Ceannas Conversations

Jurgen Klopp retired as Liverpool's manager in May 2024, boasting a Premier League title, a Champions League crown, an FA Cup, two EFL Cups, the Community Shield, a UEFA Super Cup, and a FIFA Club World Cup over his nine years at the club.In this compressed analysis of Jurgen Klopp's leadership I'm going to attempt to describe key aspects of his Leadership Behaviour (using the Ceannas Lenses), his Cultural Footprint (using the Culture Building Blocks), and finally his Wise Decision-Making (using the Ceannas Wheel of Wise Leadership), with a few choice quotes from the man himself.

The influence of thoughtful leadership

As part of our weekly Leadership Spotlights series, we examine Donald Trump the extent to which Donald Trump satisfies the criteria of being a Wise Leader.

Alex Hynes was appointed Managing Director of the ScotRail Alliance in June 2017. Two years later, he was promoted to the broader role of Managing Director, Scotland's Railway, following further operational devolution from Network Rail to Scotland. He currently leads the delivery of Scotland's Railway through the ScotRail Alliance.In a wide ranging conversation with Don Ledingham, Co-CEO  of Ceannas, Alex explores:Impact of childhood experiences on his leadershipWorking 'on', not 'in' the businessManaging a systemAccountabilityScanning horizonsBusiness are all about peopleCustomers and Employees are inextricably linkedImpact of climate changeSafe home every dayBalancing Warmth and EdgeEntrepreneurshipMaking or breaking someone's day as a leaderLeadership as a journeyListening and learning for freeCulture and the future

For seven years Adrienne Muir was COO of Voxsmart, a global technology company, based in Queenstown New Zealand she led teams based in locations around the world.In this episode she shares some of the challenges that face anyone leading a team operating in multiple locations and in different times zones.In the course of a fascinating interview Adrienne provides us with a range of practical suggestions that any leader would be well advised to consider implementing - regardless of whether their team is spread around the globe of simply operating in a hybrid fashion.

Lee Smith has had an extensive career with HSBC most recently leading a global team in the technology space. He has joined Ceannas as an Executive Consultant and executive coach.In this podcast Lee delves into the challenge of Value Stream Co-Leadership where he explores how technology and business leaders need to work together in a very different manner to enable the long-term success in delivery and continuous enhancement of complex products.

Don Ledingham is in conversation with Jack Houghton, the co-founder and chief product officer for Mindset.ai, who have a mission to become the digital infrastructure for the knowledge economy.Jack talks with passion and insight about his journey from Barrow-in -Furness to his current role.   Jack's journey provides a great example to others who don't follow the traditional route to success. There are lessons here for businesses and leaders about ai that are of critical importance to their futures.

As part of the Ceannas celebration of International Women's Day, Don Ledingham interviews Debbi McCulloch the Depute Chief Executive of Spartans FC Foundation, and Head Coach of the Scottish Premier League Spartans FC Women's Team.Debbi brings to life her mantra of 'Dream Big, Dream Fierce'  through her own career journey and her inspiring approach to 'giving back' to her community as a true example of leadership.

As part of our Ceannas celebration of International Women's Day, Don Ledingham interviews Kirsty Nicholson, a partner with Addleshaw Goddard, the international legal company.In the course of an extensive conversation Kirsty explores how the legal profession is moving towards a gender balance in leadership roles; how it can further normalise female leadership; the need to promote equal responsibility between men and women for caring duties in the early years; and the importance of role models in promoting women in business.

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week Don Ledingham speaks to Charlie Winton, Founder fo OK Positive, a platform that allows people to monitor their own mental health and then take positive action.

The Ceannas proposition to be read in conjunction with the Ceannas Homepage.https://www.ceannas.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Ceannas_CurveGraph_v2-1.mp4

Benjamin Kayser played rugby for France on 37 occasions. He is currently studying for an MBA at the University of Oxford and is also a highly sought after and respected sports broadcaster. If that wasn't enough  Benjamin is also an Executive Consultant with Ceannas where he is working with senior executive leaders from the corporate world.In this podcast he shares his insights into the importance of strategic resilience, switching back and forth between the worlds of sport and business. 

This Conversation between Rob Roger and members of the Ceannas Team took place back in March 2021. At the time Rob Roger was CEO of IQ Student Accommodation,. In February 2020, Blackstone announced plans to purchase the company for £4.66 billion, in the UK's largest ever private real estate transaction. It's fascinating insight into the mind and practice of one of the UK's top executive leaders.

In this podcast Colonel Gill Wilkinson helps us to get behind the language of 'Mission command' and 'commander's intent', to show how clarity of purpose, authority, responsibility and accountability actually creates the conditions for disciplined and productive initiative that is often missing in organisations where leaders' fear to accept the authority that their role provides.Interestingly Gill pointed out that the motto of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where until recently she was Deputy Commander (Reserves) reads 'Serve to Lead'.

I was privileged to have a wide ranging conversation about diversity and inclusion with Sinead O'Brien, FCIPD in the first episode of our second series of Ceannas Conversations.There are so many insights provided by Sinead on this critically important topic that I cannot begin to list them here. All I can do is recommend the listen.

The Invisible Flow of TimeThe passing of time is sometimes described as the ‘invisible flow of time’. Such a metaphor immediately conjures up the idea that time can flow at different rates, i.e. it can speed up and it can slow down.I’m not talking here in a science fiction manner, where people can travel backwards and forwards in time, but in the sense of the perception of those who experience time.For the purposes of this essay I’m going to propose that the speed of time is dependent on the observer, i.e. two people might experience the same ‘event duration’ to be significantly different. For example, if I hate watching football, and my wife loves watching football, then an hour in front of the television watching the big game will pass much slower for me than it will for her.An eminent psychologist – with a name you will be unable to pronounce, and I could not correctly spell – captured this with what he described as the process of ‘flow’ which is characterised by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time. Hence, if I am absorbed in writing this essay then time will pass much quicker than if it held no interest for me.There’s another way that the perception of time can differ and that relates to elapsed time, e.g. for a five-year-old child a year equates to 20% of their life and for me as a sixty-year-old that same year equates to 1.6% of my life. Is it any wonder that time seems to be speeding up for me?Of course, time is made up of three discrete yet intimately related states, the past, the present, and the future. The problem with these three states is that although they are all on the same continuum, they elicit very different responses in us as human beings.Firstly, the past has gone, it is no more – in the words of John Cleese it "has ceased to be", "bereft of life, it rests in peace” - although I’m sure historians would deny that the past is not a living, changing entity.Nevertheless, the past no longer exists in the same sense as does the present – which can be described as the ‘progress of existence’, which is an irreversible succession from the past.One of the comforting things about the past is that it at least gives the impression of order, i.e. I can have a pretty good go at describing it and at the very least giving a reasonable account of what happened, putting things into some sequence and making consequential connections between one event and another.The problem with the future is that it defies any attempt to accurately predict events to the same extent, as when I describe events that have already taken place.If then, the future grows out of the present we have a very short horizon to see what will happen before events become much more uncertain and ambiguous. Whereas, the past was characterised as giving the impression of order, the future is much more given to a ‘lack of order’. Borrowing from the world of physics such a phenomenon is known as ‘entropy’ where order or predictability gradually declines into disorder.That is not to say that the future always turns out to be different from what we expect – just that it is radically different from the certainty of the past.From a psychological point of view this ambiguity can stimulate a fear of the unknown, which leads us to take actions which are neither logical nor necessary.In this current crisis, caused by Coronavirus, it is this fear of the unknown that is driving so many illogical behaviours – which are logical when compared with what people have known in the past. For example, for the last few decades I have been able to go to the supermarket and buy whatever provisions I require. All of a sudden that predictability of the past has been interrupted – my confidence in the future, which I thought would simply replicate the past has been fractured. My response is to behave in a manner that solve

Rob Harley was the Student President at Natal University, South Africa in 1994, the year that Nelson Mandela came to power. In his current role as a Senior Investor with Stewart Investors Sustainability Team he reflects on those experiences and how it has shaped him as a person and a leader.

Don Ledingham asks Ed Driver, questions about wise leadership.

I attempt to answer the seven questions derived from the Ceannas Features of Wise Leadership. As I refine these they will become the framework for interviews with other leaders.

In our modern working environment we must guard against the temptation to become a ‘helicopter leader’. Instead of making ‘benevolent’ decisions on behalf of our colleagues we need to create conditions where we help them to make decisions for themselves and to deal with challenges in a successful manner. Now this is more difficult than just simply handing over the controls. But if a leader truly aspires to create an environment where everyone doesn’t just look to them to come up with the solution, or to pick up the problems as they arise, then they need to climb out of the helicopter and get ‘alongside’ their colleagues in a true spirit of partnership – with a view to setting them free.

Leaders who do not encourage of demonstrate candour severely limit the potential of thier organisation and their own effectiveness

Sometimes leaders need to let people know the behaviours they are not prepared to tolerate rather than high flown rhetoric to 'aspire to excellence'.

Leaders need to break free for the idea that their career stops at retirement age and liberate their thinking from such a limiting point of view.

“Reasonable selfishness’ can provide the leader with a way of thinking that enables them to consider taking a decision which could be deemed to be self-centered, and to which we have been conditioned to avoid throughout our lives – at least in a conscious and explicit form - but which enhances their lives and their professional effectiveness.

Leaders must learn how to use their intuition but also be aware that is can be a double edged sword. This episode explores the concept and makes some suggestions about how the leaders can advance their intuitive capacity.

Don Ledingham explores how wise leaders should connect the past, the present and the future if they are to help people make sense of their working lives