in employee engagement.

For leaders the message is clear. We need to provide a clear and compelling direction first. We then need to provide development opportunities so people are equiped and confident to tackle their work. Thirdly, we need to connect our people with others that can support them and with whom they can collaborate. And, lastly, we need to delegate the authority to our people to act, providing them with the autonomy they need.

As leaders we have a unique opportunity to turn “The Stressed” into “The Strong”, and to create a work environment where everyone can bring their best and flourish. This isn’t just great for our people, it’s also great for our organisations and those we serve.

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We're taking a couple of weeks to look back at two of our favourite previous episodes - enjoy!

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We're taking a couple of weeks to look back at two of our favourite previous episodes - enjoy!

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Summary

The problem with solving problems is that we often rush towards solutions without spending enough time clearly identifying the challenge we’re facing. In this episode we explore the power of a well crafted problem statement.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 33 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at the problem with solving problems - that we often rush towards solutions without spending enough time clearly identifying the challenge we’re facing.

There’s a quote typically attributed to Albert Einstein that goes along the lines of “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.” Now, there’s not great evidence that Einstein ever uttered those words, but there is still a great deal of truth in them. We often rush into solution mode when we’ve only partially, or even incorrectly, identified the problem we’re trying to solve.

I’ve spent around half of my career working in management consulting focusing on complex problems and solutions. Over that time I lost count of the number of times I heard the classic attempted put down - “consultants borrow your watch to tell you the time, then charge you for it”. Of course, if you ask a consultant to tell you the time while you’re wearing a watch, then maybe the consultant isn’t the problem. Either way, it highlights that organisations often outsource solution generation, and are then frustrated when the expensive solutions don’t quite hit the mark. I believe this is often because the problem isn’t clearly and accurately identified, so people end up frantically working towards solving the wrong problem. Once the problem is clear, organisations are usually pretty good at developing and implementing solutions.

I shared an example in the last episode of a person who inherited a task to prepare a series of reports. Preparing all of these reports was arduous and took 8 hours to complete - it was a real problem for him as he struggled to get the rest of his work completed in the rest of the week. He initially identified the problem as “these reports take too long to complete”, and so came up with and implemented improvements that meant he could prepare the reports in just four hours. But there was a deeper question that needed answering - “why are these reports needed?” It turned out people weren’t actually using the reports - no one really needed the reports to be generated, and so he took an eight hour task and reduced it to zero. The problem to explore was around the need for the reports, not the efficiency of report production.

It’s hard to identify the real problem when you’re in the middle of it, but using a clear structure and approach can help. It might even save you from using a consultant or, at least, make your investment in an external consultant more valuable.

We need to start by trying to identify the root cause of the problem. I’ve talked about using the “5 whys” approach in episode 20 - repeatedly asking the question “why?” to step back towards the root cause.

Once we think we’re close to the root cause, a structured problem statement can help. It provides some rigour around identifying the problem and its impact, while also making it easier to communicate the problem to others, and assess the value of various proposed solutions.

One simple structure for a problem statement includes four elements:

1. Ideal scenario – what it would be like if this problem didn’t exist
2. Current situation – what it is currently like - the current reality
3. Consequences – the implications for this audience if we do nothing - can help build momentum towards change
4. Focus – the areas we will explore to solve the problem

Here’s an example of applying that approach to a business that’s struggling to have sufficient stock in stores.

• Ideal - We want our customers to be able to easily purchase our products with an emphasis on experience and convenience.
• Current - Our most loyal customers are complaining that their local stores are often out of stock of our most popular products, so they’re forced to phone ahead or drive around to other stores looking for stock.
• Consequences - We are losing sales and frustrating our customers, leaving ourselves open to them switching to competitor products.
• Focus - To address this problem, we are going to explore three elements. The first being the reliability of transport of product from our warehouse to stores. The second - building our capacity to track current stock levels at stores. And thirdly, explore our ability to provide stock to customers directly via a new home delivery channel.

Now it’s important to also be responsive. Sometimes as we are seeking to solve the problem, we come across further information which may further clarify the problem. You can always refine the problem statement to reflect this new information.

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Summary

We’ve all heard the mantra - work smarter, not harder. But sometimes our idea of ‘smarter’ still isn’t the smartest way to work. We need to reflect on an entirely different level.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 32 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at the importance of taking time to reflect and challenge the work we’re conducting.

We’ve all heard the mantra - work smarter, not harder. But sometimes our idea of ‘smarter’ still isn’t the smartest way to work. It’s quite possible to very efficiently completely miss the point, overlooking an opportunity to see things from an entirely new perspective. This is particularly a risk in high-paced, busy environments.

Chris Argyris wrote a classic Harvard Business Review article in 1977 called “Double Loop Learning in Organizations”. In the article, Chris provided the example of an organisation that had a dud product, which was eventually discontinued. But those closest to production knew years in advance of the problems. However not all the information about the product’s issues were passed upwards (neither was this information sought out from those in decision making positions). The bad news was watered down. The delay in cancelling the product cost the organisation greatly. Chris highlighted this as a classic example of an organisation failing to learn. People ended up not questioning the work that was being done, but merely trying to streamline it. He saw them using single loop instead of double loop learning.

Let’s use an example to describe what Chris meant by single and double loop learning. Let’s say I’m working on a project, and I notice that we’re starting to fall behind schedule - the project is slipping. One option is to work harder - just put in more hours to try to bring the project back to the original schedule. In this approach, we’re looking at the challenge from an ‘action - result’ perspective. To try to change the result, the only lever we can use is to do more of the action. We haven’t actually learnt anything. Chris would call this ‘zero loop learning’. There is no feedback loop between the result that has changed the action, beyond increasing the amount of action.

A second option to address the slipping project is to work smarter. Here we notice the project is slipping, so we spend some time planning our approach. This could lead us to change our action - maybe we can streamline a process, or negotiate a change in the delivery date, or change the mix of resources on the project. This single loop from action back to planning may well help. We have learnt something and improved our approach to the project, so that’s a good thing, right? Of course it is - but is it the best course of action? Argyris described this as single loop learning - the gap to performance expectations loops back to a planning step that isn’t present in zero loop learning. This is likely to lead to some improvement, and it is where many people and organisations stop.

Double-loop learning is a completely new way of looking at the issue with the project. Instead of just working harder or smarter, we’re asking ourselves a new question - is it the right work? The double-loop takes us another step back from the project to explore our assumptions. What is the project trying to achieve? Why is this important? If we could start all over again, what other approaches could we use to address this need? It’s getting outside the work, and reflecting on bigger questions. It’s also about taking personal responsibility. Chris Argyris wrote a great follow up article in 1991 called “Teaching Smart People How to Learn”, again in Harvard Business Review. In it he described the work he had performed in management consulting firms, and the tendency for consultants and managers to blame their clients when projects didn’t deliver the expected outcomes. Consultants were quite happy to work on helping clients to learn and improve, but tended not to step back and think about how they could improve. Their focus on improving the performance of clients didn’t extend to themselves. When you don’t step back, the tendency is to blame others. The assumption is that you are approaching the client work well, so any performance issues are related to the client’s inability to learn. It reminded me of a financial institution I once worked with, where senior leaders would often talk negatively about customers. One senior leader regularly joked “this place would run much better if we didn’t have any customers”. Is it any surprise that the failed to see changes in the market and ultimately lost customers? After all, that’s what they jokingly wanted.

When I shared the double-loop learning framework in a leadership program, one of the participants shared a story. They had been spending eight hours a week producing a series of reports, drawing data from various sources, and then distributing these reports to various people across the organisation. It’s what their predecessor had done, so was handed across to them as a task to complete. By using their knowledge of Excel, they managed to streamline the report preparation process, reducing it down to around half a day - a great example of single-loop learning. But they never received any feedback about the reports. So they sent an email out to the recipients - how do you use these reports, can I make them more helpful? No response. So they decided to stop producing the reports. Guess what happened - absolutely nothing. It turned out that no one was actually using the reports any more. So they ultimately improved their efficiency by 20% and bought themselves an extra day to focus on things that really mattered. So many people would have stopped at the single-loop step of developing a more efficient way to produce the reports, instead of stepping back and asking what the reports were for, and whether they were needed.

To make double-loop learning work we need a few things in place:

• Permission to question the approach - testing the assumptions is actually valued and actively solicited
• A culture that values feedback, even when it’s negative or critical, as long as the focus is on improvement
• Time to reflect on our approach - so many of us are hyper-busy with no time to reflect - reflection is never going to make it into the ‘important and urgent’ quadrant, so we need to schedule this reflection time in
• Take a wider view - what’s happening in other organisations, industries, professions, countries - read widely

References

Chris Argyris - Double Loop Learning in Organizations - Harvard Business Review 1977 - https://hbr.org/1977/09/double-loop-learning-in-organizations

Chris Argyris - Teaching Smart People How To Learn - Harvard Business Review 1991 - https://hbr.org/1991/05/teaching-smart-people-how-to-learn

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Summary

In this episode we look at ways to retrain our own worst critic - the automatic limiting thoughts that enter our minds when we are faced with challenges, and that hold us back from opportunities.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 31 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at ways to retrain our own worst critic - the automatic limiting thoughts that enter our minds when we are faced with challenges, and that hold us back from opportunities.

Have you ever had someone in your life that was continually negative and critical? Always chipping away, complaining, pointing out faults, highlighting risks? Did they hold you back from thinking more positively, from trying new things, from taking action? If you did have someone in your life like that, you probably either pointed out those tendencies to them, or simply spent more time with positive people.

For many people, the most negative and critical voice in their life is the one inside their head - those automatic limiting thoughts that enter our conscious mind when we’re faced with a challenge or hit with a set back. The thoughts are automatic because they arrive without any conscious effort. And they are limiting because they hold us back from the potential positives of taking a different course of action.

The human brain works really hard to join dots - to discover patterns and meaning behind the wealth of information constantly rushing in from outside and from within ourselves. The thoughts that enter our conscious mind are ideas providing one possible explanation for what we’re interpreting. As we saw in the self-fulfilling prophecy episode, these thoughts and beliefs can be so powerful that they actually shape events and people around us. If we think someone doesn’t like us, we can act in a way that will lead that person to like us less. And so the limiting thought is reinforced and strengthened.

The human brain is also a risk management machine - we’re wired to notice threats. While you hear this sentence, your brain is scanning the environment for threats multiple times. This feature of our brain can also exaggerate the risk of taking action, leading us to magnify the risks and minimise the potential rewards. That’s why most people will work much harder to avoid losing a dollar than to gain an extra dollar. We are often working out of a mindset of risk and potential loss.

I was recently coaching a person who was very nervous about public presentations. In fact they said “If I have to give a presentation to the rest of the team, I will die”. Now, on one level, “I will die” was just a turn of phrase. But, on another level, it was actually how they physically responded to upcoming presentations. They thought, felt and acted like there was an imminent threat to their life which, of course, there wasn’t. I worked with them to challenge and then change their interpretation of presentations. First we started by challenging the automatic thought. How did the team respond to other presentations in the past? It turns out they were usually quite supportive. Then we considered some alternative explanations. Perhaps they felt physically worked up about the presentation because they wanted to do a good job and it mattered to them. Then we simply changed the script - choosing an alternate thought that they were excited about the presentation. When you’re excited your heart rate might increase, you might get a little sweaty, you might even stumble over some words. But excitement is much more positive than nervousness. It’s the same physiology, but a very different mindset. Having your heart race made sense as an indicator of excitement - they didn’t need to interpret it as a warning sign. In fact, presentations could actually be a great opportunity to practice and improve their public speaking. So the presentation to the team became an exciting opportunity, instead of a life threatening risk.

Retraining your own worst critic initially takes conscious effort, but over time we can create new and more positive automatic thoughts. The only way to get more comfortable and confident with public speaking is to do lots of public speaking. The new mindset, that presentations are an exciting opportunity to get better at presenting, encouraged them to do more presentations.

Here are some ways to tackle our limiting thoughts, and retrain our inner critic:

1. Notice your automatic thoughts. Write them down in a journal or using a notes app on your phone. That will give you a sense of what you’re telling yourself through the day.
2. See thoughts as opinions, not facts. Assess whether each automatic thought is rational, true and helpful. Incorporate other information. Craft other potential explanations. Try to identify the most likely explanation.
3. Avoid catastrophic language - “I’ll just die”, “this always happens to me”, “I’ll never get any better at this”. This just escalates the impact of the negative thought.
4. Play the scenario out - realise that, even if the worst case comes true, you’ll still be okay.
5. Rewrite the script - just like I did with the person I was coaching, changing “nervous” to “excited”. We can change the interpretation we place on our automatic thoughts and the cues from our body.

By applying these approaches we can retrain our own worst critic to become much more focused on positive opportunities than paralysed by risks.

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Summary

Commentary around the effectiveness of negative feedback is mixed, with people often highlighting the adverse impact that it can have on individuals. But is there a way to make negative feedback, well, less negative?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 30 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re exploring how to make negative feedback a little less negative.

Commentary around the effectiveness of negative feedback is mixed, with people often highlighting the adverse impact that it can have on individuals. This has led some to recommend that leaders should avoid providing negative feedback altogether. A less extreme recommendation is typically to provide much more positive feedback than negative feedback, which makes a lot of sense. We should put a lot more effort into guiding people towards an objective, rather than correcting them for straying from the path. But is there a way to make negative feedback, well, less negative?

Let’s step outside the business context for a moment, and into the world of friendships. Recent research has shown that as a friendship deepens, the friends seek and provide more negative feedback to each other. In contrast, the deepening friendship doesn’t lead to an increase or decrease in the amount of positive feedback provided. It seems that the depth of the connection allows negative feedback to play a more constructive role in the relationship. The friendship becomes a safe place where people can provide and receive candid feedback to help each other improve.

So what’s the difference between positive and negative feedback. One simple distinction is that positive feedback seeks to recognise and reinforce a behaviour. In contrast negative feedback seeks to identify a behaviour that should be reduced or changed.

As we covered in an earlier episode, one way to make feedback more effective is to focus on the behaviour demonstrated, and the impact of that behaviour on you and others. But what other conditions are specific to making negative feedback work? How do we make it more like the negative feedback close friends seek and provide to each other?

Two pieces of research provide helpful insight into making negative feedback more constructive. The first is a very recent meta analysis of 78 studies into the impact of negative feedback on intrinsic motivation. The second study looked specifically at the factors that moderate an employees reaction to negative feedback. Taken together, these two studies highlight four important principles when we need to provide negative feedback.

1. Connection matters - much like in the earlier research about negative feedback in friendships, the closer the connection, the more effective the negative feedback. And face to face feedback works best. This allows a much richer conversation that factors in the subtle non verbal cues so important in communication.
2. Your motivation matters - being considerate makes a difference. This could mean acknowledging that the feedback is difficult to give, but that you really want the person to develop and improve. In fact, you wouldn’t be providing the feedback unless you cared about the person’s development and progress.
3. Quality matters - negative feedback works best when it is data and criteria based. This could involve highlighting how the negative behaviour is adversely impacting on performance measures for the role, and how the desired behaviour will help the individual.
4. Guidance matters - the research demonstrated that negative feedback was more effective when there was clear guidance about how to improve. Such guidance helps demonstrate that you are willing to support the individual’s development.

Most people don’t enjoy giving or receiving negative feedback, but if delivered well using these four principles it can be an important driver of further development. So as a final reminder, connection matters, your motivation matters, quality matters, and guidance matters.

I hope you found this episode helpful. As always, please recommend the podcast to a friend or colleague. And you can get in touch via the leadership.today website if you have any thoughts or feedback on the episode. See you next week!

Research

A Meta-Analysis of Negative Feedback on Intrinsic Motivation. Fong, Carlton J; Patall, Erika A; Vasquez, Ariana C; Stautberg, Sandra. Educational Psychology Review; New York Vol. 31, Iss. 1, (Mar 2019): 121-162.

Moderators of employee reactions to negative feedback. Steelman, Lisa A; Rutkowski, Kelly A. Journal of Managerial Psychology; Bradford Vol. 19, Iss. 1/2, (2004): 6-18.

When friends exchange negative feedback. Finkelstein, Stacey R; Fishbach, Ayelet; Tu, Yanping. Motivation and Emotion; New York Vol. 41, Iss. 1, (Feb 2017): 69-83

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Summary

Working 9 to 5 may not be the best way for everyone to maximise their productivity. In this episode we look at the science of chronotypes, and how leaders can use our natural sleep/wake cycles to get the best out of their people.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 29 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. Today we are talking about chronotypes and the perils of working 9 to 5.

As you wade into research about patterns in daily productivity, focus and sleep, you find a wealth of information, often confusing and sometimes contradictory. So let’s start with the basics. Chronotypes are used to categorise people based on their sleep/wake cycles across a 24 hour period. There are three main chronotypes - morning, intermediate and evening types. These follow a normal distribution, so 50% of people are classed as intermediate types. But even these intermediate types can have a preference towards morning or evening.

Your chronotype impacts when you best exercise, concentrate, eat and sleep - it’s not just a learned preference, it has a biological basis. Hormones are part of that biological basis. For example, the hormone melatonin starts being produced in greater levels by the pineal gland as a person approaches sleep, it peaks during the night, and then more rapidly declines towards waking time. Another hormone, cortisol, follows an opposing pattern - rising as morning approaches, peaking later in the morning, then tapering off towards evening. Cortisol is typically classed as a stress hormone, and you’ve probably only heard bad things about it. But, in moderation, it has a number of positive benefits relating to concentration, energy levels, and positive mood.

Peaks in melatonin typically vary by around four hours between morning and evening types. A morning type could have a melatonin level at 7pm that an evening type doesn’t reach until 11pm. Some research has even seen ranges in melatonin peaks of up to ten hours. You can imagine the impact of forcing morning and evening types to go to sleep or wake at the same time. Yet so often our business hours are a compromise between these two types - 9 to 5.

I’m definitely a morning person, and that has become even clearer now I have greater flexibility over my day. This morning preference has also become more pronounced as I age, but more on that soon.

In contrast, I remember a participant on a leadership program with a quite different chronotype to me. She really struggled with the program’s 8.30am start time, which was an hour earlier than when she usually got to work. She wasn’t particularly sharp in the morning. While others were asking questions and engaging in activities, this participant took a while to warm up. However, at the very point when most people were fading in the afternoon, this person came into their own - they were asking questions, engaging with activities and were much more physically animated.

During a break I asked what her perfect work day would look like if she had absolute freedom to choose. It turns out her perfect work day would be 11am to 7.30pm. In fact she had even suggested these work hours to her manager. This would allow her to get up around 9.30am, and still have time to get to the gym before work. But most of her fellow team members were working 8.30am to 5pm, and her manager thought an 11am start would be too extreme. They ended up negotiating a compromise of 9.30am to 6pm, but it was common for her to work an extra hour or two at the end of the agreed work day when she felt particularly sharp and focused. Interestingly she did work her preferred hours when she worked from home - no one noticed any difference and she felt great. I wonder how much those compromised hours are costing her and the business.

The impact of having people working outside their preferred hours is much like crossing time zones - having to wake consistently earlier, or later than our natural biological rhythms. This wreaks havoc on our bodies and health. Even one hour shifts for daylight saving changes mess with our biological clocks, and you can even see the impact of that in mental health and crime statistics.

Sleep wake cycles are also linked to age. Teenagers need more sleep, and tend to shift towards later sleep and wake times, achieving what’s known as “peak lateness” at 19 years old. Given this, the optimal school day for most teenagers should start around 10am or even later. As we age, we tend to shift more towards the morning. For example, men on average shift from evening to morning types around 40 years of age. So older workers may prefer an earlier start, but there is a very broad distribution of preferences at any age.

As a leader there are a number of ways in which we can take chronotypes into account to support both individuals and the business:

1. Ask individuals - if they could pick their perfect work hours, what would they be? It’s important to not set up an expectation that you can automatically provide these hours, but it’s a great question to gain additional information that could impact rosters and work times.
2. Assess and raise awareness about chronotypes - The Center for Environmental Therapeutics has an online version of the often-used Morning Evening Questionnaire (or MEQ) which can help people to identify their chronotype. I’ve included a link to the questionnaire in the show notes (http://www.cet-surveys.com/index.php?sid=61524).
3. Provide flexibility - encourage people to trial different work hours when they are working at home. Just be aware that, like jet lag, it takes a few days to adjust into a new rhythm.
4. Communicate - like any other diversity in the workplace, there is a risk of misunderstanding. Make sure you communicate when people are trialing new hours so people don’t think the other types are being lazy by either leaving earlier or arriving later than usual.
5. Focus on outputs - measure what people deliver, not how long it takes them or the process. This will provide people with greater flexibility over how they produce results.

And chronotypes aren’t just about how you lead others, they’re also important for managing yourself. Here are some things to try if you’re struggling with your sleep/wake cycle:

1. Complete the assessment - find out what your preferred chronotype is.
2. Negotiate work time experiments. Sometimes managers are concerned about making large changes and what that might mean for them and the team they manage. Turning this into experiments may give them more confidence. Even if your new work hours are a complete failure, they can always change back.
3. Go with consistent sleep times - go to bed and wake up at the same times every day. It makes a huge difference in really establishing those rhythms.
4. Make sure you get plenty of light in the morning and not much at night - get outdoors in the morning so your brain and body can synch with sunlight cues, and avoid screens at night. In winter consider bright lights in morning and dimmer lighting in the evenings.

5. Sleep is really tightly linked with diet and exercise, so improvements in these will also help the quality of our sleep.
   Read up - there are two really interesting books that I highly recommend around these topics:

   • Why we sleep: The new science of sleep and dreams. By Matthew Walker. It includes some fascinating science, and there’s a particularly great narrator on the audio book - in fact I’ve fallen asleep while listening to that book on more than one flight.
   • When: The scientific secrets of perfect timing. By Daniel Pink. Daniel has a fantastic ability to consolidate a broad range of scientific research together with entertaining stories focused on decision making and chronotypes.

Well I hope you found the content in this episode helpful. As always it would be great if you could share the podcast with your friends and work colleagues, and please make contact via the leadership.today website if you have any feedback or questions. See you next week.

Research

Find out your type by taking the Morning Evening Questionnaire by the Center for Environmental Therapeutics: http://www.cet-surveys.com/index.php?sid=61524

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868668/ - Emotion. 2016 Jun; 16(4): 431–435.

Published online 2016 Mar 7. Positive upshots of cortisol in everyday life

Lindsay T. Hoyt,1, Katharine H. Zeiders,2 Katherine B. Ehrlich,3 and Emma K. Adam3,4,

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-land-nod/201301/changing-night-owl-lark

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178782

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Summary

How do leaders create an environment where people thrive? This week we look at the importance of leadership styles in helping to bring out the best in our people.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 28 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at how leaders create an environment where people thrive, which is building on some of the themes from last week’s episode.

When I was 15 my first part time job was at a large retailer. My job title was ‘Customer Service Security’, which sounds pretty impressive, but in practice that meant I was the person who checked bags as people left the store to make sure they hadn’t stolen anything. At that time the retailer had a garden department with its own street entrance, so it wasn’t uncommon for people to come in the main entrance, steal something, then try to make a quick escape through the garden department. Of course they had to get past Customer Service Security first. By any measure, this wasn’t a great job to give to a 15 year old, but it was character building if nothing else. Another of my responsibilities was to help people who were returning goods, checking their receipts and passing them through to a person who could give them a refund.

There’s one refund that has stuck in my mind 30 years after the event. A man came into the garden department one Saturday morning carrying what looked like a stick with a black plastic bag on one end. He let me know that he wanted a full cash refund on the item. I looked at the receipt, and what he had originally purchased a full three months earlier was a bare-rooted lemon tree. You see occasionally had specials where we would sell a bunch of young trees with minimal soil around the roots which were then sealed in a plastic bag - which made it much easier than shipping and selling them than putting them in pots. But this guy had bought the bare-rooted lemon tree, taken it home and put it in his garage for a full three months - no sunlight, no water, no nutrients, no space to grow. It didn’t take a horticultural qualification to realise the lemon tree was dead. Amazingly, our generous refund policy meant the man left with a full refund, and we were left wondering what to do with a dead stick in a bag.

There are a few important leadership principles wrapped up in this story. The most obvious one is that, as leaders, we need to create an environment where people can thrive. Just like the lemon tree needed to be planted in good soil, with access to sunlight, water and nutrients to thrive, as leaders we need to provide an environment where people can thrive. I’ll talk more about how we can do that shortly.

The second equally important principle is that we can’t force people to be motivated and to grow - that comes from within the person themselves. As leaders it’s important to recognise that we can’t directly motivate anyone to do anything. The closest we can get is through demands and threats, which is unfortunately what all too many leaders default to. While that might lead to a short-term lift in performance driven by fear, ultimately the impact is negative on the individual and the organisation.

Instead what we’re aiming for is aligned motivation. If someone shows up at your workplace, they’re motivated. As a leader our role is to uncover what specifically motivates that individual, and to help align that with the direction and needs of the organisation. We do that by creating the right environment.

In summary - the person owns the motivation, and the leader owns the environment that helps to align that motivation.

So how do leaders shape the environment? We shape the environment through the leadership behaviours we demonstrate - the actions we take that build the kind of environment where people can thrive. The concept of leadership styles is not new - the styles I refer to are informed by over 80 years of research by people including Kurt Lewin, Fred Fiedler, Martin Evans, Robert House, James McGregor Burns, Bernard Bass, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.

There are four sets of leadership behaviours or leadership styles that are particularly helpful in building a positive environment.

The first leadership style is Inspiring. This involves developing a compelling vision for the work that we undertake, communicating that vision, and aligning roles and individuals to the vision. This helps to increase clarity, and it also encourages alignment. People know where we are headed, they know their role, and they can connect their own motivations with that broader purpose. This is like sunlight for the lemon tree - providing energy and a direction to grow. My own research with over 1,000 leaders demonstrated that having a feeling you’re contributing to something meaningful reduced negative stress by 31%, and increased engagement by 74%. It even increased an individual’s likelihood of staying with the organisation by a full 87%.

The second leadership style is Developing. Here we’re discussing the skills and capabilities people want to develop, coaching people, providing stretch opportunities, and investing in their development. This ensures people are developing their capability, while we’re also building the capacity of the organisation. This is like watering the lemon tree - encouraging its development. Here my research saw more significant results. Where people felt they were developing in areas important to them, their stress was 26% lower, engagement was up by 60% and again the likelihood of staying was up by 87%.

The third leadership style is Connecting. This is where we help connect people with others that can provide support, while we also identify opportunities to work across the organisation, build teamwork, and provide direct support and encouragement. This style helps ensure people have the support they need, while also building collaboration for the organisation. This is like adding nutrients to give that extra boost to the lemon tree. Where people felt their job provided the chance to make meaningful connections, my research showed a 22% reduction in negative stress, with engagement up 57% and likelihood of staying up 68%.

The fourth style is Delegating. Here we delegate important work to people, even when it may mean a short term dip in performance. We focus more on accountabilities and outcomes, giving people greater freedom about how they produce results. This provides the individual with authority, while also enabling us to hold them accountable. It’s like giving the lemon tree extra room to grow - putting it in a larger pot, or planting it with plenty of space to spread out. Again my research showed that providing people with autonomy and freedom has a significant impact, with negative work-related stress down 20%, engagement up 52% and likelihood of staying up 55%.

There are two other styles that also influence the work environment, but not always in a positive way.

Directing is about telling people how to do their work, closely monitoring people, and emphasising the negative consequences of getting things wrong. There are some times when this leadership style is appropriate - it provides task clarity and control. But it does this at the cost of autonomy and personal responsibility. This one is a bit like yelling at the lemon tree - it might make you feel better, but the tree won’t take much notice.

The final leadership style is Avoiding. As the name suggests, this is where a person avoids the role of being leader altogether, keeping tasks to themselves, focusing on their own job, and avoiding delegating to people who have let them down. While the individual may be productive, team productivity is likely to be low. It looks a lot like the guy who left the lemon tree in his garage so he could focus on other things. Perhaps that worked well for him, but it didn’t turn out too well for the lemon tree.

The really good news is that, like any other behaviour, leadership styles can be developed. A great way to start is to assess your own leadership styles. I’ve developed a great card-sort exercise which I use on leadership programs that helps people to identify their preferred styles. And I also have a Leadership Styles Self-Assessment which I’m providing as a free gift for those who sign up for Leadership Today updates. Just head to the leadership.today website, and sign up on the Connect page and I’ll send you a link. If you’ve already signed up, have no fear - I’ll be emailing you a link shortly.

I’ll be interested in how you find the assessment, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing you next week.

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Summary

How safe do you feel at work to speak up, raise an idea or a concern, or to try something new? This week we look at psychological safety, and how it has an unexpectedly hard edge.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 27 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at psychological safety - the hard edge to feeling safe at work.

How safe do you feel at work to speak up, raise an idea or a concern, or to try something new?

There has been increasing interest over the past few years about the importance of psychological safety in the workplace, a concept originating in the 1990s. This has been driven, in no small part, by highly publicised research conducted by Google on what makes a team effective at Google - which they called project Aristotle.

Before we go too much further, it’s worth talking about some of the details and definitions of the study.

They defined a team as being a group of people who are highly interdependent - that team members need each other to produce results. They’re not just working alongside each other.

Studied a wide and diverse range of teams, from 3 to 50 individuals - with the median size being 9 team members.

Explored the effectiveness of teams, using a range of measures including evaluations by the executives, team leaders, team members and also sales performance. And they explored a range of variables gathered through interviews and survey data, alongside demographics such as tenure and location.

Now they’re quick to note that this is what matters for teams at Google - obviously these results may vary elsewhere.

This research was Interesting as much for what they found didn’t matter, at least when working at Google: things like colocation (working in the same place), team size, individual performance, and extroversion levels - none of those factors had a significant impact.

What were the factors they found to be most significant for effective teams? They found five factors, and let’s work through those in reverse order of importance:

• Number five was having an impact - making a difference was really important
• Number four was a sense of meaning and purpose
• Number three was structure and clarity - where people understood their role and objectives
• Number two was dependability - where people reliably complete work on time
• And the number one factor, as you might expect, was psychological safety

One definition of psychological safety is “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking”. Basically I feel confident people won’t “embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.”

Importantly, psychological safety isn’t ’soft’ - it isn’t about avoiding disagreements or withholding corrective feedback - it’s not about bubble wrapping the environment so people can’t hurt themselves. Rather, an environment with psychological safety is supportive but stretching. Once people are free to try things and make mistakes, we are better able to set high standards and hold people to account. A workplace with psychological safety isn’t about comfort - in fact, it can feel quite uncomfortable as you’re being stretched into new areas (you might want to see our episode on conscious incompetence). However, you feel supported. You are still responsible for the consequences of your actions, but your fellow team members want you to succeed and have got your back. It’s better to think of psychological safety as something that makes people confident, not comfortable.

There are two major leadership styles, or sets of leadership behaviours that are most relevant to psychological safety:

• The first is Connecting - that, as leaders, we help to connect people with others that can support them - we work on the team and seek to build team effectiveness
• The second is Delegating - we provide the freedom for people to try things out, we give them autonomy, and we delegate important responsibilities to them

So that sounds great for the individual, but what’s in it for the organisation? Providing a connected and supportive workplace leads to increased collaboration. It’s an environment where people are much more willing to contribute, take chances, learn from each other, and contribute to each others’ success. And providing authority allows us to hold people to account.

Holding people accountable may initially sound negative, but of course it also involves proving positive feedback and celebrating successes. Google started a company called X, which now sits under Alphabet. They also called this the “Moonshot Factory”. Here their missions was to “create radical new technologies to solve some of the world’s hardest problems”. They had projects like using balloons to provide internet access in remote locations, drone delivery, self-driving vehicles, and kites to generate electricity. Importantly they don’t just celebrate successes, but also celebrate projects that are shut down - recognising the efforts put in, even if ultimately the project doesn’t prove feasible.

In summary, nice cultures aren’t nice places to work, if that niceness means covering over disagreements. As leaders, let’s build environments where people can stretch themselves, try new things, make the occasional mistake, learn from that, and ultimately develop to produce even greater results.

Well I hope you found today’s podcast helpful and if you did it would be great if you could recommend it to a few of your friends. The podcast is really growing in terms of the number of people downloading it each week, and that makes a real difference in terms of the impact we can have in developing leaders.

Also, if some of the content in today’s podcast was of interest, I have a one day leadership foundations program which covers things like motivation, leadership styles, building resilience - a range of things that are really important across a range of leadership roles. If that’s of interest, just make contact via the website at leadership.today. And while I’m on the topic, if you go to the connect page there you can sign up for our regular updates and also to connect with us on LinkedIn and Facebook. See you next week.

References

https://www.strategy-business.com/article/How-Fearless-Organizations-Succeed

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html?smid=pl-share

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2666999?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness/steps/introduction/

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Summary

The self-fulfilling prophecy describes how our expectations of others can lead them to act in a way that confirms those expectations. As leaders it’s time to reset our expectations so we can get the best out of our people and stop holding them back.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 26 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at self-fulfilling prophecies, and why we get what we expect.

It’s a sunny Wednesday in 1932 as the CEO of Last National Bank walks towards his desk. The bank is thriving and financially strong, and Cartright Millingville is rightly proud of the business he oversees. But as he continues past the tellers, he notices the queue of people lining up is much longer than usual - nothing to worry about at this point, but certainly different to most Wednesday mornings. As he takes a seat at this desk the noise and activity in the bank gradually grows, with people becoming increasingly unruly. And that’s because this is no ordinary day - hundreds of people are lining up to withdraw all of their funds from the bank, having heard a rumour of the bank’s imminent collapse. Despite the bank’s strong financial position, it could not survive the initially false, but ultimately true, perception that it might be at risk. The bank collapsed and closed its doors permanently the same day. The false perception became fact.

The sociologist Robert Merton shares this example in his classic 1948 paper - The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. In the paper he describes how our expectations can influence the world around us. Thinking that a financial institution is at risk of collapse can ultimately lead to its collapse. In the same way, our expectations of others can lead them to behave in line with these expectations. Merton defines the self-fulfilling prophecy as “a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the originally false conception come true.” And, of course, this outcome strengthens the original perception of the situation, as Merton continues “for the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning”.

A common example of a self-fulfilling prophecy is the placebo effect. In drug trials, prospective new medications are put up against placebo pills. These placebo pills have no direct physical impact on the individual. But believing that a placebo tablet will have an impact is often enough for it to actually have that impact. For that reason, finding drugs that work better than placebos can be difficult. It’s not that a placebo is neutral - the expectation the person has of the placebo tablet actually makes that outcome more likely. More recent research demonstrates that the placebo effect is so strong, it can still work even when the person knows that they’re taking a placebo. By way of example, Dr Ted Kaptchuk treated patients with irritable bowel syndrome by giving them a tablet openly identified to the patient as a placebo. This group demonstrated significant improvement in their symptoms compared to a group that didn’t receive a placebo. As Dr Kaptchuck notes, this clearly can’t work for all medical issues. However he sees the greatest potential for so called ‘open-label’ placebo treatments in conditions that are largely measured through self-observation - conditions including pain, nausea and fatigue. Placebo tablets and treatments are a great example of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Classic experiments in schools have also shown the impact of the self-fulfilling prophecy. In the 1960s, Rosenthal and Jacobsen undertook a series of experiments with teachers and students. In one experiment, they chose a group of students at random and told teachers that those children had taken a test which showed they were “growth spurters” - that they had high potential and were likely to experience great progress in the year to come. The children weren’t aware of this finding - only the teachers knew. But the group was actually not special - they hadn’t taken a test and had no reason to advance more quickly than their peers. At the end of the year the evidence was in - the students identified as “growth spurters” to the teachers demonstrated significantly greater improvement across the year than their peers. Believing a student had greater potential led them to demonstrate greater potential. This research has been replicated many times and while some more recent research has questioned the size of the effect, the effect is still there.

So how does this work? It’s believed teachers’ expectations impact the way they treat their students and this, in turn, changes the behaviour of the students, helping them to reach those expectations. If I think a student has high potential, I’ll treat them differently, by giving them more opportunities to develop and demonstrate this potential.

Research has found this same effect alive and well in our organisations too, where supervisor expectations can modify performance. Which raises another point - having low expectations can also lead people to reduced performance.

As a leader, findings like these should make us pause and think: What expectations do I have of my people? What evidence do I have for these expectations? Are my expectations limiting the performance and potential of my people?

What if we wiped the slate clean as leaders and expected more out of our people? What impact might that have?

What if we expect that people turn up to work wanting to do a good job. That people can and want to develop and improve. That if the conditions are right, people can deliver even more than what we expect of them.

While we’re at it, what expectations do we have of ourselves? Are there limiting beliefs you have about yourself that lead people to treat you differently? Perhaps you don’t expect to get a promotion, and this leads others to see you as less worthy of a promotion. Perhaps you joke about being lazy, which leads others to see you as lazy. You might take some time this week to consider your strengths. One way to do this is to take a survey like the VIA Character Strengths which can help identify your unique strengths. Embracing your strengths will help you to present more confidently to others, and change the way they view you in line with the expectations you place on yourself.

Let me know how you go, and have a great week.

References

The Self-Fulfilling ProphecyAuthor(s): Robert K. MertonSource: The Antioch Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer, 1948), pp. 193-210

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/placebo-can-work-even-know-placebo-201607079926

Eden, D. (1984). Self-fulfilling prophecy as a management tool: Harnessing Pygmalion. The Academy of Management Review, 9(1), 64-73.

VIA Character Strengths Survey - available free - www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey

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Summary

Being able to effectively manage change is an essential skill for any leader. In this episode we explore the stages of change that people work through, and what they need from their leaders to support the change.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 25 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

Change is an essential part of the modern workplace. Hardly a week will go by without some kind of change that we need to manage. Some authors have likened working through change to the stages of grief. The five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining and Acceptance) were Initially developed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. She actually used these labels to describe the stages that terminally ill patients go through as they process what their illness means to them. It was then applied to people grieving the loss of a loved one, however research shows that grief is complex, and doesn’t necessarily follow neat stages.

Cynthia Scott and Dennis Jaffe proposed that people move through four stages when coming to terms, and eventually engaging, with change - Denial, Resistance, Exploration and Commitment. Like the stages of grief, these don’t necessarily play out as neatly as the model would suggest, however it’s an extremely helpful framework for leaders in understanding how they can support and encourage people through change.

In the first stage, Denial, a person is trying to avoid the change by not taking action. They often act like nothing has happened. When they are forced to discuss the change, they may question the evidence behind the need for change, or blame those driving the change. I remember working through an office move. We had been in the same location for many years, but our lease was coming to an end, and the building managers didn’t want to renew the lease. So we found a new location and encouraged people to start clearing up around their areas to get ready for the move. I remember one person that didn’t seem to be involved in the clearing up. As I spoke to them, they were clearly in denial about the change. In fact they thought it was an elaborate ruse to get people to clean up their areas, and that we wouldn’t be moving office at all. And while that seems a little strange, it speaks volumes about what people need at this stage of change. Firstly, leaders need to accept that denial is a normal part of the change process. People need time and further information so they can get used to the change. As a leader you also need to expect that productivity will drop. I’m yet to hear of anyone who has moved offices without a pretty significant impact on productivity, and that will be the same for any other major change.

In the second stage, Resistance, people take on a more active opposition to the change. Active and passive resistance starts to occur. People can end up complaining, demonstrate frustration, and even become depressed. They will identify and raise numerous reasons why the change won’t work. As a leader, this can be quite challenging. You might even find yourself starting to doubt the ability for the organisation to change at this point. It’s important to recognise that you can’t get people through this stage with logic and reason. Additional data and evidence is unlikely to help. What people need is a leader who will listen to them and acknowledge the emotional component of the change. It’s really important to maintain your own composure at this point too. It’s very easy to become angry and argumentative yourself, which will only inflame the situation further. Instead, encourage the team to keep talking to you and each other about the change, and particularly focus on what lies ahead, while also recognising the feeling of loss about what is in the past.

Exploration is the third stage and, as the name suggests, this is when people start to actively engage with the change. At this stage people will want to come up with new ideas, to solve problems, and to try new things. While this is positive, it is worth recognising that this will distract people from core business. That inevitable drop in productivity will continue into this stage, despite the enthusiasm and energy people are demonstrating. As a leader you will need to focus people’s energy at this stage towards productive tasks. Think about how people can work together to progress the change. It’s also worth noting that people will reach this stage at different points, and may even cycle back into Resistance if they don’t feel their efforts are being recognised. You will want to encourage people to support others through the change - those in Exploration can really help those in the Resistance stage, so think about how you might engage people in that way.

The fourth and final stage is Commitment. Here people feel comfortable with the change, and are confident and in control. They will become more productive as the distracting elements of the change have been addressed. As a leader, it’s tempting at this stage to think your job is done. However, you should take the time to celebrate and recognise people’s efforts in working through the change. You can also help prepare people for the next change by reflecting on lessons learned.

This week you could reflect on the changes that are occurring in your workplace. What stage are you up to in the change? Where do you think members of your team are at? What do they need from you to make it to the next stage?

Thanks for joining me again this week. And a quick update - I’ve released a one day Leadership Foundations program, targeted at frontline to mid-level leaders. It covers:

• Leadership and motivation
• Leadership styles
• Coaching and feedback
• Focus and resilience

The feedback on the program has been great. If you or someone else in your organisation would be interested in learning more about the program, make contact with me via the leadership.today website. I’m also working on an online version of the program people can undertake over a two week period, so let me know if you’re interested in a discounted trial. See you next week.

References

Cynthia Scott and Dennis Jaffe (2006) Change Management: Leading People Through Organizational Transitions

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/supersurvivors/201707/why-the-five-stages-grief-are-wrong

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Summary

Learning new things can be painful. Understand why that’s the case can help us, both as learners and leaders, to become more effective. This week we look at a framework to help us understand the predictable stages of learning, and what that requires from us as leaders.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 24 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

When’s the last time you learned something new? How did that feel?

The workplace is changing rapidly, which means as leaders we are often needing to try things that we haven’t tried before. But learning something new can be hard - it typically involves an element of feeling awkward. Why is that? And what does it mean for us and our teams?

Chances are that at some point in your life your learnt to drive a car. You may have even taught someone else to drive.

What does it feel like as the learner heads towards a car for their first lesson. They’re no doubt a little nervous, but are also typically keen to give it a try. Often there’s an assumption that driving a car can’t be that difficult - after all, they’ve seen thousands of others do it every day - how hard can it be? Martin Broadwell described four levels of learning back in 1969, and he referred to this stage as Unconscious Incompetence - the learner doesn’t know what they don’t know. They can’t possibly know how hard it might be to learn to drive a car because they’ve never done it before. The leader needs to invest effort and time in helping the learner at this point, as they’re likely to need really clear directions.

So what happens in those first few lessons? No doubt the learner stalls the car, maybe forgets to indicate, or even has a near miss with another car. They might choose the wrong gear or clip the kerb while taking a corner. Their lack of skill in the task is quickly uncovered. But what does that feel like? It feels awful. Every element of driving at this stage takes a lot of thought and planning - knowing where to position the car in the lane, what kind of distance to keep from the car in front, how to translate the images in the mirror to know where other cars are. Broadwell called this Conscious Incompetence - the learner is all too aware of just how much they don’t know, and it often feels awful. Unless there’s sufficient motivation, the learner may even give up at this stage. What the learner needs at this stage is plenty of encouragement to keep on learning.

Let’s assume the learner sticks with it. Over the next year they’re likely to become better at driving. Things will become more predictable and in control. They will still need to concentrate on elements of driving, but it will start to feel more comfortable and natural. They need fewer directions from the leader, aside from the occasional new element of encouragement. Broadwell called this stage Conscious Competence - the learner now knows how to do the task, but it still requires quite a lot of conscious thought and effort.

And, over time, if the learner driver continues to gain experience and develop their skills, eventually they will reach Unconscious Competence. This is the stage where the skill becomes automatic. Have you ever had that experience of driving somewhere and not remembering much of the trip? That’s likely an example of Unconscious Competence. All the gear changes, lane changes, braking, accelerating, mirror checks and everything else becomes automatic - only exceptional circumstances are likely to require you to use conscious thought and effort. You don’t need much input from the person training you - they have effectively delegated the task to you. The leader needs to adapt their approach to the learner at this stage, otherwise they end up becoming the equivalent of a back seat driver - barking directions at someone who is perfectly capable of doing a great job. While this stage is great as a learner, it can make it hard to then teach someone else that skill. It can be hard to remember what it was like to learn to drive. There can be elements of driving that you find difficult to explain because they’ve become automatic over the years.

I remember stepping into my first leadership role. There was so much in the role that was new - motivating others, analysing finances, putting together a business plan, hiring staff, laying off staff - it was almost overwhelming. I was absolutely aware of my short comings and just how much I needed to learn. Fortunately I had people around me who were prepared to invest in my development, and I was also motivated to keep going. But it did lead me at points to question my ability - perhaps I was the wrong person for the job - surely someone else could do this better than I could? And it also challenged me as my team became more and more capable. Was I willing to delegate things entirely? Or did I want to retain some control, just like the back seat driver?

Putting ourselves in the position of Conscious Incompetence is a necessary part of growth and development. And helping others through this stage with support and encouragement is critical if we are to retain our best people and keep them motivated.

What parts of your role fall in the Conscious Incompetence stage? Are there new challenges on the horizon that might push you back into that zone for some tasks?

Where do your team members fall on their various responsibilities? Are there some that require additional support? Do you need to fully delegate to others who are now performing well, and stop back seat driving?

How can you use this framework to prepare others for new responsibilities?

I hope you found this episode helpful. I’m so grateful for those of you who download the podcast each week and share it with others - it makes a huge difference. Leadership Today is now one of the top leadership podcasts on Spotify, which means even more people are discovering the podcast and working on their leadership. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

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Summary

Conflict - love it or hate it, you’re going to end up facing conflict at some point. In this episode we discuss some ways of tackling conflict head on.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 23 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘conflict’? When I ask this question on leadership programs, the first things people typically think of are negative. But research suggests that conflict isn’t automatically bad, but neither is it always good. There’s something about the way in which conflict is managed that makes a difference.

What is conflict?

Conflict occurs where two or more people aren’t thinking alike - where they have differences of opinion, or where their interests don’t align. In this way conflict is the product of diversity - of diverse views, diverse experiences and diverse ways of thinking. We know that diversity, when harnessed and managed, has a broad range of positive impacts on organisational performance. But diversity brings with it conflict which also needs to be managed.

Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann define conflict situations as “those in which the concerns of two people appear to be incompatible.” This definition highlights that in conflict concerns only need to appear to be incompatible - it is entirely possible that with further exploration seemingly incompatible interests may actually be reconciled.

How do we approach conflict?

We typically approach conflict based on our preferences and previous experiences of conflict. There’s also a cultural overlay, with different cultures varying in how comfortable people are with disagreements. Depending on these factors, when it comes to conflict it’s easy to take an all or nothing approach - to either argue forcefully for our position, or to avoid the conflict altogether. There are times when these approaches can be valid, but those times are the exception rather than the rule.

Our goal in managing conflict is to make the most of the diversity - to actively engage in discussion. To refine ideas and improve them by making the most of a diversity of views. And it’s also to build and maintain healthy working relationships. There may be little point winning an argument if it also means losing a key partnership. And of course we want to conclude with a clear way forward.

With those goals in mind, here are some tips for tackling conflict head on in a healthy and constructive way:

1. Start with you - why does this issue matter to you? What’s your ultimate goal, not just the initial position you’ve taken? What have been your experiences of conflict in the past? What emotions is this conflict likely to produce in you? Are you prepared to shift your position in the face of additional information? You might consider self-assessments such as the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument as these can boost awareness of how you typically approach conflict.
2. State your intent - that you want to resolve the conflict and build the relationship. That you want to arrive at a better solution. Also let people know the extent to which you’re willing to change your position based on new information or perspectives.
3. Agree ground rules. Members of a senior leadership team I served on were clear that we wanted to have robust discussions, and that it was okay for not all of us to have the same perspective. But while we didn’t always agree, we made sure we left each meeting on the same page - talking about the final outcome as if we had come up with the approach ourselves, even if we had been arguing against it 20 minutes earlier. You might agree to keep things confidential, to be frank - whatever it might be, discussing ground rules helps.
4. Listen - and really listen - to the other position. Listen to understand rather than just argue back. So often we’re concentrating on only hearing opportunities to disagree and argue back rather than really trying to understand what’s important to the other person, and why it’s important to them. I remember going into a potentially heated conversation with one word written in all capitals at the top of my notepad - that word was LISTEN. Genuinely seeking to understand the other person’s position took all the heat out of the discussion.
5. Shake hands. Whether figuratively or literally but, either way, leave on a positive note. Leaving a disagreement unresolved can lead to it festering and sapping energy.

Perhaps the best advice on conflict is the quote from Karl Weick - “Argue like you’re right and listen like you’re wrong.”

If you found this podcast helpful, you might also find episode 6 on assertiveness helpful as well - you can find it and all our precious episodes at leadership.today You can also use the connect link there to follow me on LinkedIn, to join our Facebook group, and to receive email updates about new episodes.

References

Riaz, Muhammad & Junaid, Fatima. (2013). Workplace Conflict: Constructive or Destructive. SSRN Electronic Journal. 10.2139/ssrn.2247886.

Reference: Thomas, K. W., and Kilmann, R. H. "An Overview of the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)."Kilmann Diagnostics Website (2009).

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As we prepare for 2019, we're taking the opportunity to replay some of our most popular episodes from 2018. Enjoy!

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As we prepare for 2019, we're taking the opportunity to replay some of our most popular episodes from 2018. Enjoy!

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As we prepare for 2019, we're taking the opportunity to replay some of our most popular episodes from 2018. Enjoy!

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As we prepare for 2019, we're taking the opportunity to replay some of our most popular episodes from 2018. Enjoy!

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Summary
As the end of the year fast approaches, we take a look at goal setting - something we all know a lot about, and yet we’re lousy at it. Here are four ideas that might help.

Transcript
Welcome to episode 22 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

If I was to ask you “Tell me about the best approaches to goal setting?”, you’re pretty likely to mention SMART goals. We all know goals work best when they’re Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based. And yet as human beings we are still pretty lousy at setting and following through on goals. Today I want to focus on four quick tips for setting better goals.

A few years back I set a goal for myself - I said “I want to become a better cook”. So I dutifully picked up Jamie Oliver’s 15 minute meals book - that sounded pretty achievable. I picked out a meal and got to work. Well, 90 minutes, one fennel and three fry pans later, the meal still didn’t look anything like the photo in the book. Plus I discovered that Jamie hadn’t factored in cleaning up time to the 15 minutes. I gave up.

Around the same time I set myself another goal - “I will go for a run every day of the week except Sunday”. Now I had tried running before, even setting a goal to run three times a week. But the inevitable happened - Monday it was a little cold, Tuesday I just wasn’t feeling it, Wednesday there was the sound of rain on the roof - and so on until Saturday. To make up for the lost days I would then run three times as far on Saturday and injure myself, knocking out running for another week. In contrast, my “run every day except Sunday” strategy has held up for over a year. So what made that goal stick, unlike my goal around becoming a better cook?

The first difference is word choice - there’s a big difference between “want” and “will”. If you say you want to do something, you’re indicating a preference. If you say you will do something, you’re stating a commitment. Commitments trump preferences any day. Always make sure you express your goal as a “will” statement.
Second is the middle part of SMART goal setting - Achievable. This is partly about setting a goal that you think is possible. But it’s also about setting goals that you can actually mark off as complete. The beauty of the “run every day except Sunday” goal is that I either completed it in a particular week, or I didn’t complete it that week. Test the wording of your goal to make sure it is something you can actually mark off as complete.

The third key for me was clearly picturing how the process of completing the goal would make me feel. The reality of starting a run on 46 year old knees is not pretty - the first few steps never feel great. But one minute into the run I always feel great, so I focus on that moment as I roll out of bed.
And the fourth key is identifying why the goal matters to you. If you set a goal that doesn’t matter to you, just cross it out - you’re never going to achieve it. For me, running is about keeping fit for my family and my work, both of which I love. Running was part of a broader purpose.

As you set goals for yourself, remember to say “will” not “want”, make it something you can mark off, picture the benefits of the process, and identify why the goal matters to you.

That’s our final Leadership Today Podcast for 2018 before we take a break. We’re on track to sail through 10,000 podcast downloads around about Christmas Day. And I really appreciate the feedback people have provided about the podcast, and for you taking the time to listen. I hope it has been helpful in your leadership development.

Over the remainder of December and into January we will be featuring four of our most popular episodes, before we kick off again in February. Best wishes for you and your loved ones for 2019.

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Summary This week we explore the links between optimism and resilience, using the example of a terrifying real life hang gliding experience.

Transcript Welcome to episode 21 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at optimism and resilience.

Have you ever had a travel experience that didn’t quite go to plan. Chris Gursky certainly has. Chris recently travelled from his home in Florida to Switzerland. He was particularly keen to have a tandem hang gliding experience over the picturesque Swiss countryside, so he booked that in for the first day of his holiday. The YouTube video of his first flight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLBJA8SlH2w&t=9s) shows an excited Chris and his pilot running towards their take off from high on a mountainside. As soon as they took off though Chris and the pilot realise something has gone horribly wrong - the harness Chris is wearing is not actually clipped on to the hang glider, leaving Chris to hang on for dear life. Chris has one hand on the steering bar and one hand on the pilot for most of the flight, not sure of how long he could hold on. The pilot tries for an early landing, but is unable to control the steering while also trying to hold on to Chris, leaving the hang glider to travel over an even greater drop - some 4,000 feet from the ground. After an excruciating two minutes, the hang glider finally nears the ground travelling around 45 miles per hour, with Chris letting go just before it lands. Chris walked away with a broken wrist from the landing and a torn bicep muscle from holding on so hard. Amazingly, despite the ordeal, Chris said “I will go hang gliding again as I did not get to enjoy my first flight.”

Chris’ story demonstrates the two main elements of resilience - holding on and bouncing back. On the one hand, resilience is about your ability to withstand difficult circumstances - to hold on despite the odds - which Chris literally demonstrated during his hang gliding experience. And resilience is also about your ability to quickly bounce back from setbacks - much like Chris’ desire to go hang gliding again, despite his near death experience.

So much of our experience of life is shaped by the lens through which we view events, rather than the events themselves. Shawn Achor in his book “The Happiness Advantage” says that if researchers knew everything about your situation, they can only predict 10% of your happiness levels. Around 50% of our happiness is determined by a so-called genetic set point, with the remaining 40% being determined by our thoughts and actions which, of course, we can alter.

Our resilience links closely to our level of optimism. Martin Seligman describes this in his book “Learned Optimism”. As the title suggests, Seligman has long argued that optimism can be learned, just as early behavioural experiments with animals demonstrated that helplessness and pessimism can also be learned. Seligman outlines three ways in which optimists and pessimists differ when seeking to explain the causes and impacts of events - personalisation, permanence and pervasiveness - the three P’s.

Let’s look at these three P’s using an example of a setback. Alan is reversing his car into a tight spot in the city when he hears breaking glass and the hiss of a tyre going flat. It turns out he has backed over a glass bottle, badly puncturing a tyre on his car.

Consider the three P’s if Alan took a pessimistic view of this situation:

• Personalisation - Alan immediately blames himself - he should have noticed the bottle and been more careful while parking the car - it’s all his fault.
• Permanence - these kinds of things always happen to him - this flat tyre is going to take ages to change and then repair - it’s ruined his whole week.
• Pervasiveness - now he’s going to be late for the show tonight, which means his girlfriend is going to be unhappy with him - he’ll be grumpy at work all week, and he just can’t be bothered going to the gym in the morning now.

What about if Alan took an optimistic view of the same situation:

• Personalisation - this could have happened to anyone, and whoever left the bottle there was pretty careless - it’s not really Alan’s fault at all
• Permanence - Alan will be able to change the tyre quickly after the show - it’s a 15 minute job at the most, and doesn’t really impact his evening or week
• Pervasiveness - it’s just a flat tyre - things in his relationship and at work are going well and the rest of his life is pretty positive - it’s no big deal

You can see how an optimistic mindset would make Alan more resilient, both in the moment with the punctured tyre, but also in bouncing back from a potentially negative situation.

Interestingly, when positive things happen, the thinking styles are reversed. The optimist will be more likely to take credit for the positive outcome, to see it as another sign of things to be grateful for, and will let the positive experience flow into other areas of their life. The pessimist, in contrast, will tend to put the positive outcome down to luck or the efforts of others, limit its impact in time, and see it as a small and contained part of their life.

You can learn to be more optimistic in the moment. Just understanding these differences in thinking styles will make you more aware of your own thought patterns in both positive and negative situations. You can then treat your initial thoughts as opinions rather than facts. For example, if something goes wrong, you might tell yourself “you’re an idiot - you can never get anything right”. Instead of just accepting this negative thought, treat it as an opinion which can be challenged. Is it really your fault? Do you always get things wrong, or are there examples of things you do well? What are some other explanations or ways of viewing the situation? Train yourself to look at alternative explanations rather than just accepting the first negative thought that comes into your head.

There’s also the ‘boring but important’ aspects of a healthy life that help to build resilience and optimism, namely diet, sleep and exercise. Connections with friends and family also matter. As does taking the time to slow down and be grateful for all the positive things in our lives - noting down three new things each day to be grateful for is a simple and effective practice that helps us to focus on the positives in life.

This week, think of Chris Gursky and his terrifying hang gliding flight. By holding on and then quickly deciding to give hang gliding another try, Chris provides a powerful demonstration of resilience in action.

References Martin Seligman - Learned Optimism

Shawn Achor - The Happiness Advantage

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Summary

As leaders, there’s always a risk of blaming people rather than processes. This week we look at a technique that helps us to avoid playing the blame game.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode twenty of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. In this episode we’re looking at ways to avoid playing the blame game.

As leaders, there’s always a risk of blaming people rather than processes. Something goes wrong and the first thing we want to identify is who is to blame. After all, we’re responsible for the processes, so there’s a built-in desire to protect ourselves by blaming some incompetent or malicious individual rather than our wonderfully crafted systems. Blaming people is a pretty natural way of defending ourselves and maintaining our self esteem. However, it’s not a great way of building trust, getting to the root cause of problems or improving performance. If a leader is constantly blaming their people, you have to wonder - who hired these people, and who has been managing their performance? It’s the same leader who’s now playing the blame game.

When leaders play the blame game, it leads to fear, and fear leads to cover ups, and cover ups lead to increased risk. Who would raise a concern when they know there’s a risk of being blamed and all the negative consequences that come with that? The team quickly learn the importance of sweeping things under the carpet. And that seems fine in the short term, until the issues mount up and are impossible to ignore.

So, as leaders, it can be helpful to have a technique that allows us to get to the root cause of problems without automatically blaming people.

One simple tool is called 5 whys, originally pioneered by Sakichi Toyoda as part of the Toyota Production System. While it was initially conceived as an engineering method, it works equally well on any sort of problem you’re likely to encounter in the workplace. As a result, it has been incorporated into a broad range of continuous improvement methodologies.

To use the 5 whys approach, you start with the problem, then look for the preceding cause of the problem by asking ‘why’ - why did the problem occur. The idea being that after you’ve worked backwards by asking ‘why’ five times, you should be at or pretty close to the root cause of the problem. One of the principles is that you can’t have human error as the root cause - instead, you need to focus on the process, not the people. 5 whys is fact driven and logical - it’s about evidence rather than opinions. This takes a lot of the heat out of the approach.

Let’s look at an example to bring the 5 whys approach to life. You hang up the phone from a disgruntled customer. They’ve just visited your local store to find their favourite item was out of stock. To make things worse, they had actually called the store the day before to confirm the item would be in stock, and were told new stock was arriving overnight and would be there the next day. Now they’re going to take their business elsewhere. Your natural inclination is to ring the store manager and tell them off for letting the customer down by not keeping enough stock and overpromising to the customer - a classic blame game response. Instead you call the store manager and try to figure out the root cause.

1. Why was the store out of stock? Because the scheduled order hadn’t arrived.
2. Why did the scheduled order not arrive? Because the delivery truck broke down on the way to the store.
3. Why did the delivery truck break down? Because of a broken fan belt.
4. Why did the fan belt break? Because the truck hadn’t been serviced.
5. Why hadn’t the truck been scheduled? Because there wasn’t a schedule in place for truck servicing.

The lack of a schedule for servicing our fleet of trucks was the root cause for the stock outage.

It turned out the root cause didn’t have anything to do with the store manager - the problem was in an entirely different part of the organisation. The risk now is that we try to track down who is responsible for truck servicing schedules and blame them. Instead, a much more constructive approach is to look at this as a shared problem, and something that can be avoided in the future through continuous improvement. In fact, fixing the truck servicing might help to avoid a whole range of other problems in the future - ones that wouldn’t have been avoided if we had just berated the store manager.

Now, 5 whys as a technique is not perfect. For example, it tends to uncover one root cause, when there may be several. And there’s nothing magical about 5 whys - it might only take 3 whys, or perhaps 10 whys to get to the root cause. And sometimes the problem is a person. But the principle of looking at processes and systems first before blaming people is one that any leader can bring to their approach.

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As leaders, we almost always have great intentions, but our intent isn’t always the same as our impact. In this episode we explore three principles for leaders when thinking about intent versus impact.

Transcript Welcome to episode 19 of the Leadership Today podcast - it’s great to have you join us today. I really appreciate those who have taken the time to share, rate and review the podcast. Here at Leadership Today our mission is “Enabling thousands of leaders to achieve results through people”, so it’s great to see the global reach of the podcast continue to grow. Today we’re looking at intent versus impact.

As leaders, we almost always have great intentions - our intent is typically positive. However, if you’ve been leading for a while, you will recognise there are times when people might misunderstand your intent - that your intent is not the same as your impact. And that creates problems for us - it leads to miscommunication and can create distrust.

Joseph Luft and Harri Ingham were studying group dynamics in the mid 1950s - exploring how we see ourselves versus how others see us. They developed a process that involved individuals choosing words they thought best described themselves from a list of 56 adjectives. Their peers did the same.

Not surprisingly, they found that some words overlapped between the individual and their peers and some didn’t. They could then sort each word into one of four quadrants, based on whether a characteristic was known or unknown by the individual, and known or unknown by others.

When the words lined up, this meant the characteristics were known to self and known to others - Luft and Ingham described this quadrant as the arena - others have called it public or open.

Then you have words people chose for themselves that others didn’t choose - these characteristics were known to self but not others - this quadrant was called hidden, like the person was wearing a mask.

Finally, there were words others chose to describe someone that the person didn’t choose for themselves - this is known as a blind spot. It’s also where intent versus impact gets interesting. When there's a misalignment between your intent and impact, you could argue that it’s just others’ perceptions, but those perceptions are their reality whether we agree with them or not. And a blind spot can be positive or negative - you are just as likely to be blind to a strength as you are to be blind to a weakness.

When we think about intent versus impact, there are three principles for leaders:

1. If you want people to understand you, make your intent clear
2. If you see people doing strange things, take the time to understand their intent
3. Use feedback to let people know the impact they’re having

Let’s look at the first principle - If you want people to understand you, make your intent clear.

I was working with a leader who had received some feedback that his team saw his leadership style as highly directive, and almost never coaching. As I worked with him, he just couldn’t understand this feedback - he thought he was coaching his staff all the time. I asked him for an example of how he coached his team, and he said “Well, I coached one of my team members earlier today. I was walking past his desk and noticed he was doing something in Excel in a pretty inefficient way. I knew a much simpler way, so I asked him to move across. I pulled up a seat in front of his computer, and then showed him the easier way. I then suggested he do it that way next time. I coached him.” It was pretty easy to see where the impact of being directive was coming from. I asked him to replay the story, but this time from his team member’s perspective. What would it feel like to have your boss move you to one side then start working on your computer in front of your colleagues? How might the team member have interpreted the situation? He soon saw how his positive intentions could have been taken in a negative way. Even if he had done exactly the same thing, but shared his intent - that is, that he actually thought this team member was doing a great job, and wanted to help him become more efficient so he could go home earlier - the impact would have been entirely different. It’s important to make ourselves known to others, to let them into our head, and to share our intent. This will lead to greater alignment between how others see us and how we see ourselves.

Now the second principle - If you see people doing strange things, take the time to understand their intent. Our home used to have vinyl floor tiles in our living room. I walked in one day to find about a square metre of these tiles had been lifted up and placed in a pile by a combination of our three sons. They had managed to get under the edge of one tile, lifting it up, which then gave them access to several other tiles that they could then pull up, and it quickly escalated from there. Several of the tiles had cracked in the process. Now, clearly, I was pretty frustrated by this wanton destruction. It seemed like the kids were trying to vandalise and destroy the house. But I asked them - what were they trying to do? They told me that they were simply trying to build a tower out of the tiles. Understanding their intent helped me to explain their behaviour. It didn’t remove all the frustration, but it did help me to understand why they were doing what they were doing. The same is true in the workplace. People are typically logical and rational in the behaviour - it’s the perceptions of situations that often differ. So when people are doing something strange - failing to get on board with an initiative, focusing on the wrong things, whatever it might be - that the time to explore their intent. Often you will find that it’s actually a miscommunication or misunderstanding that lies at the root of the issue.

The third principle is - Use feedback to let people know the impact they’re having. As a leader you’re in a unique position to help others to decrease their blind spots. And I would encourage you to particularly focus on helping people to uncover their strengths. One of the greatest satisfactions I’ve had as a leader is encouraging people to do things that they initially didn’t think they could. I could see strengths in them that they couldn’t see in themselves.

Intent versus impact is a powerful way of improving your influencing, understanding others, and helping others to develop. Try these three leadership principles this week and let me know what impact you make.

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Having a mentor provides a wide range of benefits beyond development, including higher pay, more promotions and greater career satisfaction. But asking for a mentor isn’t always easy or the best approach.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 18 of the Leadership Today podcast. Today we’re looking at finding a mentor, and why asking someone to be your mentor may not be the best approach.

Let’s start by defining mentoring. In a mentoring relationship the focus is on development of the person being mentored in a particular set of skills or capabilities, by engaging with a mentor who has demonstrated experience and expertise in these areas. Sometimes the individuals arrange the mentoring directly with each other, and at other times organisations either support or drive these pairings.

Reseach suggests that the benefits of having a mentor go beyond the individual’s development. When compared to those without mentors, those being mentored had higher remuneration, were offered more promotions, and they demonstrated greater career satisfaction and commitment.

And mentoring also has benefits for the mentor as well. Mentors report feeling more positive about the organisation and their senior leadership. Mentors also experience greater levels of job satisfaction.

Given mentoring is such a win win, why don’t we see more mentoring in the workplace? Here are some reasons:

• People are often afraid to ask for a mentor - plucking up the courage can be hard, particularly when we recognise it’s such a big commitment from the mentor
• Mentors are reluctant to commit time - the traditional model of mentoring often soaks up a lot of time, sometimes outliving its original usefulness
• Mentors may already have someone to mentor - they may therefore be reluctant to commit to a second or third person

So my advice - if you want a mentor, don’t ask for one - at least not straight away. Here’s a process I recommend:

1. Identify the areas you want to develop - be really clear about what mentoring is going to address
2. Identify a range of mentors that could help - it may be more than one person, and you can draw on your networks to suggest people
3. Request brief meetings with the potential mentors of around 20 to 30 minutes each - be clear that you have an area you’re interested in developing, and would like a conversation about their advice and guidance in this area - being willing to use phone or video calls will broaden the potential range of mentors you can access
4. Assuming they’re okay to meet up and the meeting goes well, ask if they would be open to another meeting in two months time
5. Don’t waste their time - turn up prepared with questions, take notes and stop asking for more meetings once you’ve learned what you want to learn

Mentors are great. And, while it sounds counterintuitive, if you really want a mentor, don’t start by asking for one. As always, I’ve included the references used in this podcast in the episode notes.

References

Allen TD1, Eby LT, Poteet ML, Lentz E, Lima L. (2004) Career benefits associated with mentoring for protégeé: a meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology Feb;89(1):127-36

Rajashi Ghosh & Thomas G. Reio Jr. (2013) Career benefits associated with mentoring for mentors: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior 83 (2013) 106–116

Sange, Rabiya; Srivasatava, R. K. (2012) Employee Engagement and Mentoring: An Empirical Study of Sales Professionals. Synergy (0973-8819);Jan2012, Vol. 10 Issue 1, p37

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What can prisoners teach us about performance ratings? And how can we better measure performance and support development as leaders? Check out the research and some ideas that will help improve the way you lead.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 17 of the Leadership Today podcast - let’s dive straight in.

There’s a great piece of research out of England that involved people who had been jailed on violence and robbery offences rating themselves on a range of traits. Initially they were asked to rate themselves against the ‘average prisoner’. As we see in many studies of this sort, the prisoners rated themselves more positively than their peers - they saw themselves, for example, as more kind, dependable, honest and law abiding that the average prisoner. They were then asked to rate themselves on the same traits when compared to the average member of the public - and it’s here that the results become even more interesting. The prisoners saw themselves as more moral than the average person. They also saw themselves as more kind, more self-controlled, more compassionate, more generous, more dependable, more trustworthy and even more honest than the average person in the community. The only trait they didn’t rate themselves so high on was how law abiding they were, which makes sense given they were imprisoned for breaking the law. However, even then they rated themselves as on par with the average person on the street.

This over-rating isn’t just limited to prisoners - people in a work setting are also notoriously poor at rating their own performance. Of the hundreds of people I’ve surveyed in my own research, the same pattern comes up again and again - 85% of people think their performance is above average, with 15% of people seeing themselves as just average. Not a single person I’ve surveyed has ever rated their performance as below average.

This creates a range of challenges for leaders. If the vast majority of people over-rate their performance when compared to others, how do we manage their performance? Do you want to be the leader that runs around shattering these self-delusions that are so common? Probably not.

Let’s take another angle. I want you to think back over your own career, and identify some points when would you have rated yourself most positively. For me, I have been most positive about my own performance when I wasn’t being stretched or challenged. I felt confident and on top of things. I felt like I was really delivering for the business. Interestingly, that probably also lines up with the times when I wasn’t as engaged in my work - now it’s not like I didn’t like my work, but it was just easy. I felt like I was contributing and doing my part, but didn’t need to try too hard. In contrast, as I think about the times when I stretched and challenged myself, my views on my performance dropped. It was in those moments that I doubted whether I could deliver what was being asked of me - did I have what it would take to perform? It was in these moments that I needed support and encouragement, because development feels hard. Having a leader that challenges you, but also supports and encourages you, is a great way to take your performance to the next level.

But it’s not just individuals that have trouble accurately rating their own performance. Other research shows that leaders aren’t that great at rating people on performance either. Researchers found two factors led supervisors to rate individuals more positively - one factor was if they thought the person was similar to them, and the second factor was when they liked them. So as a leader I’m likely to rate you more positively if you are like me, and if I like you. And there’s an associated risk of under rating people that we feel aren’t like us, or that we don’t like.

Here are some ideas to help with these challenges around providing feedback on performance:

1. Get out of the habit of rating your own and others’ performance relative to others - instead focus on the requirements of the job, the objectives and the progress the individual is making. This will help maintain that challenge to keep progressing and improving, rather than getting caught up in comparisons.
2. As a leader, make sure you are combining challenge with support - work with your team to set challenging goals that keep people moving forward in their performance. But also recognise that when people are learning something new or challenging, their confidence is likely to drop. It’s in those moments that they need extra support and encouragement.
3. Invite and provide feedback - having a culture where feedback is encouraged will help people to more accurately evaluate and refine their performance.

Thanks for listening and for supporting the podcast. It has been great to hear how the content has been helpful.If you do want to keep in contact, go to the connect page at our website, leadership.today. There you can join our email list, and connect via LinkedIn and Facebook. I look forward to speaking with you next week.

Research

Sedikides C, Meek R, Alicke MD, and Taylor S (2014). Behind bars but above the bar: Prisoners consider themselves more prosocial than non-prisoners. The British journal of social psychology / the British Psychological Society

Sandy J. Wayne and Robert C. Liden (1995) Effects of Impression Management on Performance Ratings: A Longitudinal Study. The Academy of Management Journal Vol. 38, No. 1 (Feb., 1995), pp. 232-260

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Summary

In this week’s podcast we explore what leaders can learn from the way surgical teams manage complexity.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode sixteen of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

Last week we dipped our toes into the waters of complexity, looking at how the storming stage of team development is better thought of as an ongoing process to be managed.

This week we are extending on that theme of operating in uncertainty, seeing what leaders can learn from the way surgical teams manage complexity.

As leaders we operate in a complex world where we are constantly presented with opportunities and threats. Some describe it as a VUCA world - an acronym that characterises modern conditions as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The term VUCA can be traced back to the 1980s where it was used in US Army War College training to describe the conditions faced by soldiers - where the enemy is not always clear and traditional approaches may not work.

In this VUCA world we still need to manage tasks, processes and people within our teams. But we also need strategies that look beyond our team if we are to survive and thrive.

The operating room where surgical teams work is a complex environment. The human body itself is complex and variable, and we’re still learning more every day about how our systems work and interrelate. There’s complex equipment being used, and emergency situations to be managed. There’s input from various specialties - surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and doctors - people who are highly qualified and full of opinions. Often times there are new teams performing surgery that may not have worked together before. This can lead to a lack of consistency, assumptions and disagreements. From a group dynamics perspective, this sounds a lot like the conditions for storming - and you don’t want storming during an operation. As a consequence of this complexity, surprises occur, things are missed and mistakes are made. This leads to variable outcomes for patients.

A World Health Organisation initiative sought to address these concerns. They tracked the outcomes of thousands of operations across eight hospitals in eight countries, gaining an initial baseline. They then implemented a 19-item surgical safety checklist - just 19 items that the surgical team would work through a check off. It was an initiative inspired by how pilots and ground crews manage the complexity of air travel through checklists.

So how does a checklist help? One example is the risk of people not speaking up during a surgical procedure, even when they see something going wrong. After all, they may not know everyone in the room, and may not see it as their role to intervene. As a result, the checklist includes a step where all team members introduce themselves to each other by name and role. Further down the checklist, the surgeon flags how long the case will take, anticipated blood loss, and any non-routine steps. This all helps to bring everyone together, building clarity and helping to preempt issues that might emerge.

The results of implementing the checklist were dramatic - the rate of death was reduced by over 40%, and complications were reduced by over a third.

So it would be natural to assume that this 19 item check list would be mandated for use everywhere. However, the researchers stressed how Important it was for local hospitals to tailor the checklist to meet local needs. That could include adding or removing items from the list. They recognised that risks, resources and cultures differ from hospital to hospital. Despite the dramatic results, they were quick to recognise that the true value of their findings was in the principle of having a checklist, rather than the exact checklist procedure itself.

And then there’s the people factor. Given how dramatic the results were, you would think people would be thrilled to use the checklist. However 20% of surgical staff thought even a 19 item check list took too long. Interestingly, of that same group, 93% indicated that they would want the checklist used if they were having surgery. As with any change, there’s always opportunities to streamline by engaging people in the process - helping to address their concerns and involving them in refinements. It’s important to help people to appreciate the principle, rather than being obsessed about the procedure.

There are a number of lessons for leaders from this study in how we navigate through a VUCA world:

1. Always improve - even in the world of modern surgery there was still an opportunity for dramatic change, and even 1% improvements add up over time
2. Look outside your field - in the research surgical teams applied lessons learned from air travel - maybe there are similar lessons that apply in your industry
3. Identify principles - these provide ways to operate in the grey, and should be developed by incorporating input and feedback
4. Principles not procedures - rather than rolling out more and more procedures, we are usually better off communicating a principle that applies more broadly
5. When communicating a principle, start with the reasons why it matters - if people don’t understand the reasons for a new way of working, they will often block the change or just avoid it

I hope you found that helpful. Let me know what you think via our website leadership.today, or feel free to leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Reference

A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population - January 29, 2009 N Engl J Med 2009; 360:491-499 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa0810119

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Over 50 years ago Bruce Tuckman described four stages of team development - forming, storming, norming and performing. This week we explore whether these stages still apply, and the implications for leading in an increasingly complex world.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode fifteen of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

Now if you ask a leader to describe the stages of development a team goes through, they will most likely say the now famous words - forming, storming, norming, performing. It was over 50 years ago that Bruce Tuckman originally described these four stages in small group formation. He later worked with Mary Jensen to add a fifth stage - adjourning (which unfortunately doesn’t rhyme quite so well with the other four stages when forced through an Australian accent - and a big shout out to our many international listeners who have spent the last 14 episodes trying to work out what accent I have - there’s your answer). But does this model still apply today? And what’s the relevance for the way we lead?

First, let’s do a quick overview and reminder of the five stages:

• Forming - a team first comes together, they orient themselves to the task, establish relationships, test boundaries around ground rules and behaviours - at this point people are usually positive, polite if not a little unsure.
• Storming - a lack of clarity around roles and ways of operating means this stage is marked by interpersonal conflict, lack of unity, polarised views - at this point people often actively or passively resist forming into a team - in fact the team may even fall apart at this point.
• Norming - achieve greater cohesion as roles, norms and ways of operating are established - people seek to maintain the group and find effective ways to work together.
• Performing - Tuckman saw the group at this point as having effectively “solved” interpersonal problems and become a “problem-solving instrument” - roles are flexible and functional, structure is clear and fixed, with shared commitment and effort towards the task.
• Adjourning - winding up the team - may be some sadness as people need to let go of the role they’ve had and go their separate ways.

So where did these stages come from? Tuckman’s work was based on a literature review process rather than direct research. He wanted to bring together various ways of thinking about how teams develop and become productive. The studies he looked at were based on therapy groups, training groups, and laboratory experiments. Through this process, he was able to identify common themes - thus the initial four stages.

It is a theoretical model that has proved helpful in practice, and has mostly held up under research scrutiny. The framework has been widely applied and proved to be highly effective in encouraging further exploration of team performance.

However, there has been some more recent disagreement around the storming stage and where it fits, or even if it is a distinct stage at all. Even Tuckman’s original paper highlighted mixed evidence around the storming stage, with some researchers combining elements of storming with both the forming and norming stages.

Not surprisingly, a common question from leaders is “Can’t we just skip the storming stage altogether?” The answer is maybe in the short term, but not forever. In fact some researchers have conceptualised storming as the management of conflict and difference that occurs across the life of the team, and I think that’s a more helpful way to think about it.

Whether storming is a discrete stage or something that rears its head occasionally, the storm is never far away. And the storm is not necessarily generated within the team. There’s greater awareness now that any team is constantly being barraged with opportunities and threats as part of a larger complex system. No team works in isolation - it’s constantly being tilted, nudged, and pushed off balance.

I served as part of a very effective leadership team in a professional services firm as we sailed directly into the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Each of us had weathered recessions and downturns before - we had each seen the market move up and down - but the speed and scale of the GFC impact was still difficult. The GFC was a complex environment in which to operate, where we couldn’t fully shield the team and business. The ways of working we established became strained, and we needed to work hard at revising our norms and maintaining our relationships. We were able to do that successfully by changing the way we worked in terms of task, people and process. If we had just focused on our team and ignored the environment around us, we would have failed. It’s a good example of how we had to step back into that storming stage to then create some norms and agreed ways of operating to help us to move forward.

So here are some practical ideas for you as a leader:

1. Don’t just focus on the task - make sure as a team leader you place equal attention on the people and the process. A very powerful question to start with and return to is ‘How can we best work together?’
2. Negotiate through difference - conflict, if well managed, is your friend. But conflict management needs willing and skilled individuals, along with effective team processes.
3. Be attuned to your surroundings - keep a weathered eye on the horizon for opportunities and threats. Build a network outside the team that can help feed in information, advice and support.
4. Influence beyond the team - shape the world around you. Be proactive, not just reactive within the broader system in which you operate.

I hope these ideas help you to improve the effectiveness of the teams you lead and are a part of. Next week I’ll be expanding on this idea of operating in uncertainty, drawing on lessons from the operating theatre. See you then.

References

Tuckman, B. Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin 1965, Vol. 63, No. 6, 384-399

Tuckman, B. and Jensen, M. (1977). Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited. Group & Organization Management, 2(4), pp.419-427.

Denise A. Bonebright 40 years of storming: a historical review of Tuckman’s model of small group development. Human Resource Development International Vol. 13, No. 1, February 2010, 111–120

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Research demonstrates that 90% of the initial impression we form about people is based on two factors - warmth and competence. It also turns out these two factors are difficult to combine. So how do we demonstrate both warmth and competence as leaders?

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode fourteen of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

This week we are looking at leadership first impressions.

It turns out that 90% of the initial impression we form about a person is around two things - their warmth and their competence. In other words - do I connect with you, and do you know what you’re doing?

It’s important to note that warmth isn’t primarily about being liked - it’s about making a real connection. That you are a real human being that people can relate to on an emotional level.

Competence is about knowing what you’re doing. That you are a leader who is skilled and capable - someone others can respect.

These factors produce two stereotypes of leaders that perhaps you can identify with:

• The first is the competent but cold leader - they’re all business, great at what they do, but they just seem to struggle to connect with people. People respect them, but they may not put in an extra effort for them.
• Then there’s the warm and friendly but not-so-competent leader - they are great at bringing people around them, but those people gradually drift away when they figure out the leader isn’t up to the task.

These stereotypes assume that competence and warmth sit at opposite ends of a spectrum. That a leader can only be all about results, or all about people, but not both. And many leaders assume that this is indeed the case.

So if they’re forced to choose between the two, it’s perhaps not surprising that many leaders go for the “respected but not connected” version of competence without warmth. That flows into how they communicate and interact with people. Indeed, they have to guard their image of competence, so letting people into who they are as a human being is a risk - and a risk they see as not worth taking.

How does that come across to others? People who take on this competent but cold combination often try to present themselves as an expert. And there’s no shortage of experts - LinkedIn has nearly 6 million people who list themselves as experts in various fields. In fact, LinkedIn lists so many people with “keynote speaker” in their title, that to give each of them just five gigs a year would require there to be over 3,000 keynote speeches every single day. Some people really latch on to the need to lead with their expertise.

The good news is that you can combine the two - it is possible to be seen as both warm and competent. The research suggests that it is tricky, but also possible. And the research also suggests that you should lead with warmth. That making a connection with people matters, and provides a foundation to then demonstrate your competence.

I worked alongside a leader who embodied exactly this combination. He was a lovely guy to work with, but also filled you with confidence that he knew exactly what he was doing. He was incredibly calm in a crisis - his body language and tone of voice even made him seem relaxed. Even when things were going horribly wrong, he was interested in others’ views, and keen to resolve the issue. He didn’t just remain calm himself, but he helped others to calm down. This allowed people to focus on the problem and work towards a positive outcome. They weren’t worried about the leader and his response - they trusted him, they felt connected to him, and they knew he valued maintaining and building connections with his team, even when they made a mistake.

As Amy Cuddy and her fellow researchers put it - “Before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think of you.”

So here are some ideas of how you can combine both warmth and competence in the way that you present.

1. Be yourself. Be a real human being that turns up to work with strengths, weaknesses, interests and concerns. Don’t try to be perfect, but do try to become better.
2. Be interested in others. Take the time to understand where they are coming from - their interests, even their hopes and dreams.
3. Let people into your head. Share your thoughts and emotions. Sometimes the calm person can appear as if they don’t care enough. Sometimes trying to be friendly can appear flighty. Don’t let people have to guess where you’re coming from and what’s driving your behaviour - let them into your head.
4. Be prepared to present your capabilities with confidence. Try to capture in one or two sentences what you bring and what makes you unique. Then think about how you present that authentic image of you to others.
5. And lastly - get feedback. Ask people about how approachable you are, and what you might do to improve this. Ask for feedback about what makes you appear more and less competent.

I hope you find these ideas helpful as you continue to improve the way you lead. As always, if you’re interested in the research, the references are listed in the transcript at our website - leadership.today

And thanks again for those who have taken the time to rate, review and share the podcast with others. It’s great to hear your feedback and to see the hundreds of people who are downloading the podcast each week. We’ll see you next week.

Research used for this episode:

A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition.

Fiske, Susan T; Cuddy, Amy J C; Glick, Peter; Xu, Jun.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; Washington Vol. 82, Iss. 6, (Jun 2002): 878-902.

Connect, Then Lead. To exert influence, you must balance competence with warmth. by Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffing. Harvard Business Review July–August 2013.

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Email is a great tool that can also be a huge distraction. Research shows that if we don't control our inbox, it will end up controlling us. This week we look at some ways to tackle that.

TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to episode thirteen of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

This week we are looking at gaining control over our email inbox. It’s easy to forget that email is a relatively new addition to the workplace. When I entered the workforce in the 1990s, I was lucky to receive 5 emails in a day. There was no way anyone would send confidential information by email - it was seen as much less risky and more convenient to fax or mail a document.

As leaders, we’re still figuring out how to make the most out of email, instant messaging, and services like Slack, while avoiding the downside distractions.

You see it at conferences and training sessions - the leader who is constantly checking their phone and then dashing out during every break to feverishly respond to emails and messages. It’s as if their team can’t survive even a few hours without them, let alone a day. In some organisations its endemic - as people walk into a room for a meeting, they all set up their laptops, continuing to smash through their inbox while providing only a minimal amount of attention to what’s happening in the room. It’s like we’re constantly skating across the surface of multiple tasks rather than really applying ourselves to the things that matter.

People approach the challenge of email in different ways. I once interviewed a senior executive and asked about how they manage competing priorities. The example they provided involved how they dealt with the hundreds of emails in their inbox when they returned from holidays. They explained that it was quite simple - they just selected all emails and hit delete. They argued that if an issue was important enough, surely someone would get back to them. I still don’t know if that approach was brilliant or negligent.

Here’s what some recently published research (http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fapl0000343) tells us about email use:

• Researchers found that knowledge workers spend 28% of their workweek reading and responding to email.
• Staff at Microsoft reported that their work was interrupted by email alerts an average of 4 times per hour, with each interruption causing a further 5 minute delay to their other work. Those delays add up to a third of their time, or 2.5 hours per day.
• And it may be even worse than that - researchers found the average worker checks email 90 times per day - that’s once every 5 minutes - and that it takes 1 minute to resume work after checking email. So that’s another 90 minutes which isn’t including the time taken on the email itself. Bouncing from email to email across a day makes it practically impossible to complete any work requiring concentration or creative thought.
• Those with high email demands where email is not central to their job experience a lack of progress. They feel like they’re just not getting ahead.
• As a result, researchers found that those with low self-control ended up focusing on routine management activities rather than leadership. Reacting to emails made them a less effective leader.

It’s little surprise then that leaders I work with typically list ‘email’ and ‘meetings’ as the top two impediments to getting their work done. They feel the stress. They know their being reactive. They see the important being smashed by the urgent. They know they have a fixed amount of time every day, and that email is getting in the way of the activities that allow leaders to be effective. But they’re not sure what to do about it.

Here are seven ideas to take charge of your email:

1. Make a mental shift - recognise that your email inbox is effectively a summary of other people’s to-do lists. As a leader, your inbox probably doesn’t contain your most important work.
2. Switch off alerts on everything - your computer, phone, watch - anything that prompts you that a new email or message has arrived.
3. Instead of checking email 90 times, try 4 focused times. Schedule time in your calendar and use the time you have allotted, then get back to your other work.
4. Don’t just hit reply straight away - assess whether a conversation is needed. Try phone calls for a day. Or try grouping issues together so you can have one conversation about multiple topics. The fewer emails you send, the fewer you get back.
5. Set standards - help people to consider when it is okay to reply all to everyone cc’d, that clear subject lines help, and to put requests at the start of emails rather than being hidden in mounds of text. One organisation I’ve seen sends people a report each month outlining where the individual sits in terms of the number of emails they send. There isn’t any judgement - but letting someone know that they send more emails than 90% of others in this organisation usually reduces the number of emails they send.
6. If your team can’t operate without you, you probably need to vary the way you lead. Delegate more, be clear about accountabilities, and let them know you trust them to deal with issues that arise.
7. Keep experimenting and trying new approaches - I experiment with multiple to-do lists and approaches to organising my day each year, refining my approach as I go. It’s not always big changes - there’s a lot of power in continuous refinement and improvement.

Email is like any tool - it’s not inherently good or bad. We need a plan and approach that works for us - one that leaves us with a sense of control, rather than being a victim of our inbox. This week think about your approach to email - and take control before it controls you.

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When you ask employees about the best thing about the place where they work, they often say "the people". Here are four ideas of how leaders can build connections and collaboration at work.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode 12 of the Leadership Today podcast. My name is Andrew Beveridge, and thanks for joining me.

If you ask employees what they see as the best part about working here you’ll often hear “It’s the people”. Not the pay, not the job, not the location - the people. The need to belong and be connected to others is as powerful a motivator at work as it is in life. It’s what Deci and Ryan in their classic motivational research call ‘relatedness’.

On top of this, research by Google found the two most important factors for team effectiveness are:

1. Psychological safety - Can we take risks in this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
2. Dependability - Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?

Connections matter - people are motivated when they have a sense of belonging - that this is this a place where they can be themselves, where they can help others, and where others are reliable and want to help them.

This need for connections sits in a broader societal context. We are at a point in history where, thanks to technology, people have more connections than ever, while simultaneously feeling more isolated and lonely. Research shows that on average we have fewer people than ever to depend on when we need help. Sociologists tracked this pattern in America between 1985 and 2004. They saw the number of people that said they had no one at all they could confide in triple over that time, while the average number of confidents people had reduced from three to two.

And our office environments haven’t helped. The open plan offices that were supposed to help build connections turn out to do the opposite. Recent research into two organisations that moved to open plan saw a 70% reduction in face to face conversations, coupled with an increase in email use of between 22% to 50% (). It’s not surprising then that other research demonstrates open plan offices also increase sick leave.

I believe that fostering a culture where people can belong and support each other is at the core of collaboration. And in an environment of ever accelerating change, organisations need collaboration more than ever.

So what can leaders do to help people to feel like they belong?

Here are four suggestions:

1. Office layouts matter - you want to involve your people in helping to building a physical environment that combines places for quiet reflection and deep work, with other areas that encourage connection and discussion. Making it a personal and warm place will go a long way to help encourage those connections.
2. Consider agile work principles - people coming together from across the organisation to tackle a problem or opportunity, and then disbanding once that opportunity is advanced or problem solved.
3. Social connection - just remember that having fun and connecting people with each other is not a waste of time. Have your people generate some ideas around that - what are some ways that we can build those social connections at work.
4. As leaders, we want to demonstrate those connections, we want to facilitate connections, and we want to discuss the importance of connection - always reinforcing that need to connect.

So in summary, connections matter, not just at work but in life in general. I look forward to hearing some of your ideas of how you’ve built connections at work, and how that’s made an impact on the way you operate.

Well that’s the end of this podcast. I’m looking forward to joining you again next week to discuss another challenge at work, and some practical ideas about things we can do to improve that as leaders.

Links to research in this episode:

http://repositorio.minedu.gob.pe/bitstream/handle/123456789/2958/Intrinsic%20and%20Extrinsic%20Motivations%20Classic%20Definitions%20and%20New%20Directions.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/

http://happierhuman.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/P13.-Social-Isolation-in-America-Changes-in-Core-Discussion-Networks-over-Two-Decades.pdf

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/1753/20170239#fn-2

http://workplaceohs.com.au/hazards/work-environment/analysis/open-plan-offices-increase-the-risk-of-sick-leave#.W59daf4zbOQ

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This week we are looking at how to motivate and retain your best people by helping to build their resume.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode eleven of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

This week we are looking at how to motivate and retain your best people by helping to build their resume.

It’s no secret that leaders are struggling to retain their best people. Recent studies (https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australian-jobs-turnover-churn-robert-half-2018-6) suggest that staff turnover rates are on the increase. It’s easy to see how repeated corporate downsizing has taught the current workforce that loyalty may not be reciprocated by their employer. Add to this increasingly high levels of education and mobility, and you have a recipe for high turnover.

So what should leaders do? Is keeping your best people all about table tennis. bean bags, and fruit boxes? Well, making offices more ‘cool’ only goes so far. Some organisations try to take these surface elements from companies that are known for their ability to attract and retain employees and inject them into their own offices. Like all transplants though, they’re often rejected. Cool offices are an outworking of the culture of organisations – they’re not the driver of the culture.

And we know that pay isn’t the answer. My own research indicates that 85% of people think their performance is above average, while only 3% believe they’re overpaid. A full 48% of people think they aren’t paid enough. It’s almost impossible to make the majority of your people happy about their pay when the vast majority think they are above average performers.

Here is one practical way to help retain employees. While it sounds counterintuitive, helping workers to grow and build their resume can make them more likely to stay with your organisation. That’s right - making people more employable can make them less likely to leave.

As we discussed last week, there are four main factors that motivate people at work - purpose, development, connections and autonomy. Helping to build someone’s resume directly addresses the development motivator. People are motivated when they feel competent at what they’re doing, and when they can build the capabilities that matter to them over time.

As a leader, you can consciously help your people to develop skills and experience that matter to them. Here are three ideas you might want to try:

1. During your regular meetings with your people, make sure you set aside some time to identify what further development is of interest, and help to make that happen. It might be a training course. Or it might be using your networks to help pair them up with someone more experienced in their field for a once off mentor meeting. Or it might be an experience - something new that will stretch them.
2. Spend time together looking back at the previous month or quarter to identify the new skills and experience that they have gained. Sometimes people don’t notice the development they’re experiencing unless they stop and reflect. Making sure you discuss this helps to build awareness of the development that’s already happening.
3. Help them to summarise this experience in a way that will fit into a resume or LinkedIn profile. I’ve had several team members where we actually worked together on their resume as part of our regular catch up meetings.

By highlighting and increasing their capability, you will be able to demonstrate that staying with the organisation will have value for their development and employability. And the approach works across all employees - it’s not just for those new to the workforce. Even as people approach retirement, providing them with skills they’re interested in that will help them to pick up part time roles (if that's what they want) will also be attractive.

Achieving this at an organisational level requires leaders who can have skilled discussions with employees. This is likely to involve some investment in development for managers as well. But, as we’ve seen, this development may also help to retain your best leaders.

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Motivation - what’s the point? And how do we motivate people as leaders? This week I outline the four factors most important for motivating people at work, and focus in on practical ideas to increase a sense of purpose.

TRANSCRIPT

I’ll let you in on a little secret - the truth is that, as leaders, we can’t motivate anyone to do anything - well, not directly anyway. But we can create the conditions that are likely to motivate people. In fact, I would argue that, as leaders, the majority of our impact is about setting up an environment where people are motivated about what the organisation is trying to achieve.

Leadership is about achieving results through people, and we do that through aligned motivation. It’s about aligning the things that motivate our people with the results the organisation needs to achieve. Here’s the good news - if our people are turning up to work, they are motivated. It just might be that their motivation isn’t currently aligned with we are trying to deliver.

Motivation matters, because it’s through motivation that we produce results. Motivation isn’t just about us as leaders and the organisation - it also matters because it provides meaningful and satisfying work for the people we lead.

Think about the times when you have been most motivated in your work - what was it about the organisation, your job and your leader that led to that?

Research into motivation has come a long way over the past few decades, and four factors emerge as particularly important when it comes to motivating people at work.

1. Purpose is the first factor - people are motivated when they know the purpose of their job, and how it aligns with the purpose of the organisation.
2. Development is the second factor - people are motivated when they feel competent at what they’re doing, and can build the capabilities that matter to them over time.
3. Connection is the third factor - people are motivated when they have a sense of belonging - that this is this a place where they can help others, and where others help them.
4. Autonomy is the fourth factor - people are motivated when they have freedom over their work - how they do what they do. We talked about this in an earlier podcast about control and health.

Today we’re going to focus on purpose - answering that question “what’s the point of my job and working here?” It’s a great place to start as, without a shared purpose, we don’t have a hope of achieving results through our people.

Researchers describe three levels of purpose that can be achieved through our work, each leading to an even greater level of motivation and engagement (Steger, M. F., Dik, B. J., & Duffy, R. D. (2012). Measuring meaningful work: The Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI). Journal of Career Assessment, 20, 322–337).

1. At the first level, my work feels meaningful and has an identifiable point and purpose in an organisation. At this level I’m clear about my job and what I need to achieve, and also how this fits into the broader purpose of the organisation.
2. At the second level, my work is in harmony with and helps provide meaning in my personal life. At this level my work becomes more than just a job - it’s something that I use to define who I am not just at work, but also in my personal life outside of work - I see the two as far more integrated.
3. At the third and final level, my work provides the opportunity to benefit others or some greater good. At this level I feel my work has a broader contribution beyond the organisation and into society. This is where not for profit organisations are able to engage people so well, even if they can’t match the salaries offered elsewhere. But every organisation has the potential to make a positive contribution to society.

Here are three ways you can build this sense of purpose for your people:

1. The first is the humble job description. Now I know these are boring but, stick with me, they’re also really important. It amazes me the number if times I’ve come across people who, as their first task at a new organisation, have been asked to write their own job description. That’s basically like saying “We’ve hired you, but we have no idea why”. The trap we sometimes fall into is trying to detail all the individual tasks and processes we think are required. But a job description isn’t about how to do the job. And a job description doesn’t need to be fixed - it should be a living document that grows with the individual over time. But, at a minimum, people need to be clear about the purpose of their role and what they are accountable to deliver.
2. The second is about having a clear and robust goal setting and review process. This allows the individual to put some further detail around what they’re going to deliver, with the ability to link this to strategic goals. There are some great systems around that help people to set and track goals - PeopleGoal is one I’ve used which also helps automate the performance review process. You can find it at www.peoplegoal.com
3. The third suggestion is to share the impact your organisation is having on society. Stories are really powerful here. How have people in your organisation made a real impact on the world we live in? What excites you as a leader about the impact your organisation is having?

I believe these three approaches to building purpose can make a huge difference to an individual’s motivation at work. In addition, it provides a greater chance of aligning the individual’s motivation with the needs of the organisation. And it also allows you as the leader to set clear expectations for the person to work towards.

Again, the four main things that motivate and allow people to succeed at work are purpose, development, connections and autonomy. Over the next few weeks we will continue to explore motivation in each of these four areas, with practical ideas about what we can do as leaders to engage our people in the objectives of the organisation. Next week we will be looking at development, and why helping people to build their resume actually reduces turnover. Why not invite a couple of colleagues to subscribe to the podcast so you can work through these aspects of motivation together? I look forward to speaking with you then.

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This week we’re looking at passion and purpose - and why telling someone to ‘follow their passion’ is lousy advice.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode nine of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

This week we’re looking at passion and purpose - and why telling someone to ‘follow their passion’ is lousy advice.

“Follow your passion” is often shared as a mantra for happiness and success in life. That if we can only uncover that unique passion, we will suddenly and effortlessly unlock boundless opportunities in the world. It’s an attractive antidote to the modern dysfunctional workplace - the 9 to 5 (if you’re lucky) grind of a desk job adding to the already overflowing coffers of a soul-less corporation. You can almost picture the person at their desk as the quote comes across their Instagram feed, staring out their window and whispering to themselves - “There has to be more to life than this”. And they’re probably right, but is “following your passion” the best approach.

Perhaps, like me, you can trace many of your passions back to early childhood. My love of science - fuelled (literally) through an often explosive 1970’s chemistry set (that would never be allowed to hit the shelves today), building electronics sets, growing countless crystal gardens, and bashing out computer programs on a trusty Tandy TRS-80. My love of business - labelling everything I owned as “AB Inc” (as if my 8 year old self was some kind of multinational conglomerate), combining life savers and tic tac lollies together to create a value-added product for profit, and running a pretty successful lawn mowing business to fund my early years at university. And my interest in people, reading whatever I could about what made people tic and working on school holiday programs with kids. When you combine those three passions, organisational psychology - applying the science of people in business - looks like a pretty obvious career choice. Lucky I followed my passion.

But that simplified story overlooks the necessary hardships, challenges and setbacks that ultimately helped me to be successful and fulfilled. There were the countless times when I wanted to give up - to pack it in when it all became too hard. Following my passion led me to management consulting - an amazing learning experience and proving ground where I was constantly stretched. It was here that I learnt to manage staff, to grow a business, to put together a plan and bring it to life through people, to collaborate on global teams to make a difference to leaders all over the world. But ultimately, while working for management consulting firms was aligned with my passion, there was something missing. I ended up stressed, overweight and pretty unhappy. Why was that?

A research team*, including the wonderful Carol Dweck, recently looked at “finding your passion” versus “developing your passion”. If you haven’t read Carol’s book “Mindset - Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential”, stop what you’re doing and go and purchase it now. The book outlines the value of having a growth mindset - where we see our abilities, skills and intelligence as things we can develop and improve over time. This is contrasted with a fixed mindset, where people succeed due to talent and giftedness - so if something is hard, you just give up because it clearly wasn’t meant to be. There’s a fair amount of mis-information about growth mindset - it’s not to say our potential is unlimited. Rather, Carol’s work suggests that we often don’t test our potential, preferring to play it safe and stick with what we know.

The researchers contrasted those with a fixed mindset view around passion, with those who had a growth mindset view of passion. Those with a fixed mindset view saw passions and interests as pre-formed and as something you discover in yourself. In contrast, a growth mindset view suggests that we build our passions and interests over time through experimentation and engaging in new activities. The research found that those with a fixed view tended to have less interest in areas outside their current experience - they didn’t want to explore new things. The fixed mindset group also underestimated difficulties associated with following their passions, and they failed to stick at new interests when they became difficult. In their own words, the researchers concluded that encouraging people to find their passion “may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket but then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry”.

And I believe that’s where purpose comes in. Again, we shouldn’t see our purpose in life as something that is fixed - it’s more like a strategic plan for our life that we regularly review and update. For me that meant starting my own business seven years ago which is now focused on enabling thousands of leaders to achieve results through people. That wasn’t the purpose seven years ago, or even two years ago - I’ve reviewed, added to and subtracted from that purpose a number of times on the journey. I’ve discovered new things I’m passionate about along the way, learnt lots of new skills, made plenty of mistakes, and achieved far more than I could have hoped for.

So let’s agree to ditch the “follow your passion” approach. Here’s a potential replacement - Work hard to discover and improve at things you can be passionate about, within the context of a guiding purpose that you regularly review. Admittedly, that’s much harder to frame as an inspirational quote. It also sounds harder to do. “Working hard” doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. But it’s in the hard work that we learn, and it’s in the hard work that we find success, provided that hard work is aligned with our purpose. Maybe “keep discovering new things you’re passionate about” is better.

I encourage you to think about your purpose this week. Why are you doing what you’re doing? When’s the last time you challenged yourself to try something outside your current interests? Are there passions you’ve had in the past that you’ve neglected? Are there new passions emerging that require time and effort to develop?

As always, if you’ve found this podcast helpful, remember to share it with others. Taking a couple of minutes to subscribe and rate on iTunes helps others to find the podcast. And - good news - we’ve finally cracked it onto Spotify - so check us out there as well.

*Implicit Theories of Interest: Finding Your Passion or Developing It? Paul A. O’Keefe, Carol S. Dweck, Gregory M. Walton

http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/uploads/4/9/4/4/49448111/okeefedweckwalton_2018.pdf

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Do we all need to lighten up? Research shows that the use of humour by leaders can have positive impacts on innovation and other factors.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode eight of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

This week we’re looking at the use of humour by leaders, and the positive impact it can have on innovation and other factors. As organisations are increasingly needing to become more innovative, research suggests that humour may provide part of the answer.

But first, a story. I walked into the boardroom and took a seat at the table. As I looked around, I could tell the small group gathered were under significant pressure about decisions that needed to be made. They looked exhausted, and stared absently at their devices and notepads. We started with the usual introductions when, suddenly and without warning, I felt something heavy glance off my shoulder and crash to the floor. As I turned in my chair, I could see a large framed picture had worked loose from the wall and fallen to the floor - fortunately just missing me. As the person next to me turned the picture over to move it out of the way, I couldn’t help but notice that it was actually a framed award the organisation had received. And not just any award - it was a second place award for safety. “Well” I said - “I can see why you came second”. Fortunately the group found that to be funny. People visibly relaxed. Frowns were replaced with smiles. The meeting that could have just added to their stress, instead led to some genuinely innovative ways forward.

What does science tells us about what just happened? On one level science helps us to understand that the award fell to the ground due to a combination of gravitational force, insufficient anchoring on the wall and, as the award would suggest, a second-rate focus on safety. But, more importantly, science also tells us that humour and innovation are linked. Researchers recently found that where a leader uses humour more often, the people they lead are more innovative. The paper also has a great summary of other research about the use of humour by leaders - A. Pundt (2015) The Relationship Between Humorous Leadership and Innovative Behavior. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 30, No. 8., pp. 878-893.

As organisations face greater change, innovation is more important than ever. And organisations are increasingly distributing this need for innovation more broadly. So how can humour help to meet these challenges?

Here are five ways in which humour helps leaders and their teams:

1. Humour often rests on an unusual twist or surprise combination of thoughts, and research suggests that, as a result, humour encourages people to combine ideas in new ways. Humour helps to establish a culture where it’s okay to discuss unusual ideas.
2. Researchers also found that sharing humorous comments during meetings helps to keep idea generation going, even when the humour is seemingly unrelated to the topic being discussed.
3. Stress is the enemy of creativity, which is why we often have our best ideas in low stress settings rather than at our desk. Humour helps to lighten the mood and reduces negative stress.
4. Humour helps build relationships between leaders and their team, and between team members. Often humour will involve sharing a personal story - something that happened to the individual, or something related to the interests of the person. Humour helps people to get to know you better as a whole person.
5. Research also indicates that humour helps to build what is known as ‘psychological safety’ - an environment where it’s okay to put out new ideas, and where mistakes are encouraged as a way to learn and improve.

As leaders, we can use humour as a way to connect with people, to reduce stress, and to encourage creative thinking. And these aren’t just a ‘nice to have’ - they’re increasingly core business, as innovation and collaboration become more central features of the modern workplace.

Here are three tips for leaders that want to incorporate more humour into their workplace and the way they lead:

1. Positive - always use humour to build others and the organisation up - avoid using humour as a way of providing negative feedback, or criticising an individual or the organisation
2. Purposeful - think about what you’re trying to achieve through the use of humour - what is it saying about you as a leader
3. Personal - perhaps you don’t think you have any humour in you, but we all have funny things that happen to us - use humour to give people a greater insight into you and your life

This week I encourage you to explore the use of humour in your approach to leadership. Perhaps it’s asking people to start meetings with a joke, or spending more time with individuals in your team hearing about their week and sharing some of the funny things that have happened to you. Give it a try, make it natural, and let me know how you go.

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This week we look at research into the most (and least) effective influencing tactics used by leaders. We explore how we can combine approaches to enhance the way we influence others.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode seven of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

This week we’re looking at influencing. Leadership is all about achieving results through people, and we’re often asked to achieve results through people we don’t directly manage. Therefore influence is central to our effectiveness as leaders.

There are lots of popular ideas about what makes someone influential. It could be someone’s charisma or style for example. But surely it’s more than just personal qualities.

For a psychologist like me, that’s a cue to go to the research, and one of my favourite studies on influencing was undertaken in the early 90’s by Gary Yukl and Bruce Tracey. Together they pioneered our understanding of what they called influencing tactics - the approaches that people choose to take when attempting to influence others. (Consequences of Influence Tactics Used With Subordinates, Peers, and the Boss. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1992, Vol 77, No 4, 525-535).

They determined how influential someone was in an interesting way - it wasn’t just about whether people committed to an action or approach - it was also about how they rated the effectiveness of the person doing the influencing. In that way, influence was not just about short-term compliance, but also about longer-term appraisals of the individual doing the influencing.

Let’s start with the three tactics that they found were least effective, namely pressure, coalition and legitimating.

Pressure is about using demands, threats or persistent reminders in an attempt to influence someone. Perhaps not surprisingly, this approach was amongst the worst, actually leading to reduced commitment to the task, and negative ratings of the individual. It turns out that people don’t like being forced to do something. Now, we know this intellectually, but it’s amazing how frequently people use pressure as an influencing approach. By way of example, I have three sons at home, and I can assure you, pressure is an influencing tactic I default to with them far more often than I’d like to admit.

The researchers found the coalition tactic, where I gather up others to try to influence you, is also negative as an approach. The old ‘lots of people agree with me’ argument might make someone feel more powerful, but it doesn’t help them to influence others - at best, it’s neutral.

Another approach - legitimating - sounds on the surface like a good influencing tactic. It’s where I point out the rules and policies that support a particular course of action, or why my role means you should listen to me. However this tactic also failed to influence others towards action, and also led to lower ratings of effectiveness.

Why are these three approaches so ineffective? The study indicates it’s because they all focus on behavioural compliance without changing attitudes. Sure - I’ll do what you’re asking of me while you’re standing there, but as soon as you walk away I’ll go back to my original position.

Leaders who rely on pressure, position and rules better be prepared to micromanage every task, because their approach to influencing requires them to micromanage every task.

So what approaches are the most effective?

Yukl and Tracey found that inspirational appeal was a particularly positive influencing tactic. This is where my request is tied to your values, ideals and aspirations, or where it builds your confidence that you can make a contribution. Making an inspirational appeal helps create meaning and purpose for those you lead. Rather than trying to build behavioural compliance, inspirational appeal acts on someone’s attitudes, and that means it works while you’re not there - the person is self-motivated to take action.

But effective influencing isn’t just about a compelling speech. Yukl and Tracey found rational persuasion was also very effective as an influencing tactic. As the name suggests, rational persuasion uses logical arguments and facts to persuade others. It provides the evidence many people need to be comfortable with a particular approach.

They also found that consultation was an effective tactic when influencing others. Consultation involves others in the initial decision making and implementation. By gathering and responding to ideas, people have far more of a vested interest in the change and implementation.

Again, the three most effective influencing tactics all involved the internalisation of favourable attitudes. Whether it’s inspirational appeal, rational persuasion or consultation, something is passed from the leader to the other person which means they want to make a change, rather than the leader having to stand around all day telling people what to do.

So some questions for you now. Of the three most effective influencing tactics, which do you tend to default to? Is it inspirational appeal, rational persuasion or consultation? In my experience, many people default to rational persuasion - a reliance on the facts and data to persuade others - and that’s fine.

But it’s worth practicing the other approaches to increase your influence. Perhaps you might include a story, or some additional data, or involve others more in idea generation - these can all help to increase your influence.

You can also combine these three approaches. Let’s use an example of a company where a number of people have recently had injuries while lifting. It turns out that these injuries all involved the person lifting something that wasn’t directly in front of them - they were twisting their body while lifting.

A legitimating tactic would be to make yet another new rule - no twisting while you lift. But the research on influencing would suggest most people won’t follow this rule because it isn’t internalised. People may not understand the reason for the rule, or why it matters to them.

A better approach would be to use all three effective influencing tactics. As the leader, you could start by sharing the importance of having a workplace where everyone can go home at the end of each day safe, and perhaps even healthier than when they arrived. You could also share the data about the type of injuries that are occurring. Then you could involve people in identifying the kinds of activities where the injuries are most likely to occur, and in brainstorming ways of reducing these risks. Yukl and Tracey’s research indicates this approach will have a much greater chance of success.

This week, think about the way you influence. Watch the way others in the workplace influence. And if there’s someone who is particularly influential, spend some time observing how they influence others.

Next week we are looking at the use of humour as a leader, and some fascinating research about how humour can build innovation. I hope to see you then.

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This week we’re looking at assertiveness - what it is and how we can build it in ourselves and in others.

TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to episode six of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at assertiveness - what it is and how we can build it in ourselves and in others.

Assertiveness is one of those areas that people often receive feedback about - “you need to become more assertive” someone helpfully tells you. However people often don't know what to do with that feedback. What would it mean for me to be more assertive, and how do I build my assertiveness?

We often assume that being more assertive is just about being more confident, or sticking up for ourselves, or being a bit more pushy. But the key to developing assertiveness often lies in more deeply understanding the other person’s perspective. This can seem a little counterintuitive though - isn’t investing more time into understanding the other person’s perspective making us less assertive?

Well another way of thinking about assertiveness is to consider what a truly assertive conversation would look like. It wouldn’t necessarily be aggressive, or pushy, or one sided. In fact, an assertive conversation would be one where both people have their perspectives on the table, and are then actively engaged in taking things forward.

Assertiveness isn’t about me winning and you losing - it’s about both of us understanding where the other person is coming from, and then working together on a way forward.

To help illustrate, I’d like you to picture a horizontal line. At the left end of the line is a position we could describe as ‘passive’ - where I approach the conversation 100% interested in your perspective, and 0% interested in sharing my own perspective. In the passive position, the balance of interests is completely weighted towards the other person.

At the right end of the line is a position we’ll call ‘aggressive’ - that’s where I approach the conversation with 0% interest in your perspective, and 100% invested in sharing my own perspective. In the aggressive position I’m not even listening to you, and the balance of interests is completely weighted towards my own needs.

It’s important to recognise that neither of these positions is assertive - passive is not assertive, and aggressive is not assertive. What’s needed is a balance in the interests and needs between the two or more parties involved.

Assertiveness is about ensuring my needs and interests are 100% on the table, and that your needs and interests are also 100% on the table. It’s only in this balance that assertiveness is achieved. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that we will agree with each other, but that’s not what assertiveness is about. Assertiveness is ensuring we’re clear on everyone’s positions and we can tackle differences as a shared problem.

Here’s an example.

I’ve setup a regular meeting with my team that happens on the first Tuesday of every month at 2pm. I’ve set this meeting up as a priority, emphasising the importance of keeping it at the same time, and not shifting it. People can dial into the meeting, but the meeting time is going to stay at the same time every time, at least through to the end of this quarter. Things have been going well for the first couple of months, with attendance and engagement at the meetings improved. People are appreciating the meeting being kept as a priority.

Then, in the lead up to the fourth meeting, I notice that a fundraising afternoon tea has been proposed for the first Tuesday of next month at, well you guessed it, 2pm.

In this example, a passive approach would be to cancel or reschedule my own meeting - to put my own interests at 0%, and the interests of the person organising the afternoon tea at 100%. In contrast, an aggressive approach would be to tell my team members that they’re not even allowed to attend the afternoon tea, and still hold my meeting at the same time. I’m sure you’ll agree that neither of those approaches sounds optimal.

An assertive approach would involve meeting with the person responsible for scheduling the afternoon tea. I could initially point out the clash in times, but then spend the first part of the conversation finding out more about the fundraiser and what they’re hoping to achieve. I could then share my vision for the regular meetings I’m having with my team.

Now, in a perfect world, the other person might shift their fundraiser to another time, and I might be able to help promote the event with my team - that would be a win win. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Perhaps the person has already ordered catering for that time, or prepared flyers to hand out. Remember, assertiveness isn’t about always getting our way - it’s about getting all the information out from both perspectives. If the clash can’t be resolved, I may still choose to move the meeting time for this month. But at least I have been assertive.

However the situation plays out, we all walk away understanding each others’ perspectives.

I hope that discussion about assertiveness was helpful. If you’re normally more towards the passive end of the line, this week you might make an additional effort to have your needs and interests tabled. And if you’re normally at the aggressive end of the line, you might want to spend more time trying to understand the other person’s perspective and how your interests may actually be aligned.

In next week's episode of the podcast we're going to be talking influencing. And if you are enjoying the podcast, remember to recommend it to your friends as well - I really appreciate it.

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Research shows that leaders typically avoid giving feedback, particularly the further away performance is from expectations. This week we look at a feedback structure that focuses on behaviour and the impact we have on others.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to episode five of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. And this week’s leadership challenge is a doozie - it’s feedback.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression - feedback is a gift. But, let’s be honest - not every gift we give is fantastic. In my family we have a Christmas tradition which is a variation of the Kris Kringle - the difference being that there’s a $5 limit on each gift and the aim is to be as entertaining as possible - we call it the Krap Kringle (both with Ks obviously). Sure, everyone gets a gift, but most people don’t keep them for very long.

And research indicates that leaders avoid giving these gifts at work - they avoid providing feedback, and that lack of feedback actually gets worse as an individual’s performance drops off. In other words, the further your performance is away from expectations, the less likely you are to receive feedback.

So what drives this? Well, leaders are often afraid to provide feedback - they are worried about how it will be received. But bad news doesn’t improve with age.

Typically the issue continues to build up, and there’s often a clumsy confrontation which makes everyone feel worse.

Of course, feedback doesn’t just have to be negative. However, in the busy-ness of life we tend to also miss the opportunities to provide encouraging feedback.

In contrast, if you have ever worked in an organisation with a high-feedback culture, you’ll instantly recognise how beneficial it was to your development. At a consulting firm where I was a leader, we made a habit after every client meeting of providing feedback - taking time to talk about what went well and what could be improved for next time. At first that felt pretty confronting and awkward. People would often just say that the meeting was ‘good’ or ‘fine’. But as trust was built, the appetite for real feedback increased. In fact, aspects of my behaviour that were completely blind to me were shared - both undiscovered strengths, and often simple changes I could make to improve my impact.

I spend much of my time now facilitating leadership programs, and this is a particularly rich feedback environment - feedback from the co-facilitator, from the clients and participants on the program as well. Sometimes that feedback can seem a little harsh. Sometimes the gift is particularly wrapped all that well. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the right gift. In fact that constant feedback has improved me a great deal and toughened me up.

So here are a few key principles to keep in mind when it comes to feedback:

1. Make it a habit - and do it close to the time - that’s where my earlier example of providing feedback straight after meetings was great - it build the habit and it was immediately after the event
2. Keep it balanced - look for the good as well as improvement - it’s all developmental feedback
3. Start by sharing your intent - if people are afraid or concerned they can’t listen - let them know that you’re on their side - are you really trying to help them, or are you wanting to hurt them? Setting that up as a habit really helps to ensure you’re doing this from the right intent
4. Stick to behaviour - it’s like watching a video tape back - what did you actually see, and what was the impact on you and on others
5. Check in later to confirm understanding - ask them to restate what their takeaway was from the feedback that you provided

William Gentry shares a really helpful feedback format in his book called “Be the Boss Everyone Wants to Work For” - I’ve provided a link to the book in the episode notes. www.amazon.com.au/Be-Boss-Everyone-Wants-Work-ebook/dp/B01E4KC0V8

The approach is called SBI, named after the three components of the feedback approach he outlines.

S stands for Situation - and in that stage you want to describe the exact moment the feedback relates to, being as specific as possible

B is for Behaviour - what you actually observed - and again that’s like you’re watching a video of the event back and describing it

I is for Impact - this is describing the impact on you, and it can also be the impact on others if you observe that

So let’s apply that - I’d like you to compare these two versions of the same feedback:

The first version is this - “During meetings lately you have being really rude.” - so that feedback is not particularly helpful.

Now let’s compare that with using the SBI format - “(S) Yesterday at the marketing meeting when Jane started presenting, (B) you leaned back on your chair, sighed, and started to use your phone. (I) I felt disappointed that you appeared disengaged from Jane’s presentation”.

And then you want to allow the person to respond. Maybe they weren’t being rude. Or maybe they received a text that lead to their response. There are a whole host of reasons for why they may have behaved the way they did. But none of these reasons change the impact on you and on others, and that’s the important thing. You’re not trying to guess at what drove their behaviour - you’re just providing an insight into the impact they are having on others.

The SBI approach works equally well for positive feedback. For example:

• Situation - During the interaction you just had with that customer who came in with a problem
• Behaviour - I noticed how you smiled and offered a number of helpful suggestions
• Impact - the customer ended up smiling and shaking your hand, and I was really impressed.

This week I encourage you to practise feedback. Use the SBI model or similar. Try to catch people doing good things, and provide the positive feedback straight away.

Also, ask people for feedback on you, and be specific. If you just say “can you give me feedback”, most people will say “you’re doing fine”. But if you say “can you give me feedback on how confident I’m appearing in presentations”, you’ll receive much richer feedback.

Next week we’ll be talking about assertiveness - what it is, and how we can build it in ourselves and others. I look forward to speaking with you then.

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In this episode we explore monthly 1 on 1 meetings that work - where both the leader and their direct report turn up prepared to discuss performance, priorities, support, and development.

Performance
What is the person currently doing well?
What do you think the person needs to work on?

Priorities
What are the current priorities for this person?
What goals need to be added, removed or updated?

Manager Support
What’s getting in the way at work?
How might this be addressed by the manager or direct report?

Training and Development
How is the development plan progressing?
What training and development experiences or programs might be beneficial?

Other
Anything else to discuss?

Action Items
Review action items from previous month
Add any new action items for the manager or direct report

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to episode four of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at monthly 1 on 1 meetings that actually work.

It’s no secret - People hate performance reviews. They are one of those 'must do' activities that both managers and team members tend to dislike.

To counteract this, we often focus on the performance appraisal process and content. Making sure we look not just at results ('what' people achieve), but also 'how' the person approaches their work and interacts with customers and colleagues. We might try to gather feedback from multiple sources. We might even try to balance discussions about the year past with time to think about the year ahead. But we still tend to run into some pitfalls:

1. The appraisal becomes a high stakes 'event' which tends to add pressure on both the manager and team member
2. The manager and team member haven't had a chance to build a strong relationship, which tends to reduce the quality of feedback and the likelihood of acceptance
3. There's a lack of focus and unclear goals around the job - by the time we discover this during the annual appraisal it's too late to do anything about the year that has gone by
4. It becomes a one-way conversation with too much pressure placed on one person - who is typically the manager - to drive the process
5. Feedback isn't balanced - we either focus way too much on the positives or way too much on constructive/corrective feedback

It’s probably not surprising then that a number of high profile organisations have decided to ditch the performance review altogether. In most cases they’ve actually replaced that with more regular performance conversations, which I think is a great way to go.

You see, I think the answer is actually pretty simple. It's about having 1:1 meeting structures that make performance discussions a more frequent occurrence, and that address the issues and pitfalls that I highlighted earlier.

I recommend scheduling monthly 1-1 meetings in calendars and ensuring they take priority over the other day-to-day issues that might come up.

The following structure for 1:1 meetings is what I've found to work with people and teams that I've managed. You might want to vary this structure, but hopefully it will provide some ideas for you to think about.

The first topic is around performance. And I have the individual prepare for that, along with myself as well as their manager. Get them to think about what they’re currently doing well, and also what they need to work on. With both people bringing that information together it’s a great opportunity to clarify performance - what’s going well, what needs to change.

The second topic is around priorities. Talking about the current priorities for the person and any goals that might need to be changed or updated. Sometimes the team member might highlight a priority the manager isn't aware of. Sometimes the manager might be able to clarify a priority that the team member isn't placing enough emphasis on.

Another topic of conversation in those 1:1 meetings is manager support. Looking at those frustrations and the things that are getting in the way at work, and what you might be able to do as the manager to fix those or help.

The next area is around training and development. This is a great chance to check in with the development plan - see how that’s progressing - and also think about training and development experiences or programs that might be coming up in the coming months that could be beneficial.

I include a topic called ‘other’. Just covering anything else the person might want to discuss. And that will bring up some interesting things - maybe around work life balance, or perhaps some things that other organisations are doing. It’s good to include that to cover any other areas that might need to be discussed.

And finally action items - an opportunity to review action items from the previous month, and add any new action items for the manager and team member.

I recommend capturing notes from each meeting to share with team members. As these notes grow through the year, they become a major input into that final performance appraisal discussion. By doing this, the annual performance appraisal becomes little more than a confirmation of what had been discussed through the year. Any areas that weren't clear had already been discussed. You will find it reduces the pressure on you and your team members. It helps you to explore career and development opportunities on a more frequent basis.

I’ve included an outline of those monthly 1-1 meetings at the leadership.today website. If you’ve found this episode helpful, remember to share it with others and to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Next week we’re going to be looking at an approach to transform the way you provide feedback to others. I look forward to catching up with you then.

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Demanding jobs can actually be a good thing for us, provided we have a sense of freedom and control. Without this control, the negative health effects are dramatic. This podcast includes two ideas for improving control.

TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to episode three of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at control and your health - how having demanding jobs can actually be a good thing, provided we have a sense of freedom and control.

Autonomy is recognised as one of the core motivators people have in the workplace. With greater freedom and control over the way we perform our work comes higher levels of motivation and commitment. Recent research suggests that greater job control also improves our health and reduces our likelihood of dying over a seven year period. Autonomy isn't just motivating - it might just save your life.

We've traditionally seen stress as a killer - that high job demands have a negative impact on our health. But this research shows that this isn't always the case. In fact, job demands can sometimes help improve our health, provided we retain a sense of control over our work.

Researchers* used a Wisconsin longitudinal study to track people over a seven year period to explore the relationships between job factors and health. They looked at the impact of job demands (including workload and time pressure) and control (the freedom an individual feels they can exert over their job) on health outcomes.

For jobs where people had low control, the research showed that high job demands did indeed negatively impact health outcomes. In fact, the odds of dying over the seven year period increased by 15%. For those who did make it through the seven years, this combination led to an increase in body mass index. In short, a demanding job where you feel little control is bad for your health.

Interestingly, for jobs where people had high control, high job demands were linked to a 34% decrease in the odds of dying over the same period when compared to low demand jobs. Higher job demands actually had positive health outcomes provided people had control over their work.

These findings are similar to my own research. I looked at people who rated their job demands as high. Those who felt their job provided freedom and autonomy of how they achieve results experienced 20% lower negative stress, and 52% higher engagement than those who lacked such freedom.

What does this all mean for leaders? Here are two ideas.

• Seek out and provide autonomy: We know that autonomy motivates - people love having freedom and control over their work. Seek out more freedom in your own work. Negotiate greater flexibility and build your sense of control over the work you perform. If you're a leader, provide your team with more freedom. Give them opportunities to vary the way they perform their work. Manage them around the results they produce rather than how they produce results.
• Challenge yourself and others: Seek out greater accountability. Once you have control, it's important to ensure you are stretched and challenged. As a leader, provide your team with greater accountability alongside the greater authority you've granted. Discuss the goals people have, and vary the work to capitalise on what motivates your people.
  Autonomy and challenge aren't just good for business - they're good for our health too!

*Worked to Death: The Relationships of Job Demands and Job Control with Mortality

Erik Gonzalez-Mulé, Bethany Cockburn 2016 Personnel Psychology
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/peps.12206/full

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Where do you come up with your best ideas? I bet it's not at your desk. In this episode we explore the conditions that lead to our best ideas, and how we can increase the chances of us coming up with even more great ideas in the future.

TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to episode two of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week we provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at A question I love posing to people in leadership workshops: namely “Where do you come up with your best ideas?"

Of the many hundreds of responses I've heard, not one person has ever said "at my desk". In fact, most people tell me they have come up with their best ideas when they're not at work.

People often say their best ideas come when they're "in the shower", "going for a walk", "taking a lunch break", "drifting off to sleep", and "on holidays". What do all of these activities have in common? They're all low-stress activities with few distractions. When people come up with their best ideas they're typically in a relaxed state, not stressing about coming up with an answer or distracted by other work that requires high levels of focus. They're free to think in a different way - free to explore new ideas and approaches.

The 19th century German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé pioneered our understanding of the chemical structure of benzene. He had been working with benzene for years, but the way the structure formed eluded him. Later in his life he recounted having a day dream where he pictured carbon atoms dancing, then forming into snakes that bit each other's tails, forming a ring. He woke from that day dream with the answer that had occupied him for so many years - the carbon atoms in benzene form a ring. Would he have come up with this solution with more time in the lab or at his desk? Maybe, or maybe not. But what a great example of how a relaxed mind can produce amazing insights where 'hard work' had failed.

Chronic stress largely destroys our ability to develop genuinely new and creative ideas. The very stress hormones that are great for focusing our minds on the 'emergency' at hand reduce our ability to take a broader perspective beyond the immediate. We end up suffering from tunnel vision.

As leaders, our emotional state is contagious. If we're constantly stressed and fire-fighting through our day, it's likely that our teams are doing exactly the same. We end up cursed to repeat the patterns of activity and thought that we've already established, missing opportunities for continuous improvement and breakthrough thinking.

This isn't to say that stress is a bad thing. In fact, stress plays a very important role in stretching us beyond our comfort zones and focusing our attention. But if these moments of stress aren't balanced by moments of recovery and relaxation, we're likely to see negative impacts - not just on the way we think, but also on our health. Chronic stress is a killer, but the combination of stress and recovery is the key to long-term effectiveness.

Here are some thoughts to help you to work more effectively and come up with new ideas:

• Build some down-time into your schedule: Make sure you take annual leave and opportunities to work from home. Start work a little later every so often, or finish earlier. Change up your routine. Take a longer lunch break and go for a walk.
  Use a notepad or the notes app on your phone to capture new ideas or thoughts: Given these ideas will come up when we least expect them, it's worth planning ahead to capture them.
  Work in 90 minute cycles followed by 10/15 minute breaks to exercise, refuel and rehydrate: Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz describe this in their book "The Power of Full Engagement". Start your day with the most important work, and take frequent breaks. This will help to keep you focused, energised and far more productive. And the best bet is that you end your day with the energy needed to be successful outside work.
  Encourage your team to do the same: As a leader, share these ideas with your team. Encourage them to experiment with their routine and day. Maybe a mid-afternoon gym session works for a team member - great! Maybe working in one hour cycles followed by a 10 minute walk works - brilliant! It requires you as the leader to get over our typical obsession with 'presenteeism' where we measure performance by the hours spent at work, to a more healthy focus on productivity.

So where do you have your best ideas? I’d love to hear from you.

As for next week’s episode - Do you want to decrease your risk of dying in the next 7 years by 34%? I’ll be looking at the research showing a dramatic relationship between control at work and our health.

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Much of our leadership behaviour is driven by habits. In this episode we explore helpful and harmful leadership habits, as well as how to identify existing habits and build new ones.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode one of the Leadership Today podcast. Each week I provide practical advice to address some of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

Today we’re going to explore leadership habits - the routines and disciplines we all have that either help or hinder our leadership impact.

The good news is that leadership is a set of skills and behaviours that we can all learn and develop. Leadership is what we do every day that helps us to achieve results through people. And psychology has taught us a lot about how to change our behaviours and to develop new skills.

So first, a question - Did you brush your teeth this morning? Well of course you did. In fact you’re extremely confident that you brushed your teeth this morning. But you may not remember doing it. 

So did you actually choose to brush your teeth this morning? That’s an interesting question. Clearly, given you did brush your teeth, you must have decided on some level to do it. But it most likely wasn’t a conscious decision. 

It’s not like you walked into the bathroom this morning and said “hmmm - brushing my teeth - do I really want to do that today? Can I spare the two minutes? Is it the best use of my time?”.

You didn’t need to consciously choose to brush your teeth this morning because it is a healthy and positive habit for you. In fact, a positive habit like this frees up some conscious attention for you to think about other priorities.

However it wasn’t always a habit - in fact, it probably took someone years to convince you to brush your teeth daily.

Habits take effort to form, but once they are formed they also take effort to change. Recent research demonstrated that people took between 20 to over 250 days to build a new habit - in fact some people even left the experiment after a year having not built a habit.

Chances are that, like me and everyone else on this planet, you also have some unhealthy and negative habits. 

I recently met someone on a leadership program who let me know that she was struggling with anxiety. It was effecting her work and her overall wellbeing, and she was clearly keen to address the issue. The next morning of the program I couldn’t help but notice as the same person walked in carrying a large, double-shot coffee and an equally large can of Red Bull - it was part of her morning ritual and routine. And it was also a negative habit. Taking close to the daily recommended amount of caffeine in one hit would induce anxiety in most people. She just didn’t connect the non-conscious habit of purchasing the same drinks every morning, with the anxiety those drinks helped to produce half an hour later. Building her awareness of that connection helped her to challenge and change that habit. But it took feedback to highlight the habit.

In the same way, we can have healthy and unhealthy leadership habits that we can identify through feedback and by paying attention to how we’re spending our time.

Some unhealthy leadership habits that I’ve seen, include:

• Starting the day responding emails - performing those kinds of tasks that require little attention at the point when we have the most focus and energy
• Another one is not taking breaks, or eating lunch at our desk - staying glued to our desks as our attention and productivity decline
• The second shift is another unhealthy leadership habit - going home to eat dinner after a long day, then firing up the laptop for another few hours of work every night - it impacts negatively on our productivity and just wears us out

You could look at replacing unhealthy habits with healthy leadership habits, like:

• Setting aside an hour each day, uninterrupted, to get one key thing done
• Or it might be going outside for a quick walk every 90 minutes to refresh and re-energise and to rebuild our focus
• You might want to leave mindless work like emails and meetings to that mid-afternoon slump we all go through around 2pm
• Or getting into the habit of just saying ‘thank you’ when someone pays you a compliment - it makes them feel better, and it makes you feel better as well

The key to building new habits is to experiment. Try something new out - if it doesn’t work, don’t just revert back but try something else new.

You will also want to measure your results. Rate your productivity, focus, happiness - whatever you can track that can give you a sense of the impact of the new habit, and encourage you to keep going. 

This week - can I encourage you to become aware of your habits. You might want to set an alarm each hour - something that will prompt you to look back over that previous 60 minutes and diarise how you’re spending your time.

And when you’ve identified habits you want to change, or new habits you want to develop - Involve others. Their feedback and encouragement will make all the difference.

I trust you’ve found this episode on leadership habits helpful. I look forward to hearing how you go, and to sharing another leadership today podcast with you next week.