Soul-Inspired-Leadership

We create our own reality. We either do it consciously or unconsciously.Michaela says " By being conscious you are stepping into the driver's seat of your life and no longer simply be a passenger in someone else's car."Purpose in our lives comes about slowly. At times it just creeps up on you and reaches a crescendo and brings you to making a choice. Some choose knowingly and others are not awake or conscious to be able to read the signs.It's about self-leadership. It's you driving your own car. That's self-leadership.You can't drive a bus with others in it unless you can drive the bus.Conscious leadership starts with understanding that it is our own responsibility. to understand how we function and basically take the responsibility for our responses to situations and the way how we process situations.It's easier said than done because we very often feel that we are self-aware and we are taking responsibility. But when we start digging into it becomes somebody else's fault or we start blaming people for what is happening in our life. So taking responsibility is based on self-awareness. And awareness of how we function.Another big thing is understanding the difference between the context that we come from and the content that we work with. What that means is– what is my place of being that I'm proud that I am approaching things from? I can be approaching things from, for example, being angry, or being in that place of victimhood, or being in that place of aggressiveness. Understanding that if I am approaching a meeting situation with my team. From that kind of place, I am only going to create an atmosphere of aggression or more victimhood, Its understanding that.The core of who I am when I show up in these situations is going to create my results. So if I know that I'm going to go into a meeting then I need to be conscious of how I put myself into this place . Its not just show up with whatever energy its I want to show up being confident, whether it is loving, whether it is understanding, whether it is in a state of collaboration. I need to be conscious of it.So I want to be intentional about what place that I'm coming from approaching the situations. That is a big part of being conscious and understanding that context, how we show up who we are when we are approaching situations is really key to what we're going to create.You've got to consciously step up and say, I want to be the leader, but I want to be and include these five or six behaviours that I must do day in and day out.Another big part of being self-aware is, what is going on in your head.What is the chatter?That is beating you up or have you got an inner coach that is there to help you? Really understanding what is going on in your mind is another big part of being conscious and functioning from the place of being self-aware and more sitting in your center.How the process within us goes, when we are creating our result is, we have got a sense of belief, which is very often subconscious from this belief, we think certain things, so beliefs thoughts, then thoughts create emotions. And we know when we get anxious, when we get nervous, and when we get angry. We feel it in our bodies, right? So emotions come up and then we are triggered. And then from emotions, which are affecting our behaviour, of course, and then our behaviour creates the result, right? That's why we say that we consciously or unconsciously create our reality because beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions drive results, Michaela Smith can be found atmichaela-smith.com linkedin.com/in/smith-michaela

Business is all about facts and data. Whereas great leadership occurs from the authenticity reflected in actions a leader takes. That authenticity occurs when, as a leader, one leads from their heart and not only take decisions based on the data. Authenticity is showing who you are through your actions by leading from your inner being.Authenticity is our individual greatness. Which is our gift of being unique as human beings.Up until we understand this and know how to express it in our behaviour we're not being authentic. On the contrary, we're existing through an imposter syndrome scenario.It requires going within yourself and discovering what one is really passionate about and then using that in being intentional in every aspect of one's life.'Be the best version of yourself' is an oft-heard phrase. What authenticity truly means is continually learning and growing every day.So how do you bring about exploring and finding your authenticity?The 'Greatness Engineering' way has a simple process called 'DARE'D- DecideA- ActionR- ReviewE- ExpandIn leadership authenticity, it all starts with the decisions we make. That decision leads us to take action. Which either brings us results that we planned to achieve or not. That's where one needs to review the results. This is the stage where learning for improvement occurs. And from that learning one expands to decide the next course of action.What this process does, it helps you be more effective in your communication with others by establishing clarity in all actions. It puts forth your attitude which sets the tone of the relationships. Which then helps the leadership and oneself to be valued and appreciated. Mireille can be contacted at:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mireille-toulekima/https://twitter.com/MToulekima

The world has changed and with it the way leaders lead also needs to change.   We've moved from the era of manufacturing to being knowledge-based. This impacts leadership. As such there's a critical gap as leadership hasn't quite bridged how to lead in a knowledge-based environment. And using tools prevalent in the manufacturing times simply don't work anymore. Coupled with this is the fact that employees, as people, have and are changing.     The gap as we see it in leadership presently stems from the perspective of how leaders view their teams. What matters is viewing them as people and their development as a priority. However what happens is that leaders tend to defer to shareholders and shareholders aren't into leadership. Their interest is the bottom-line. And shareholders believe caring about workers is going to cost them money. Instead of understanding that there is a better way of managing people that's behavioral based and one that would get them better returns.   Now we see change in leadership coming through, not top-down, but bottom up. Employees are not sticking around when they aren't getting respected and appreciated.   This is the catalyst that brings forth the need to lead from the heart.   And the heart has a mind!   As an author, I reflected back on what I had done in leading people and the insight was that I was touching hearts.   That validation happened when speaking to a world-renowned cardiologist who confirmed the science of communication between the heart and the mind. The research shows up that the heart has it own form of intelligence and is responsible for the feelings we feel and drives our behaviour.   A key research fact in the book talks about 75% of employees stating their stress is from the interaction with their boss. Whilst the same group states they like the work they do. So the interaction bit gets isolated and is identified as the cause. Looking at this objectively, leaders don't take into account how they make employees feel. This is a lack of sensitivity. Secondly, it's often perceived that the role of a manager is to find fault. Which results in an employee feeling horrible.   These two examples highlight the necessity of having a new orientation. One where the leader or manager is more of a coach. When one sees oneself as a coach one becomes an advocate for people and doesn't criticize.   This brings forth the bit about having positive energy. It's what helps one be more productive. In summary, if the attitude is right, it creates a happier feeling that drives productivity. Human beings are hardwired to thrive on positive energy.   The tip here is to listen more to your heart and not stay with the thoughts in your mind. Now when we hire people we're looking for brain smarts and nothing about the heart or feelings. We are now learning that there are two forms of intelligence. The heart is where intuition comes from. And the heart always looks out for what's good for you. Find Mark https://markccrowley.com/lead-from-the-heart-duh/ (https://markccrowley.com/lead-from-the-heart-duh/)

As professionals how do we get the balance between our wellbeing, health, and productivity? It starts with being aware of the unconscious thoughts and beliefs that are affecting these three areas. And with getting clear on what's driving oneself. That's when choices materialise and from those choices, one can make changes. So if one believes that our thoughts and beliefs create our experiences, then if one changes the thoughts, one has different experiences. The problem is that most don't know that their thoughts and beliefs are getting in the way. And the impact of this is significant. Overworking, over-functioning, and neglecting our health. Digging into my own unconscious thoughts and beliefs helped me learn how they were blocking me and how I could change them. An example-- is asking one the question to write down what they want to have a year from now. And that's where clarity happens as most focus on time. Time to take care of their health, time with family, and time to make an impact in the workplace. From this one learns why they are doing what they are doing. That throws up choices. And those choices are then turned into action by putting a timeline to it. This example highlights how important it is for one to get and be in touch with their inner self. When we get clarity on what's important and the values that are dear, how to choose who I choose to be given the external pressures of what success looks like. It comes down to the choices one makes and gets to a point where all aspects of self are in balance. Doing this requires having grounded confidence. Which is being comfortable with being uncomfortable and building skills and tolerance of taking the discomfort. This is the bit that helps with productivity. By identifying a set of activities that one is good at and one enjoys doing, and doing it more incrementally one increases their productivity. As leaders when we operate from a place of deep self-content, even when we get triggered or have an emotional reaction, it's the grounded confidence that allows us to see the opportunities in the situation. People tend to gravitate to the calmness a leader shows in hard situations as that's an attractive quality.  You can contact Moira at www.moiralethbridge.com moira@moiralethbridge.com

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Spiritual intelligence in leadership and its impact. It's necessary, for a leader, to have a clear alignment between what we know and what we do. It's that bit which helps a leader provide good leadership to the team.. Leadership's ability to connect with a higher purpose, to be courageous, and compassionate, things that are actually associated with spiritual intelligence directly impacts engagement. Research showed that not only did leaders not embrace this fully, if the cultural environment was not conducive it tended to diminish the spiritual intelligence. The leaders researched had components of it but none of them were empowered to use it. Inspite of changes all around, socially, behaviourally and business wise today, the one thing that deeply embedded in many working cultures is to use cognitive abilities even if it's known not to be effective. Unfortunately using only cognitive abilities does not solve engagement. Which is the most important thing for a leader to have. To have spiritual intelligence takes courage. It requires a leader to step away from the known pathway and undertake a self discovery journey of finding their inner belief. The cause of this is that as leaders we're not taught this. On the contrary we're told stuff like this is out there and is not to be brought into an organizational set-up. The key element of spiritual intelligence is to consistently be purposeful in actions and thoughts and elevate those around me and myself to do better. And this can't be done just with one's mind. It's heart-based. A feeling that comes from within you and as you feel it you think it. That gives you strength which is what creates the self-belief. The reason why you need leaders that are heart felt and soul inspired is because they allow their teams to step out of the common pathways, knowing they will be safe and that it's expected of them to do so. The only way to bring about this change is to influence and share with a younger leadership group. People who would be tomorrow's business captains. By arming them with tools that help them self-reflect and for them to understand who they are so that they can be their best selves.

The common perception of leadership is that it's all external. On the contrary leadership is all about going within oneself. And lead oneself. How does NLP (neuro linguistic programming) work in leadership development? What NLP does for an individual is bring greater and complete understanding about oneself. Aside from the common perceptions about NLP, what NLP does is help you understand how the human mind works. As a leader when one is making decisions, where are those decisions coming from? When I am reacting to something, where is that reaction coming from? When I am communicating how much is the recipient understanding? The level of awareness of such things increases hugely when exposed to the science of NLP and what it does is bring forth the leader in the individual. Leadership is a behaviour and not a title. You behave in such a way whereby you clearly show, through your actions, that you are leading your own self. You understand where your behaviour is exactly coming from. This level of awareness then brings about a change in perspective where when interacting with another person, you're trying to understand where their behaviour is coming from. This is what helps leaders bridge the gap with their teams. The team members actually pick up on the behaviour of their leader. When a leader is leading with high self awareness leads to being inspirational for the team. The resulting outcome of this, for companies, is that people become more inclined towards creative thinking. In leadership it helps in being able to see the perspective which is bringing the behaviour. This occurs through heightened self awareness and going through a mental process of trying to understand why what was said or done occurred. What increased self awareness does is that it empowers us to question. We don't resort to giving excuses or answers. Instead we attempt to understand where and what made the perspective come about. This questioning behaviour tends to rub off and that action, by default, works in developing the leadership behaviour in others. Speaking on self-awareness, post pandemic, there has been a rise in self awareness en mass. People had the time to actually pause and look within and re-prioritise what matters to them. Looking at what one has been doing and asking why. It results in discovering purpose. And that turns into the motivation to live and lead oneself in a way that is fulfilling to self each day. For more on Naheed Khan visit:https://www.futurwits.com/ ( https://www.futurwits.com/)

The title of your book-"The Buddhist CEO'- is intriguing from a leadership perspective.  A key bit about leadership is one has got to want to do it. With that comes the responsibilities of setting the scene, share a vision people can resonate with and work towards and show the values that matter. With that comes one aspect of being somebody who is willing to get stuck into difficult issues.  All of which comes back to the key element of leading from within. Which is sometimes very difficult given the pressures of the outside world that push and pull you in all directions.  As a leader you've got to really know who you are as a person. Your values and where you see your company going.   It's always best to follow what's coming from the heart that guides you straight. Operating from the head often leads to convoluted actions as the mind is often overwhelmed with the onslaught of information. Being true to one's inner self gives that consistency of action, of thought, which then makes it easier to share the vision or picture one has as a leader. Doing this helps inculcate and increase trust over time.  Focusing on the staff and taking their perspectives and points and being inclusive in ensuring what matters to them is part of the company's activities goes a long way in earning trust and appreciation as a leader.  A change in senior leadership in any company always shakes up the hierarchy. What helps is the empowerment that managers are given. It helps them to take on leadership responsibilities and thus showing similar values and work ethics that helps encourage innovation and new ideas which made the company a valued one.  All part of being a ‘Buddhist CEO' Contact Thane on https://twitter.com/BuddhistCeo (https://twitter.com/BuddhistCeo) https://www.thanelawrie.com/ (https://www.thanelawrie.com/)

Scaling up is a methodology that helps companies grow sustainably and achieve exponential growth. The methodology used covers four areas-- people, strategy, execution and cash. These four areas are known as four decisions that any company needs to get right in order to be able to scale successfully. Doing all of this comes back to leadership. The more you grow your people, the more you grow your business. As people grow they have more capacity to run the strategies and input into strategic thinking. In doing this what are the challenges? When we look at the various challenges companies face and work our way to understand the root cause, we see it comes down to primarily being a people issue. In that, helping leaders to be more intentional is the key challenge. Leadership is about being intentional. How do you intentionally work towards a certain outcome is what matters? In this journey, how intentionally a leader can bring people along is what matters. It's this particular bit that creates challenge as there are many who aren't intentional or wanting to move along. Old habits and familiarity of doing things in a particular way come in the way. With intent it's important to manage it in order to ensure one is moving forward towards the planned outcome. Focusing on balancing each of the four areas is what helps manage intention and provide leadership direction towards the planned outcome. Doing this requires being intentional about each aspect at a certain time and being disciplined in doing it. The way to do this is to focus on the common goal of the company and then look at the rhythm and habits or the processes required. This creates a behaviour which helps leadership be intentional and balance the day-to-day requirements and strategic thinking and action. Jeremy can be contacted on: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyhancy/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyhancy/)

The world of employment is battling through some changes the likes of which companies haven't experienced in their lifetimes. Should work be a hybrid, remote and in-office? Or should it be fully remote or go back to how it was by being fully in office? These are the questions companies are battling through now.  This makes it an opportunity for companies to actually change and re-shuffle things. Let's take the example of how tight the labour market is. The recruiters are tired. They are not getting the skill sets they need, and when they do it's tough to get the right demographics, the candidates aren't quite keen. This is impacting recruitment significantly. Even with these difficulties when we do get the right people and get them in the companies, do we enable them to be able to purposefully and efficiently do fulfilling work? In both these scenarios the blockage is the recruitment and employee engagement systems that are in use. Because of this progressive companies are using this war on talent as a situation to re-think and re-jig very many things that impact business performance. This brings up the role of leadership. It's important for leadership to look at how the data flows. Specially where workflows are concerned. Two key things need to be the priorities-- quality of the data and the utilization of it- in the strategic drivers of the business. Doing this requires a bit more than having a great data analyst. It requires having clarity on the business purpose and understanding how the strategic business drivers will lead to success. Many a business is lacking on clarity of their purpose and social responsibility. It results in confusion.  It's why having clear direction, communicating that direction to the employees clearly so that all at their respective roles are able to use the data and information effectively to benefit the company in a socially responsible way.  Anna can be found at https://twitter.com/AnnaMamalaki (https://twitter.com/AnnaMamalaki) https://www.linkedin.com/in/annamamalaki/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/annamamalaki/) https://annamamalaki.com/ (https://annamamalaki.com/)

What was the catalyst that made you want to be a better leader and lead you down the path of coaching? It started with the feedback one would receive on performance. The intent to improve oneself is always there. Coupled with that there were a couple of instances where talks on coaching and mentoring and how it positively impacts leadership crossed one's path. The intent to improve and the curiosity of how one could use coaching techniques, as a leader, set off this journey. The start of coaching was all about seeking to learn how one could lead one's team better to improve performance. As that learning experience started one realised it was about coaching self. About self-leadership. As a leader you've got to have strong character, grit and be passionate. These help in engaging and motivating the team. With that you've got to be compassionate, patient, and able to pace yourself as per your team. Not your individual speed.  Where coaching helps is helping to understand the team better, listen to them, be patient and able to pace oneself as per the team. Doing this takes a bit of effort. You've got to be accessible and make people feel they can be comfortable with you. Accessibility, openness and showing people that you are passionate about developing people is very important. As a senior corporate leader, undertaking coaching helps in getting back in touch with the human side of things. In corporate, the focus is on results and the processes leading to that. Yet it's the people who need to be directed and doing that requires empathy and compassion. Which is what being human is all about and that's the bit that coaching helps a senior leader re-discover about self and get better at. Contact Ranjith at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjithknair/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjithknair/)

This is Soul Inspired Leadership's 100th podcast! What better way than to share it with the person who got me started with episode #1....Antoinette. Which brings us to what we both love talking about… the subject of self-talk. Many aren't quite aware of the impact our self-talk has on our actions and reactions. Those actions and reactions then create the reality one lives in. That affects the leadership one displays. Whilst much has been written about how adversity brings out true leaders, this comes back to the issue of self-talk. Overcoming obstacles or challenges occur when the internal dialogue of the leader is actually positive. It's about having self-belief and drawing upon that strength that helps a true leader overcome challenges and influence others.  When we know what to focus on, we can ensure that our own self-talk is positive. Doing this requires taking cues from one's own body. That helps in understanding what is the underlying feeling that's causing the reaction one is feeling. Feelings is what one needs to be in touch with and acknowledge. It's important to be able to understand where that feeling is coming from. Take anxiety or depression as an example. These are effects that have certain causes. It's important to acknowledge and understand where these are coming from. Without that, not only can these re-surface, but more importantly one's baseline feeling is one of unease.  What's key in getting to the root of self-talk is to identify the trigger. Knowing what triggers it, allows one to get control and work through it. Doing this takes courage. Simply because you have to bring up and deal with unpleasant memories and feelings.  You can reach Antoinette at https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinettebiehlmeier/

Leadership is all about going beyond ego and leading from within.  It's about leading from the inner self. When you are connected with your inner self and are connected to that, you lead differently.  Healthy self-esteem helps in empathetic leadership. The outer ego is the one that creates and drives self-comparisons. Comparing and contrasting with everyone around you. In leadership what one sees is too much of ego driven behaviour. For example, one identifies a threat and reacts with a defensive strategy. That defensive strategy will differ from one leader to the other. The commonality is that both are fear driven. This is the key. The question to ask is how can you live and lead without being fear driven? The answer lies in transcending that fear by getting into your inner self. Starting with acknowledging one's strengths and weaknesses and being self-aware. Secondly, having a purpose and staying present to that purpose. However, our humanness often drives us to make decisions which, in hindsight, we may regret. This occurs as we end up reacting through our ego because we are nervous under pressure.  One of the keys is being able to be humble with oneself and others. It's this humility that helps to keep the focus on one's purpose and to accept failure and know oneself better. That leads to increased self-trust. That is, trust my ability to stay present to my purpose. This realisation reduces moments of being ego driven and increases the time one is being true to one's real self.  Going from this to the next stage of questioning if one is still holding back, one looks at if there's forgiveness. Forgiving self and others for whatever has happened in the past that's actually got one stuck in the ego driven behaviour.  Ego is formed from the patterns we've created for ourselves through our experiences and environment. We carry those patterns into our work and leadership roles. Getting over it involves taking a hard look at the story of our self that we've repeatedly told ourselves and then deconstructing the bits that aren't reflective of what our real inner self is.  Leading from beyond ego is about self-understanding, being purpose driven, being humble and trustful. It's about shedding those layers of ego that had got put on through the years by going through forgiveness, and ultimately, being compassionate. This results in gratitude coming up. Put together, this drives one to become more of a servant leader. For enquiries on Thor's book, contact him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thor-olafsson-b4a6a5b7/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/thor-olafsson-b4a6a5b7/) https://www.linkedin.com/company/beyond-ego/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/beyond-ego/)

Empowering employees everyone talks about it. Everyone says to do it. Yet it's a challenge. Autonomy to employees to do their day-to-day role is where it all starts. Specially those who are in customer facing roles. Giving them the autonomy to make decisions as they are interacting with the customers, instead of having to check-in with a superior at every stage, helps immensely. This simple autonomy is something that is, often, either not explained to employees or not given. As a result the front facing employees often find themselves in situation where they feel stuck. Delegation and empowerment are two areas that are often misunderstood and misused. Delegation is giving the responsibility of an activity to another to do it instead of the manager doing it. Empowerment is giving the authority and responsibility to execute the full activity, as felt best, by that employee. Empowerment is underpinned by trust. It's about trusting your people and letting go of your ego about the fact that the executive just may do a better job than the manager could have. The key here is to take time and explain the scope of the activity or the role of the executive. That aids in having effective empowerment. Trust is where it all starts. This involves 3 T's-- Training: you've got to train your people properly and long enough so that the person trained gets habituated with the process and equipment; Tools-- ensure the correct tools are provided; Trust-- as a leader spend formal time with your team. That one-on-one is what builds mutual trust and strengthens the relationship. Rob can be contacted at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertson-hunter-stewart-90538b1a/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertson-hunter-stewart-90538b1a/) https://www.robertsonhunterstewart.com/ ( https://www.robertsonhunterstewart.com/ ) https://twitter.com/stewartwrites (https://twitter.com/stewartwrites)

Good leadership is how you connect with people and one of the best ways to connect with people is through storytelling. Graham Brown that's does brilliantly. A great communicator. He brings forth how storytelling aids leadership. In business storytelling is not about fairy tales. It's about creating a connection using empathy. There's an art and science to storytelling. One can use one word to communicate change or give a picture of what's happening. In that word itself lies the story as we all have various analogies in our memory that's triggered through reading or hearing that word. As a leader this is very helpful as, often, you do not have a lot of bandwidth to communicate. The necessity of being crisp and clear in getting the message clearly communicated is a vital need. Using a powerful analogy or story helps you do this and gets people to understand what comes next. If one looks at the psychology of storytelling the brain doesn't understand the difference between past, present and future. It doesn't have that concept. It only knows experience. What powerful stories do and great leaders are able to do is to take an unknown future and connect it with a known past. As a leader you can use these techniques to create change and help people understand. Good leadership is good storytelling. It's about how you take the short form storytelling and package the unknown. As people we consume stories because it helps us understand information through frames we are very familiar with. When leaders fail in their communication is when they don't use a frame people are familiar with. They don't borrow what works and try and create something new and ends up creating confusion to the reader or listener. In business there's this entire psychology of naïve realism that's present. We stop make believe because we think that's childish. We flip over to using data and logic. That's needed yet that's not what people buy into. People buy into the experience and within that packaging is the data and logic required to aid the decision making. Today as society and leaders we are challenged to create this connection. A lot of the talk is about the future of work; how do we find meaning; how we create teams in this disconnected world; how do we create voices of diversity and so on. Storytelling is a great way of addressing these. Historically storytelling has been a powerful way of creating connections emotionally. As a leader be being seen as a human, fallible, imperfect and not having all the answers gives a frame that helps people relate and accept. Leaders have to keep in mind that they are the brand where people are concerned. Be it a founder owner or CEO of a large company. When it comes to creating and driving change it's all about how, as a leader, you are able to connect with your people at an emotional level. It's hard because you don't see it but you definitely feel it. Graham can be contacted at: https://www.pikkal.com/ (https://www.pikkal.com/) https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamdbrown/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamdbrown/) https://twitter.com/GrahamDBrown (https://twitter.com/GrahamDBrown)

In M&A people usually look at the data when looking to merge a couple of companies. What is often overlooked are the people. Specially about the cultural fit of two groups of people. It comes down to creating a performance focused environment that fits.  During an M&A the focus is mostly on all the technical or the structural aspects of the M&A and the people are the last bit that one looks at. Yet people are the most critical part.  There's one fundamental fact that we need to keep in mind. As human beings, we are resistant to change. The key here is that we tend to get into a routine and when that's disrupted we try to pull back to what it was like. To get around this what helps is having the leaders get into a coaching mode. Using positive psychology with teams and groups. This helps guide people to make those shifts that are needed as the companies merge or are acquired. It all comes down to making the people feel involved in the process as then when that feeling of involvement comes in then they tend to join it and the individual activities moves along smoothly. Getting into a company and finding out what the real culture is, is a key challenge in the M&A space. This ambiguity actually creates an advantage. In M&A everything is stated out in black and white. However when it comes to the people, it's ambiguous. It's how we, as people are, by nature. Understanding this helps create an advantage of knowing how best to create cultural fit. A successful M&A works due to the people and how they have been involved and managed. Rachel can be contacted either at: www.fts-global.com www.henkainstitute.com www.racheltreece.com

Organisations have changed. It's not been a planned change management project, but change has occurred as people have changed. That change is not one directional. Now it's up to leadership to harness that change and steer it in a way that's best for the organisation. Going into this, what's key to understand is, that given people have changed, the value propositions of organizations need to change. That impacts the strategy of a company. Which should change or be changing. The changing value proposition is enabled by three things: 1. People 2. Processes 3. Technology Technology is exponentially changing. It's impacting how we work. Processes need to evolve in order to aid achievement of business goals. To do this one has to lean upon the people aspect. People have changed drastically. Specially with regards to what they want for their lives. An outcome of the effect of the pandemic has been a re-prioritization of what's important in an individual's life. That's led to a change in how individuals are approaching employment. Being able to work from home and be with family, and going back into office expecting more empathy in the culture, are two significant factors in this. One can see many a company capitalising on this change by introducing multiple new systems. Technology and process wise. The aim being to utilise the disruption that's occurred in their favour. The things to utilise this opportunity to serve the new value proposition and purpose as a company. Where companies need help is to see how these three- People, Process & Technology-- connect where their core business is concerned. Contact Anna at: https://twitter.com/AnnaMamalaki (https://twitter.com/AnnaMamalaki) https://www.linkedin.com/in/annamamalaki/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/annamamalaki/) annamamalaki.com

There's a belief amongst good leaders that they can get better.  Thinking that you can get better is the first step in being a better leader. In this coaching helps you become and remain a great leader. The pandemic has impacted leadership requirements hugely. The state of flux creates makes it necessary for a leader have one's wits together and be agile simply because that state of flux is continuously changing. The health care industry leaders are having this pressure first and having to adapt and evolve. Those who are unable to keep abreast are making mistakes with their teams that are showing up. The analogy of a squeaky wheel is apt here. As a leader you're not pushing or pulling the wheel. You're coming in and oiling the squeaks whenever it occurs. That oiling of the squeaks is taking care of the human challenges a leader may face. The human challenges are key here. Every individual member of a team is affected by anxiety caused by the pandemic.  That's caused a key challenge for leaders now. Connecting and understanding each member of their team and what they are going through. Specially given that there are different stages, globally, with regards to getting back to the physical office and the remote working is still in play. Managing this comes down to how leaders ask questions. Asking specific questions gives insights into how a team member is feeling. That then helps the leader to know where and how to connect and engage. Doing all this comes back to a leader continuously striving to improve oneself. Adam can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dradamharrison/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dradamharrison/)

Through leadership and marketing, in business, bringing in the human aspect is what drives growth in today. If you remove people from business, there is no business. Going back into history to the times when barter trade was practiced. Business was still between people. Each offering something of perceived value to the other. It's no different today. Business is all about people. It's still about the same perceived value. It's for people, done by people. Over time we've given people labels. Employees, customers, vendors, partners. Step back and look at the 'why' of the business. The classic purpose. Look at it now from the leadership aspect of being human. The starting point would be self. Self-leadership. Reflect on how I am leading myself. In this there is no right or wrong. The decisions we take through our lives, at a moment in time, is right for that time. The analytical part of our brain feeds us a choice based on the data of our life experiences. Coupled with that our instinct also kicks in to provide another choice. This is the point where we end up choosing between listening to our instinct, soul, intuition or swayed by the data-based choice. The latter occurs as that's how we are conditioned. As a leader it's important to recognise the humanness in you. Simultaneously recognise that the other person too, has the same thing. As two humans you are coming from two different perspectives, with two different experiential bases, your viewpoints are going to be different. Being open minded to accept that both perspectives are right and then evaluating as to which one is more effective reflects out in behaviour. It's this behaviour which then has an impact on all that you, as a leader, meet. It touches all and ripples out. It's this bit that becomes the key communication. Behaviour is from habit. Habit is nothing but a pattern from one's beliefs. So being human helps you lead yourself better which results in your behaviour impacting and influencing what you want the others to do. It's the human side that connects. The issue on this is the word selling. There's a conditioning that has happened to that word. Through our formative years we've had a lot of stuff inputted which our brain arranges without us realising. When we do become aware of this what we are doing is creating a cycling lane next to a highway, as an analogy. It's how we observe our thoughts. In marketing there is a discipline quite extensively used nowadays called social selling. In that it's all about what the audience is feeling. It comes down to having insight into what the audience is feeling at the time when the brand communication is going out to them. In doing this it's all about understanding what the audience is seeking and serving that in that moment in time. It's usually a theme that can be related or connected back to the product of service. What that does is it helps to catch the attention and interest of the audience whose mindset is automatically seeking more information. When a brand continuously does this, it starts attracting this audience regularly and that's the start of a relationship. All of this is what comes through in the TripleM framework of Humanizing Business. Creating three key pillars of stories, data and content. The outcome of using the framework, for a brand, is that its marketing and communication gets a real human persona that makes the audience say, 'you understand me'. It creates reciprocity. Reciprocity is where leadership connects. Understanding people, having empathy and understanding the diverse perspectives.  All of this is summarised as experience. More specifically it's brand experience under which one has employee & customer experience, partner relationships, client account management and more. As an individual interacting with the brand you don't approach it in a silo. You feel the entire experience of interacting and using the brand.  This experience is impacted and affected...

Toxic environments are taxing. Specially so in the medical profession. Toxicity in the healthcare workplace, unfortunately, occurs far too much. Looking back during my trainee days, one experienced it in the surgical department, then in family medicine. Today as one looks back the realization occurred that this toxicity is a consequence of doctors not being trained in leadership in medical school. Positions of responsibility are thrust upon doctors and it comes down to managing people with the inherent set of inter-personal skills that one has. Such a scenario is quite common across workplaces. What most don't get is that there's a significant cost attached to this. Productivity wise it affects not just the individual facing the toxicity but the team around as all suddenly want to play safe, not make a mistake and generally the behaviour becomes one of walking on egg shells. A 2013 HBS study on incivility and discourteousness in the workplace showed that 48% of people who felt incivility and discourteousness reduced their work effort. 78% were quoted as saying it impaired their loyalty to the organization. 25% took out the frustrations on customers. Add to this others who were not directly in the line of such toxicity. It's not hard to imagine the cost of this to any organization.  In the medical profession this gets further compounded as doctors rely on the references to get into the next role. As a result of this many don't speak out. Ending up with presentism. Being there but not adding any value through individual contribution. This brings into focus the importance of teaching self-leadership. Learning to lead yourself teaches you about the impact of your behaviour on others. Being able to get this into part of the professional learning is one way of helping people to be more self-aware and about leadership. Adam can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dradamharrison/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dradamharrison/)

It's a defining point in one's life. It's a painful moment that leaves an everlasting impression of the experience felt. It changes who you are as a person after the event. Such an experience brings up questions about purpose.  Understanding the event is a defining moment is where one starts with regards to purpose. The question is does that experience define who you are as a person? It gives you two choices. One to become the victim and lose your path. The other is to take the lesson and decide to that learning into action. In discovering your purpose, it starts with understand what makes you, you. The way you've been designed. This goes into knowing and accepting your values and beliefs. In crucible we say the 'keys of your vision are in the ashes of your pain'. It points out what you really and truly enjoy doing. Picking that up and turning that into a career brings living your purpose.  Which will take your to craft your vision. Doing that, you need to be aligned with your beliefs and purpose and be very passionate about it. Simply put, your vision will become your driving force and matter to you as it's how you are delivering your purpose and creating impact.  Speaking of impact, its where you need the right people around you who help you to deliver. From a self, point of view, you have be in touch with your beliefs and values. From an external point of view, you discuss with trusted advisors like coaches, or close family members or a mentor to get a perspective. Doing this allows you to take a objective decision and drive the impact you wish to achieve. Warwick can be contacted at https://crucibleleadership.com (https://crucibleleadership.com )

Leaders leading under pressure is a much discussed topic currently. With the world under pressure leading through to getting back to some form of construct for business. What's the key when, as a leader, you're leading and are under pressure? Inspite of the best plans, things do go wrong. They do so because technology can play up, key people may have personal emergencies and not be able to be at work. Such unexpected gaps occur. What helps is the training and the experience one has in managing the pressure. In addition to the work related pressure leaders often have pressures from the social recognition they get for their leadership. A certain expectation is created about leadership performance.  The key here is to ensure that your mind is focused. Then the pressure acts as a driver of efficiency. It acts positively in one's performance. Being focused comes from loving what you do. It becomes a part of your self and what you do.  Pressure comes in different forms and it's about how, as a leader, you process the information and where you keep your focus. Focusing on the event helps ease the pressure. Inderjit can be contacted at inderjit.singh@aviationanalyst.net

What does trust mean in business? At a foundational emotive level humans react in the same way to the world. So, trust is actually an emotion. Lot of people think of it as a moral or ethics as it gets rationalised in that way. However, as a deciding factor it is an emotion. What this means is that trust is shaping our lives just as other emotions are also shaping our lives. The hint here is that emotions are very important in our social lives and so is trust because it is allowing us to create connection, cooperation and as a result of that collaboration. Trust is the social foundation of the magic of humanity. Whether they show that in their behaviour or not people want to be trusted. We are wired to trust.  The question is how much trust is too much? The reality is that there is a sort of balance that needs to be achieved. We seek reciprocity in our relationships, and it applies to trust as well. Trust is a very strong variable of influence, and it can be used in various forms.  Trust is a catalyst for change. It's the required ingredient in innovating, changing, and transforming. Trust here relates to our own abilities and in the abilities and competencies of others. As humans we are geared for equitable distribution. However, when you make it all about just an interaction then the equitable bit goes out. This is currently playing out in the global economy as we can see. As an individual we often think what difference can I make. This is where self-trust becomes important. The act of trusting ourselves can and does have a huge influence on the lives of people around us and we're not even aware of it.  Trust is a beautiful force of self-actualisation and the foundation of a fulfilled existence. Our emotions are very strong drivers and at times we don't even know or realise why they are driving us. Then there's rationalisation. With trust the rationalisation is about doing the right thing. Leading to being trustworthy. That's a cognitive process. Being trusted is an emotive process. Trust is not an absolute. It operates on a spectrum. Everyone starts a different point where trust is concerned. It comes down to balancing that feeling in relevance to the context of what one needs trust. Often, without realising, as people we are at the mercy of our emotions.  The new book 'Reset' is a story about how businesses can now be embracing a different scenario. It's about two types of companies. The type A kind of company who realises this is a moment of opportunity with regards to understanding there is an urgency driving important transformations. Where there's urgency these types of companies are making necessary changes and in 5-10 years these companies will be thriving. The other is the type B company. This type of company sees the pandemic as an inconvenience. Ending up doing the bare minimum to wait out and go back to what and how they were operating before. These kinds of companies are missing out on reinvention and delivering on innovation and transformation that they have been talking about. These types of companies will be seeing a drop all around in the next 5-10 years' time. Philipp can be contacted at https://philippkristian.com/ (https://philippkristian.com/)

What is strategy and does it differ with the size and type of organization? Speaking of strategy, the size and type of an organization does not impact on the strategy it has. The difference is how long it takes to design and implement the strategy. Strategy is the way to get to the vision. It's the priorities and focus areas that an organization manages on a daily basis in order to reach to its vision.  A commonality of strategy, across all types of organizations, for its leadership is the daily struggle of balancing the long-term goals with the situations occurring. Understanding if it's a crisis or a change that impacts the strategic plan and being able to be flexible in adapting accordingly. This is where leadership comes into play. Identifying the pathway that will take the organization through to its goal. What helps is perspective. In a large organization, as a leader, one might be in charge of a strategic project that's part of a 3-5 years of change. Giving one's best to ensure that project milestones are achieved well and trusting that the other interconnected projects will occur as well helps in keeping to the vision and the plan. Doing this involves empowering the team in order to ensure everyone gives their best. Getting this done involves clear two-way communication that's more of a conversation. Aimed at ensuring each person understands the value of what they do and how it helps another colleague. Once that understanding occurs it creates value to self in terms of the benefit of the daily tasks and work one does. Which results in motivation and impacts productivity and engagement. This leads us into understanding how purpose and profits connect.  For this discussion we'll describe purpose as solving an issue that society has. Be it individually or as an organization. Patagonia is a great example of leading through purpose. As an entrepreneur or a start-up, looking back at the need that birthed the business provides purpose. When purpose is lived and acted upon daily it becomes the culture and that brings in the profits simply because customers and clients relate and resonate with the purpose of that organization. Today business has moved or been pushed to address purpose from the ESG (environmental, social and governance) requirements. The large organizations are representatives of and for people and have to take this into account in order for investors to acknowledge their value. This shift is driving organizations to now be more focused on creating profits with purpose. Alex Brueckmann can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/company/brueckmann-executive-consulting/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/brueckmann-executive-consulting/)

There's a growing body of knowledge that recognises the interconnectivity of the mind and body. Many people spend a lot of time in their own heads thinking rationally, logically in order to deliver results and be happy. What one misses out in this thinking is the whole other part they can utilise. Simply because they aren't conscious about it. It holds one back. It's important for leaders to have their mind, body and spirit aligned so that one can act in the best interest of self. It's about understanding what is driving one's feelings and emotions. As that then drives the behaviour they show. We don't recognise that it's we, ourselves, who get in our way and sabotage ourselves. 20% of change comes through becoming aware and having greater consciousness. 80% happens through practice which helps to develop core mental muscles. Building mental strength helps us to intercept our hardwired mental response of flight, fight or freeze. Acknowledge them and let them go and then shift the mind to the sensation in the body. Taking it forward means being more empathetic with ourselves and then exploring and innovating around what are the options and ideas that we could use to help with the situation. Here's where we often mistake sympathy as empathy. Empathy helps you to have a positive feeling about yourself and move forward. Whereas sympathy is feeling sad or agreeing with your feelings. What is critical in understanding all of this is judgement. As humans our biggest saboteur is that we tend to judge. We judge everything starting with ourselves. Using discernment helps take into concern factors to look at the issue at hand. All of this stems from the mindset one has. A growth mindset enables one to be open or secure in being vulnerable to explore and move forward. Lesz can be contacted at https://www.lifelurn.com/ (https://www.lifelurn.com/)

A key issue amongst corporate professionals is that of self-leadership. Often led by ego they swing erratically and miss out on leading themselves properly. If one is unable to lead self then, as a leader, how can one lead others? To lead oneself there has to be clarity in terms of what one wants. It starts with who are you and what kind of leader do you want to be and what kind of life do you want to lead. It's absolutely necessary to have a strong vision for oneself. Without purpose it's hard to stay motivated and to be able to get up when knocked down. The purpose is the motivation to try and go forward. It helps knowing how one wants to be perceived as a leader. That then brings up the required behaviour which helps in creating that perception. The starting point is with defining self. Often professionals define their identity as their job function or designation. Which is not them as a person.  Two key behaviour traits help in defining oneself. Tenacity & grit which help one to stay focused all the way, through thick and thin, to reach their goals. Here it's important to remember that the body, mind and emotions are all inter-connected. What happens to one is going to affect the other. Starting with the words you use and the thoughts you have. Our thoughts and words translate into action which then shape your outcomes. The next is understanding and controlling your emotions. As humans we experience a range of emotions. When those are negative you should be able to recognise it as such and then cap the time on that emotion. Without that it has the ability to impact your action. Then comes movement or how you carry yourself. Posture impacts moods and thoughts. When one is mindful and aware of how posture plays and makes an effort to use the right postures, it impacts emotion and behaviour. With time this becomes a practiced habit that shows up as a behaviour. Try this quick exercise-- put your head down and talk about your week. Hear the tone of your voice and the words you use. Then do the opposite. Look up and repeat exactly the same words describing your week and hear the tone and the words. Hear the difference! Listen to this in exercise in the podcast. We can't speak the same negative words in a downcast tone whilst looking up simply because that's how our body and mind is wired. When we look down and speak, we are closing ourselves out. Whereas when we look up and speak, we're opening ourselves up. This is part of our body language. Doing this is actually connecting with yourself.  Lastly celebrate yourself. It can be as small as just giving yourself a piece of chocolate. Celebrate who you are and always reward yourself.   You can contact Elizabeth at https://lizleecoaching.com/ (https://lizleecoaching.com/)

People hold people accountable. Yet it's more of a checklist and not quality accountability. What does that mean? People try to show how effective a leader they are by being hard on the people they lead. Not realising they are never going to meet the goals of the strategic plan if people aren't buying in. People don't buy-in when they don't feel supported, understood, and appreciated. Certainly, holding people accountable is good but not in a way that makes people want to quit their jobs.  Most people at their jobs know what they are doing. If they are given certain parameters and allowed to do what one has to do to make it work, they are going to make mistakes. That has to be looked at not with malice but with the perspective what was the effort and intent in that activity. The reaction and feedback should be based on that. Leadership is giving everyone the same opportunities, treating them fairly and helping them succeed. It's about knowing your people and knowing them well.  From a leadership perspective it's about remembering the good leaders and what they did in order to be a better leader yourself. The flip side is bad leadership. If you approach that with a learning mindset you get to know what to avoid as a leader. Reflecting on your leadership helps understand that you're leading people. Understanding how you are leading yourself helps in knowing how you can get the best out of your team. With that comes the communication with regards to thinking about what and how your people will take the message and think of. That helps in judging your communication style and words accordingly. Focusing on communication to the middle management and spending the time on ensuring the message was communicated as intended helps in getting the team buy-in. You can find Chris at https://www.lighthouseleadershipservices.com/ (https://www.lighthouseleadershipservices.com/)

What's the correlation between high-performance sport and leadership in an organization? It's about being authentic and being yourself. Which translates as being honest and true with yourself. Related to that is the area of personal discipline around hard work, passion, drive and application. They all form the DNA. These can't be taught. However they can be improved upon. People can achieve goals provided they are honest in putting in the hard work to be the best version of themselves and not try be someone else. In corporate this comes through a lot as comparisons. All of which is in one's head. It's key to know how to be oneself. Simply because, be it sport or work activity, it has to be done by oneself without help from anyone else. Which means being able to know one's strengths in order to play well. That's the critical aspect. Being yourself and being true to your potential without comparing with others mentally.  Taking the analogy from cricket, as in going out to bat in front of a huge crowd, you are just you. All you have is your partner and yourself and the ability to leverage of that teamwork. However, at the end of that day when you get back. It's only you and the person you see in the mirror. Which is yourself. That's where accountability to self comes in. You know your game best and you know if you have really applied yourself and given it 110% through effort and application and committed to the opportunity. It's about taking ownership of what you do and don't do and being accountable for that. The learning from sport that really applies in corporate environment is in the focus. As a great leader you've got be focused on giving the credit to the team when things go great and when they don't take personal responsibility for that. The other learning is that of taking care of the process. Doing that ensures the outcomes are achieved.  Feedback is another area that helps performance. In feedback it's key to remember to accept all feedback and not to pre-judge. Then deciding which bits of the feedback to keep, which to discard and which to feed-forward. This last bit is about specific feedback around what they person wants to do. This is where opinions are cast aside and constructive inputs are provided on what one is working on so as to be of help. The key takeaway in all this is about knowing what is it that I need to be doing and knowing to be better, at what I do, each day. In this process the self-discipline aspect plays a huge role and is what can be taken from sports into corporate leadership performance.  Simon's details http://integrityvaluesleadership.com/ (http://integrityvaluesleadership.com/) https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Gaps-Simon-Taufel/dp/9389109256 (https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Gaps-Simon-Taufel/dp/9389109256)

It starts with recognizing that wellness is a journey in self-leadership. Asking oneself the question of how we are going to live our life. Understanding and appreciating our own strengths and weaknesses. Once one understands this, then comes the question, do we understand how we live a healthy life. It starts with having an open mindset and being a life-long learner. This is also an important part of being a leader of people. As a leader it's important to accept vulnerability. It's okay to not have all the answers and none of us do. The best CEOs can talk to anybody. To be human is the most important aspect of great leadership. Showing the sincerity through what one is doing. Expressing oneself authentically and vulnerability with it. When one shows how one is fitting in their lifestyle wellness program it goes a long way in encouraging others. That authenticity creates transparency and makes the leader seem human. When one leads through authenticity one creates an environment of trust. That engages and gets interaction and participation and helps in seeking solutions. Trust starts with trusting and believing In yourself. It then follows on to trusting and believing others. To be a great leader it's important to have belief in others. To be able to see the innate good that is there in each one of us.

When we focus on diversity often, we end up highlighting what's different between us more than celebrating the diverse perspectives that come through that diversity. Each one of us approaches diversity through our own cultural lens and experience. A way that's helped is through the cultural acclimatization sessions. These interactive sessions help people to share about their cultural experiences and learnings and in turn become helpful knowledge for people running cross-functional diverse teams. Learning about the differences is helpful in many ways. Such as punctuality. Keeping time on the dot is valued greatly by some. Whereas in other cultural setting being 10 minutes early or 10 minutes late is still being punctual. So, when you understand this, you're able to see the perspective through the lens of the other person's cultural make up. What this does is create an acceptance space to take on board other points of views and perspectives.  A simple act of wishing someone in their language creates a bridge of familiarity. As leader having self-awareness and humility helps in creating space for acceptance of diversity. One thing that helps in this is undertaking training in recognizing unconscious bias.  When we accept diversity, it helps business growth. Having the same lens or understanding leads to discovering common areas which leads to arriving at consensus easily. Most importantly senior leadership needs to be seen walking the talk i.e., showing acceptance of diversity through inclusiveness.  Lorraine can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorrainelee8/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorrainelee8/) View Live on Purpose and see its how you can best help others https://liveonpurpose.sg/ (https://liveonpurpose.sg/)

Alignment is key. Some companies do it very well. Some look at alignment at the start of a change and then assume that's done and in place. Yet from experience we know the latter doesn't work in practice. Many organizations approach alignment as telling their people about what they should be thinking. The common practice is getting the people to think the same way with regards to the mission and task at hand. The real challenge is about the alignment of action. If you can agree on where you're going, what does success look like and understand that, you can then agree on the actions you need to take as a team. This is key as everyone is coming and going in different directions. It's important to understand the individual difficulties in getting to a common point. That assistance helps in ensuring the actions line up towards the common goal. It's very important to appreciate where people are coming from in order to understand their state of mind and provide the assistance required. For leaders today it's critical to understand what their people are feeling. At different levels of a company the challenges are different and that creates a totally different state of mind. Understanding this, knowing how their team is looking at the challenges and the thoughts they have on it, helps leaders in creating the necessary alignment for the team to pull together as one. The other critical point about alignment to keep in mind is that: A) it's not binary B) it's not fixed There are degrees of alignment and it's momentary.  Alignment is foundational for any company, or clusters of groups of people, can achieve anything. The more one works on alignment the more one is bound to succeed. Not to mention it drastically reduces the benefit leakages and stress & frustration.  Leaders need to have patience, ask open ended questions and listen to the feedback. It helps bring out the challenges or obstacles and how those can be managed. Addressing those with positive suggestions creates the grounds for good alignment to occur. Today with the way technology is evolving there is a real opportunity to look at how do you implement and utilise technology to help leaders collect and organize opinions so that one can work on the areas where there's non-alignment.  Lesz can be contacted at https://www.lifelurn.com/ (https://www.lifelurn.com/)

The motivation for the book was the learning that senior business leaders felt quite lonely in the way they had to make decisions. The background research leading upto the book, showed that upto 30% of senior business leaders felt they were depressed. Following this up with the in-person interviews brought out specific stories that's captured in the book. A key finding was that senior leaders are often working across cultures and laws over various countries which impacts decision making and makes it complex. Whilst some leaders might be comfortable in discussing and arriving at a collaborative decision, the culture demands a more authoritarian approach of being provided the solutions sans the discussion. Another interesting finding was that the vast majority of senior leaders do not want to talk about this loneliness to their superior or company. This stems from the fear that it would not be favourably looked upon and could be detrimental to their career.  Sharing the personal story is to provide strength to others on how to be able to lead oneself. To be able to accept there is a problem and then seek out help is actually displaying strong self-leadership. Nick's personal story illustrates how the loneliness affects senior leaders and guides the reader to having the steps of taking action. The key message, for all good leaders is, be transparent and observant. Be willing to be vulnerable in order to create transparency and connectivity. Through that an important conversation might just happen which would be of help to an associate, a colleague or someone connected to you. To purchase the book go to: https://executivelonelinessbook.com/index (https://executivelonelinessbook.com/index) For more information about Nick go to: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-jonsson/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-jonsson/)

Lessons from the spiritual warrior-- The new book by Gary Hansel Everybody is a leader. Today leadership has come about to be more about mindset and attitude. Way back the classic older leadership style was about 'we don't trust you'! Leadership creates the environment that brings about learning. The more the people learn they grow. This is an aspect that shows trust. Trust that's reciprocal. It creates an energy that drives everything.  This energy is actually the thoughts of the people. How optimistic are they, how positive are they, how do they feel they are involved in the mission. Fear works in singular cases. Not always and we're not best under fear. We're not creative, open-minded or making the best decisions. We are just reacting. So leadership by fear brings a leader a very limited amount of the potential people have.  It's important for people to feel respected and to be made to feel involved. When this is in play psychological reciprocity takes place and in turn a leader gets respect. The new book highlights the awakening we humans are having. We're learning more and more what we humans are capable of.  We're learning about our inter-connectivity with our earth and people. That's creating a spiritual awakening.  Now leadership is no longer about control. It about allowing the flow to occur and to trust. It's what's resulting in hybrid work situation as well as in academia. It's bringing about more focus on the individual leader and on self-leadership. Self-leadership is believing in yourself and having the discipline to be true to yourself. Gary can be reached for book purchases at https://www.garyhensel.com/ (https://www.garyhensel.com/)

Good leadership is about self-leadership. One of the elements of self-leadership is maintaining a proper lifestyle and maintain one's health.  How did you get started into lifestyle medicine? Back in the day when I was mentally preparing to be the 3rd generation in the family business, I learnt that my father was harbouring a few diseases inside him! These are the silent diseases like high blood pressure. You don't realise they are there. This affected me and resulted in me making a complete change where my career was concerned. It brought home the purpose of wanting to lead people to thrive and have healthy lifestyles. In leadership having good health comes from understanding and living a healthy lifestyle. Doing that involves taking care of the body, mind and heart. Its what brings about effectiveness in leadership. It starts with understanding the value of taking time-out. It allows one to check in with self and actually do checks that help rejuvenate oneself.  A key check is about moving our bodies. Research has shown us this. For a leader you need creativity. One of the concepts is called divergent thinking. Researchers at Stanford studied this coupled with 20 minutes of walking and 20 minutes of sitting. The data shows that after walking divergent thinking goes up 60%. Other research show that we can get into the alpha or theta level brain activity after exercising. To get strategic and creative thinking going, as a leader, it's key to be exercising. The other key lifestyle input is to give yourself enough sleep. Sleep deprivation impact’s reaction time. So, appreciating sleep and giving oneself enough sleep impacts the body and mind positively. Sleep is foundational in one's health, happiness, creativity, and productivity. Leaders are passion and purpose driven. In order to keep those going it’s important for them to take steps to honour their own body, mind, and soul. Doing this everyday it becomes a question of what’s priority and how much time is is will I spend on that priority. So, it drives you to make time for it. Instead of reacting to everything that comes and takes up one's time. The last bit is creating social connections such that, as a leader, you mentor and grow people who carry your ideas forward. This takes energy and how one maintains that energy is what matters. Beth can be contacted at http://wellness-synergy.com (http://wellness-synergy.com) The Lifestyle Medicine Handbook: An Introduction to the Power of Healthy Habits can be purchased athttps://www.bethfratesmd.com/books (https://www.bethfratesmd.com/books)

The first thing in being a good communicator is to be able to listen. Truly listen, and not just listen physically, but with your whole body. In leadership listening with empathy is how you develop trust. When one notices a drop in the listening, or the leader's attention being occupied with something else, seeds of mistrust start creeping in subconsciously.  The fear of being judged the barrier that blocks active communication. When one is afraid of being judged, one doesn't want to share anything, and it leads to no communication. Research has shown that when leaders become adept at empathetic listening, they increase their performance by 40%.  What is empathetic listening? Empathetic listening goes a bit further than active listening as it includes the entire person. For e.g., observing the body language is part of empathetic listening by using one’s eyes. Then using one's heart to listen. Neuro linguistics shows that we listen through our hearts, ears, and eyes.  The importance of listening with your heart needs to be highlighted. It actually means feeling what the speaker is feeling during the communication. To do this it's necessary for us to become aware how we listen. For e.g., in a conversation, if one has an agenda and wants to make a point, then chances are one is not either actively listening nor being empathetic as the focus is on trying to speak one's point.  This is a key point of difference between great leaders and good leaders. Great leaders are able to use empathy to see the point of view of the speaker and use that to engage meaningfully. Thus, enhancing the communication.  A benefit of empathetic listening is that it often helps the speaker, who might be seeking answers, to find what they are searching for in that conversation. Having the skill to listen always helps. Especially in the circumstances we have all experienced. As a leader, cultivating this leads to better engagement and performance. Unfortunately though, it feels as if empathy is on the decline. It's coming about due to technology now being the primary means of communication, instead of physical person to-person communication.  When a leader practices empathetic listening, by physically giving time to team members, it helps create an environment of safety for those team members. That strengthens the relationship, impacting trust and performance as well as it making the person speaking, feel appreciated. 

When something bad happens we're always asking why it happened! Yet when something good occurs we spend truly little time exploring how and why it happened. When the Titanic sank there was the usual why and how. It came down to three key findings: 1. Everyone was convinced this was the best ship ever built that there weren’t enough contingencies. It was one of the reasons as to why there weren't enough lifeboats. 2. The command structure-- Neither the captain nor the next in command was out there looking out for potential risks. 3. Taking too much time to respond to the situation-- when finally, action was taken much of the catastrophe had occurred and all one could do was salvage the situation. This resonates a lot with how leadership in business is often playing out today. We are always overconfident of ourselves and we don't expect things to go wrong until they do. This is part of having a fixed mindset. Connecting this back to our talk on the eco-system, it's important to note that these three impacts the eco-system significantly. Whilst we know that having plans, processes and structure in place and running efficiently, we don't ensure the whole is ticking smoothing. It occurs due to the silo approach in each area stemming from leaders working independently and not connecting. To have a healthy eco-system, it's important to have that connect, because in a healthy eco-system everything is interconnected. In an organisational context, we end up seeing that we have too much of a fixation one thing. Taking the analogy of the Titanic, let's build the best ship. Yet nothing was mentioned about the capability of the crew! There was no focus on the capabilities of the crew as the ship was a state-of-the-art ship and the crew didn't have to do anything. However, since it’s the best ship, in an organisational setting, the people it attracted where the best people you could hire. The question of have them trained gets swept under the carpet since they are, individually, the best performers. Such linear thought process leads to failure as there are always limitations. Instead, if one were to look at it as a series of interconnected activities that create the whole, sort of like looking at a cobweb, where even if one or two strands break nothing happens to the entire web. Linear thinking makes us think or believe that it's only that one thing that can affect. However, reality is that it isn't so. It's a gradual build-up of various stressors and risks that culminates at a point in time in creating the catastrophe. So being attuned to the signs that come up and taking course correction and remedial measures is the sign of forward thinking or being open minded. Whilst it is not possible to factor in everything it is possible to be agile, in terms of mindset, i.e. being able to respond to a situation without getting flustered. This is a skill. In leadership this is often taken as a given. Creating simulations of potential crisis helps create a habit that helps leadership at a point in time when crisis occurs. 

The analogy here is from my son's aquarium. Whenever you have a fish tank at home, you'll notice that in the first month it looks beautiful and it starts looking really horrible after that. Every single month the tank has to be cleaned. As my son outgrew the tank in the house, he started using small aluminium basins to put the fish in and put them outside. The learning was that these little basins did not need that extensive cleaning that the tank required. When we extend this to the wilderness and the rivers, we see that there is no need for any cleaning unless us humans have messed the river up. Each of these have their own eco-systems. Starting with the fish tank which is more akin to us people putting in our efforts to maintain it on regular basis. Then you have the aluminium basins which is slightly easier maintenance and finally the natural environment where the eco-system runs itself.  In each of these you'll find that fish thrive. However, when you look at it from the perspective of effort that needs to be put in, just as in organizations managers and leaders have to do, to make sure the organization thrives and the employees are able to be productive, this becomes an excellent analogy to show what an effective eco-system really is. All three of them have their own eco-systems. It's just that they have different levels of intervention. This provides a learning. The tank inside the home is a controlled one where growth is only possible when externally provided. Whereas in the natural eco-system growth occurs with a purpose for that eco-system. From an organizational perspective the learning here is that one has to accept the fact that one can't control everything. By allowing people to do what they need to do and digressing here to add that as human beings we instinctively know what to do, there will be mistakes yet there will be progress and growth. It comes about from that same instinct whereas people we want to succeed. When we accept that things will occur and it might not be exactly in the way, as a leader, one had foreseen it and yet it's on objective then we begin to understand and create a natural ecosystem. Whenever people speak of eco-systems there's a misperception of that vis-a-vis culture. An organizational eco-system is a bit more than culture. Culture is the people piece and around it comes all the other components of skill, structure. If one is fiddling with anyone of these, one has to look at the effect on all components and take those into account. Our habit is to look at one thing and see if we can fix that. However, as an organizational eco-system its all interconnect and inter-related and it's not about fixing one thing but the sum of it all. An eco-system is not just the people. It's also the processes, systems, structure. All of these things together make up the eco-system. In an organization when we speak of an eco-system, lots of people put a humongous amount of effort into creating a right culture. And there is nothing such like a right culture. That becomes the problem. If a culture suits the organization based on its context, there will be systems, processes and people that suit the organization. Usually, we make this mistake of seeing someone else's eco-system and think that's working great there and will work equally well too.

Gerdi Verwoert is a self-leadership coach of busy managers and executives. She has a deeply felt connection with Nature, especially mountains. She helps people step into their self-leadership by helping them re-connect with themselves. Convinced that to be truly connected to oneself, you also have to be connected with Nature, Nature and mountains are an integral part of the work Gerdi does - both online and in the Great Outdoors. On this episode of Soul-Inspired-Leadership we dive into the importance of being connected with Nature. How we can benefit from this connection and why it is important when we want to be authentic people, authentic leaders in life and at work. Gerdi can be contacted at https://daregreatlycoaching.com (https://daregreatlycoaching.com)

The one thing that stands out between a high performing team and a non high performing team is relationships the team members have with each other and the trust they have. This dictates the performance and success of the team. There has to be strategy, tactics and tools used by the leader to ensure team performance. It's necessary to do this intentionally so as to ensure performance. Teamwork has to be a strategic priority. When a leader senses that a team member or two isn't really connected with the others what are some of the things they could do? One of Jason’s games is a set of cards that gets people to play simple question and answers. Asking each other 36 questions over 45 minutes and it leads to creating better understanding of each other. The key thing about trust is how you ask more vulnerable questions that allows people to share their personal experiences in a group because then other people see themselves in that person. What happens is that people focus on answering the questions or listening and they stop noticing the differences. That brings a stop to the made-up stories one has told oneself about the other person as they now have actual fact that they have heard from the person concerned. What this also does is help an individual to create a how-to-work-with-me manual by putting together questions the answers to which would help the person choose to work with the other. Given that we're all working remotely at the moment how do we connect better? Strategy is key. Recognizing how we are feeling, in the group sessions and in the one-on-one discussions, is key. In the pandemic disconnection creates loneliness. So reaching out an supporting the individual in a way that helps that individual is essential for a leader to do. A simple way to do this is to ask the group who helped whom in the past week for example and how. Hearing one say how the other helped creates a huge amount of emotional engagement. Being connected and feeling like one belongs are the key in having better connection between team members.  Understanding basic human needs and working on that helps in creating the conversations that get team members to build trust and connectivity. Having these conversations bring about clarity and transparency of goals and processes and fosters accountability and responsibility willingly. It helps the leader keep the team engaged, connected and motivated specially through such times and ends up creating the required performance. Contact Jason on https://jasontreu.com/services/ (https://jasontreu.com/services/)

Moral leadership is an emerging conversation in leadership. It ties up with conscious leadership. Which is around how self-aware are leaders? In other words, to what extent do leaders consider their motivations, their interests, their serving, their own biases, their own strengths and weaknesses and act in a more conscious way. The morality part comes from knowing that organizations prioritize the commercial aspect and yet leaders are expected to be guardians of good, ethical and sustainable decisions. Is it possible to balance these two forces? On one hand, as a leader, there's a responsibility to others by grooming them and developing them and most leaders get on board with this quite quickly. On the other hand there is the financial performance delivery that is expected from the leader. The consequences of these are quite significantly different. The former is within certain parameters of being seen to be a better or worse leader and it impacts only the leader individually. Whereas the latter impacts the individual's capability and career. It's much more visceral and it results in behaviour, from leaders, that ranges from being productive to extremely harmful. The people side of leadership has softer consequences whereas the performance consequences are much more intense. This is what makes moral leadership a bit tough. If we take a look at some of the corporate shenanigan's that are being highlighted, we can trace it back to the simple fact of people being under pressure, trying to deliver what is expected and not being the one left holding the can. That's where the morality part, as a leader, kicks in to actually lead and say unethical behaviour is not encouraged or supported.  The question then becomes where does moral leadership fit in? In some way’s organizations have to take responsibility for including a moral imperative in the way they act, they incentivize, and they discuss. What that does is that as a leader if I face this pressure the moral responsibility by the organization tells me that it has me covered and empowers the leader to do what is right. Business is more than money. Yet on the flip side it's the money that shows how strong the commitment from a corporation is to morality.  How does one help leaders to prioritize morality? It starts with having an extremely high level of trust and openness in a group for truth to be on the table. To get to morality there needs to prevail security and confidence in order to talk about it. To do that it's necessary to balance the personal development conversation with the commercial conversations and create a unified conversation that includes the commercial pressures.  A fair amount of balance and facilitation skill in creating and guiding these conversations is required. Simply because the discussion has significant impact on the future of any organization. Chris can be reached at:  info@chris-atkinson.co.uk  www.chris-atkinson.co.uk/ 

There often are, what we call magic moments, which in hindsight when we see them we realise they ended up derailing us. Can you share a bit on this? The main one is this whole perception of getting stuff done. Ticking off the tasks becomes a priority instead of focusing on the soft skills like interpersonal and collaboration. This actually makes one be off balance. It not only impacts the leader but everybody around them. One has to be intentional in taking time to look at the interpersonal relationship and the communication within that. Specially in this year where everything has been virtual. Communication has taken on an entirely new importance and there's more focus or spotlight on that skill. Two things one can foresee. One is that in 2021 we are going to go back into the workplace and through this year a lot of the conflict, with regards to not being able to get along with people we don't like, is going to come to a head because we have been working from home and that's been the excuse in not dealing with it. The second is that the virtual work is here to stay and we all have to figure out how to keep those relationships strong in a new way. We are all in a mentality of being in the survival mode. There's going to a time when we will have to be much more intentional about our workplace relationships. There's a positive and a negative in this as people come back to the workplace. The intentionality can be to serve oneself better or to actually be relieved that one is not stuck at home and therefore stay on in the workplace longer that usual. Rewinding a bit there's a bit about finding out what matters to you and not doing as others expect of you. This bit, of of am I making the choice or is the choice being made for me, came across over time. The realisation came that it was a bit of both. In hindsight it's great to see the courage and bravery one had in taking the transformative step. Whilst it was scary and extremely tough, it's truly beneficial to have made that change.  This is where having a coach really becomes very useful. As a coach helps you set time aside to simply reflect back and see if you are on course and if not what you need to do. Thereby creating or re-creating the intentionality.  Jennifer Chapman can be contacted at www.ambitionleadership.com

At Soul Inspired Leadership we speak with leaders who lead from within and let the environment reflect them rather than the leader reflecting the environment. On that note how have you taken the current environment and challenges as a leader? Having to work from home was a massive transition. Most of us have not worked from home before. It started with bringing the team together when we weren't physically together. Fortunately, everyone responded to the change quite well.  As a leader I continued leading the way I lead in a different format. Focused on connecting with people. Today we're more connected than when we were in office physically.  People appreciate being connected especially when one is working remotely, and that personal interaction helps.  This connectivity is an important point. In the office it's sort of taken for granted. Whereas using virtual formats one has to create that environment and feeling of being and getting connected. The key here is that we are now purposeful in making time and having more meaningful conversations.  Changing environment doesn't mean changing what you do. It means changing the context of how you do what you do. In coaching it's coming out that executives find their leaders more conscious about connecting. The social interaction, in connecting, adds a lot to an employee and it also means a lot. Understanding the social bit is key. It's not all work related but regular social conversations that help set the environment. It creates the added value of understanding one's wellbeing and health in all aspects. As a leader one works at it in terms of enabling this. This impacts efficiency and productivity.  As a leader how we encourage and model the wellbeing matters. It shows up in how we lead people and shows up in the team mentality. Looking at it collectively in terms of how we help and hold each other up. It’s key, as a leader, to look after oneself so that one has the mental strength and physical wellbeing to then help others.  Leadership is about leading yourself first. To be able to lead effectively one has to have the energy to do so. One has to build that energy level up each day and taking positive action for self helps in that. Self-nurturing is particularly important in self-leadership. Maintaining one's physical and mental wellbeing as well has having the self-discipline to do what good leaders do.

What do you mean when you talk about brilliant jerks? A billion jerk is somebody that is a high achiever. Usually very bright because they're brilliant in their area of expertise. They give big results for companies because they're very driven, but it causes a lot of turnover and stress in the company. It’s because usually they are interpersonally blind. When you get brilliant people sometimes, they just focus on the brilliance and that often tends to feed the ego. Making the behaviour worse. The question is do we do we run with the inputs of what they produce and what they do or do we go we need to sort this out. Sometimes they fire them because they have caused too much turnover, too many complaints about the employees. Sometimes their roughness even affects customer service. For example, there could be a heart surgeon that was very sought after and the hospital wanted very much to bring him in because he has such international aura. So, they bring him in and, indeed, he's a very good heart surgeon. But the nurses complain his bedside manner is horrible for example, so that could be a case. These brilliant jerks don't understand why people are complaining because it is their blind spot. So usually one needs to bring that perspective through caching. Saying we find that your approach is a bit raw with people and that too many people are leaving your department. So we propose a coach to guide you. At times they get offended. They think this is a betrayal here. It brings out two types of such people. One who is put off by having a coach. The other is where they get offended that they haven't got one. So when they're challenged then they don't actually want one. They just want the ego recognition of it. Then once you start showing them the areas within themselves they need to take a look at that's when they don't necessarily react to the case kindly. I had an English executive that I coached and he introduced me to all his office because having a coach was like a prestige item. I also coach a French executive and she would even take me around the office but never introduced me because then she would have to explain that she has a coach. So you have to see whether the company perceives coaches as a remedial or as developmental or as a perk and that also helps to know how this leader will receive you. I would say the brilliant jerks generally don't think they need it because they are high performers. Despite them being very brilliant there's an angle that they don't see and usually that angle is the interpersonal one. In the beginning you can ask them why do you think your I'm here? That’s to see if anyone has spoken to them about this issue. If the boss has spoken to them you can see if things have been clearly said or not. Sometimes it’s necessary to have a pre conversation that has not taken place. The other conversation is around the question of can this coach really help me or not? What I do is not tell them that they need to be coached. I just ask them what the reasons might be that I'm there. Through that I get awareness. Then is there negative information that might be deterring them from the career. That is in the organization. If they don't know I could propose to do some research work for them how they're perceived. What would make the relationships more productive and then see if they still want to do a coaching or not? They're usually a high-powered individual and very smart so I let them make a decision but I guard the objectives. It's critical to get the feedback because sometimes it's a surprise and other times expected. It just depends who it is and how they perceive the world as you rightly mentioned before I think that sometimes they know they're creating havoc, but they think their ability they can get away with it. It's one thing to be aware. It's another to actually change your behavior to something more productive because there is a certain type of behavior that made them very...

This series is where I discuss various aspects of leadership. All leaders are managers. Yet not all managers are leaders. Managers who aren't leaders manage processes. In essence you gather that information from subject matter experts, collate it and put that together. The next step for a manager is then to implement. This is where the issue of leadership starts. The desire for those people to produce what they need to produce in order for you to actually put it together as a strategy or plan won't be as strong because you're not influencing them as a leader would.  Let's start here. You have a strategy. You have everything built up all nicely. Now what you need to do next is to have that strategy implemented in the most effective way. This is where the difference between being a leader or being a manager occurs. When a manager wants to go from point A to point B vis-à-vis a leader who wants to do the same but in the most efficient effective and speediest way. So, my analogy with the Mercedes. In business the petrol are the people. Using the high-octane super fuel or in other words the right people and mapping the closest freeway to the destination is equivalent to motivating the people creating the environment for them to operate in a good way. A manager simply manages that process and is not focussed on the people. It just wants to get from point A to point B. It’ll never get there as quickly and, in some cases, won't even get out of the driveway due to lack of leadership. Whereas a leader organizes the people and implement things. Without implementation It's like leaving the Mercedes in the driveway. Implementation by influencing people is what separates leaders from managers.

Warwick Fairfax is the founder of Crucible leadership. The firm guides leaders and companies in turning business and personal failures into the fuel for igniting a life of significance. Fairfax was only 26 and a fifth-generation heir to the media empire bearing his family name. He led and lost a multibillion-dollar public takeover bid resulting in company founded, by his great-great-grandfather, slipping away from family control after a hundred fifty years. This incident led him to examine not only his shortcomings and losses but also his life principles. How did you find yourself at that that moment after it all fell over? My dad died an early ’87. He was in his 80s at the time and launched a $2 billion takeover to ostensibly bring the company back to the ideals it was founded on. Things went wrong from the start. Other family members sold out in the Oct. ‘87 stock market crash. By the end of ‘87 we had an unsustainable level of debt. Australia got into a recession at the end of 1990 and the company went under. Coming back from this was tough. One of the challenges was that my whole sense of self-worth and identity was wrapped up in the family business. I felt like I let my dad and family down. Felt I had created friction within the family. In my mind what made it worse was the comparison with the founder of the business. I felt like I had let everyone down. The question then was what am I going to now? A former media Moghul who is unemployable. Ironically, my faith helped. From my perspective, I believe God loves us unconditionally. He doesn't need stuff from us. I think, we're all I created beings and so we have intrinsic worth in ourselves. That's an important Paradigm for me. Having a loving wife and kids helped tremendously. Little by little I was able to do things. I got a job at a local Aviation Services Company in Maryland doing financial and business analysis. From there moved on to executive coaching. Then I got on to non-profit boards in my church and the kids private school board. From there eventually ended up in Crucible leadership. It was a journey. It was the validation step by step finding my path back and gradually rebuilding a sense of self-worth. What actually started to help you move forward? Part of it is just forgiving yourself. I mean, we all make mistakes mine would just like really public and on the front page and I guess most of us don't have that. Part of it too is I'm pretty hard on myself. I think a lot of us are but realizing like I was 26 at the time. How do you then move forward from forgiving yourself? How do you get out of that sort of headspace where you think ultimately you want to find a reason to get up in the morning? What is something that I can believe in? For me, it was was a long process. Eventually Crucible leadership occurred, I had to give a sermon so I went with this. What was amazing is that somehow my story seemed to touch people. Who, weeks and months, later said, your story really helped me by being open and vulnerable. So that really was a huge shift in my thinking. I began to write a book, blogs, and podcasts. Focused on Crucible leadership and using your pain for a purpose. We have Beyond The Crucible where we hear all sorts of stories from the abused, to Navy SEALs paralyzed and people losing a business. As we say, you're living a life of significance, which means a life on purpose dedicated to serving others and it's something that like is rooted in your own values and beliefs and what you think is important then it's it makes it easier to move on you forgiving yourself, but you're pursuing something in life that you're passionate about that in some ways helps other people. There's something about that focusing on helping others. When you go back to the young Fairfax 26 years of age taking over the media conglomerate, what's the difference in purpose there? We were talking about that shift earlier. A lot of people get caught up in...

In part 2 of the podcast we move on to the topic of being authentic and true to self. How do you see this with people who are struggling and stuck in a bit of a bind as to where they are and starting to realize where they need to be or want to be? Very often in the corporate world we have an idea that as a CEO or a senior leader you've got to be a certain way. Take charge, no-nonsense, confident, know everything, appropriately dressed, not hair out of place with a plastic smile. Pretend you know everybody’s name and make sure your assistant knows the birthdays and all. I think part of authenticity is very scary. To be yourself, to throw off the plastic marks, and they reject you. That's so scary as it’s like they're rejecting your soul. It's funny actually . On our podcast Beyond The Crucible we had this youngish guy, maybe he's just turning 40. He wrote this book the millennial whisper. His hypothesis is that Millennials are looking for authenticity in a lot of senior folks. the people that don't want to lose the Next Generation and what do they want? They want authenticity. They want transparency. They want vulnerability. They don't want the plastic smile. They want you to actually want a relationship with them enough to know the names of their spouses and what they like to do for fun on the weekend. I mean, they're craving authenticity. So there's a huge amount of pressure from the young up-and-coming employees for authenticity. It's one of the reasons why people keep talking about it. Senior leaders can be extrovert or introvert. They can be studious and intellectual. They can be in all shapes and sizes all backgrounds all personalities, but you know just be who you are because people are more likely to follow you. It does take courage. It's that brave leadership aspect. There's only one soul and that provides you the consistency and balance. It doesn't change. It’s your head that changes things based on what's going on at the time and who you need to please the most. That leads to inconsistency of leadership. One of the things that people hate is the inconsistency of leaders. That’s authenticity that's why the craving for it because it creates consistency. It creates balance in leadership. One of the things we find in Crucible leadership is you can't sometimes control what happens. An example on my show recently, was a navy SEAL getting paralyzed from a training accident. In this particular case it took him a long while to bounce back in terms of his emotional and spiritual side. He ended up overseeing a vets Clinic where they had some of the latest technology in mirroring to help vets to get as much movement as possible. So, it was some purpose to that. Our life weaves in many ways. And we just need to look at the positive aspects and how we can best contribute. Warwick can be contact at: https://crucibleleadership.com/ ( https://crucibleleadership.com/)

Jodi Hume has made a name for herself facilitating complex leadership conversations with for hundreds of growing entrepreneurs and companies throughout the US Europe and Australia working with countless organizations including Exelon, John Hopkins, and Teach for America. Judy works one-to-one with a small number of clients and is always looking for ways to make better leaders and become more involved. Jodi also looks for ways to make more space for leadership conversations in the community. Towards that, she facilitates round table conversations for entrepreneurs and each week co-hosts a podcast called ‘Here’s My Story’—a podcast that showcases real business stories. You can also find her at the mic as lead singer of a band ‘The Waffles’. You talked about being honest and in your podcast, you talk about stories that honestly bring out leadership and the elephant in the room. Could you expand on that? Honesty's a funny word. Sometimes people just assume you mean honesty as opposed to dishonest. Like lying. The tagline of our show is ‘real honest business’ and it really pairs with the real and it is a fine line between the two because you can't just blast into a room and say all the things without any amount of consideration or diplomacy or tact. But I think the other end of that spectrum also gets shaved off far too much where there are all these weird sort of leadership platitudes that have developed over the years that are not only problematic, but I think they're damaging to the person and the organization. Like where leaders feel like they have to know everything, or they have to have all the answers first. I've had clients say, oh, I don't like asking for help, and I always have to stifle a giggle. My view is that leadership is literally an act of coordinating help. That's what leaders do. Leaders are not top-notch individual contributors. Of course, that's often how they get there. What is weird is this, ‘I should figure it all out and then let my people know’ perception. It’s not only stressful, but it also diminishes the development of those people who aren't getting the opportunity to think through things plus it's harder to keep them engaged. There's just a long list of things where I think leaders struggle to know: how much to share; how much to call out the elephant in the room, and how to do it in a way that doesn't cause more problems than good. I acknowledge that it's tricky. But too often the answer becomes – ‘Well, I'm just not going to have that conversation’. It’s either all or nothing. It’s either a tell all or a do-nothing, say nothing situation. This occurs because people say well, I don't like conflict. By not having this first initial conversation you are actually laying the groundwork for greater conflict in the future when it again arises because it has not been addressed. To me it's like saying well, I don't like getting cavities filled. So, I'm not going to floss my teeth. Well, I think it's exactly the same thing because these initial conversations are akin to flossing your teeth. If you do all the flossing, you don't end up with the cavities. Taking a bit more time to do it properly and then you're solving any potential problems. I think it's the time people imagine. I found my way to the facilitation part of the work that I do through being in weekly leadership team meetings of an Architecture Firm where I spent 17 years. It was an interesting place. But in those meetings, I would watch them and observe what they were doing. I remember this one very distinct time whilst facilitating, the two principals of the company thought they had just made a decision. One was talking about a project. The other was talking about one of our employees. They both thought they had just made a decision and had an agreement on an issue. So, they would have both walked away from that conversation thinking that they had agreement. Then when they enacted those things the other one would have been...

We're speaking with Jennifer Buckley who owns Jen X Enterprises and Breaking The Ice Consulting. She is an audio impactor and holistic consultant. She ditched a structured self-will corporate company for her new mission in life pursuing a life of freedom and self-authorization in order to help others Break Free of their own Illusions and lead a truly authentic life.  Jennifer's has a lot of experience in the entrepreneurial space in building and scaling multiple businesses from scratch and she's an expert in sales. She loves leadership and having a culture friendly company where everyone enjoys themselves. She's a dedicated self-development practitioner and a soul shifter.  What is your take on self-leadership being important to leadership? Essentially what it means to me is that we have enough desire to lead a team or lead a family. Whatever it is that we're leading the first and foremost thing we need to do is have enough awareness that we are important too as leaders. So, having a sense of self-importance is sort of step number 1. If we're not taking care of ourselves, and this is more of that inward stability, if we're not able to harness our self-importance and work on our self, on a regular basis then how are we going to be that example to others? How are we going to be able to swiftly move through those obstacles that come up and the problems and the concerns that other people have in order to be able to get them through to the other side? Or to just create your own energy.  In order to have high energy, as a person, you've got to have that foundation built and that is certainly a soul inspired type of scenario. You're connecting your spirituality, your soul, your consciousness with that human experience of being able to iterate life. If you're in a leadership role this is more important than ever. It is able to do that in practice.  So, what you're saying there is that focus of getting the best out of people as that's the leader's role.  This brings in the concept of behaviour. People recognize us not so much from the standpoint of intelligence or intellect but from the behaviour you display as a leader. People are going to model their own behaviour after what they're seeing from their leaders. If a leader has a short fuse, then they're creating an environment for their people to act the same way. As a leader by being centred and being very intentional your behaviours are going to show rock solid foundation. People look at that and start modelling their own environment after it because they believe that's the expected behaviour. As a leader you want to get results from your team. You want their behaviour to have direction. When you create an environment through the core values, through the culture itself, that sets the rules dictating behaviour. It results in the correct behaviour that you want your team to show. Getting to know this was by educating myself on the skill sets of leadership. One of my biggest heroes of all time is John Maxwell. I was around 25 years old and working at a car dealership as a salesperson. I also had my degree in criminal justice and was interested in police administration. I was at a yard sale and saw John Maxwell's book on 21 laws of leadership. Thinking this might come handy in if I want to be in administration someday, I picked it up and fell in love with the concepts in those laws. It actually became a textbook for my team leader meetings that I had every week with my team leaders. I took each one of his laws and created a little lesson out of it.  Its what people say and do in the workplace that matters. We're humans. As a leader you've got to be constantly looking for ways to get better so as to to have the behaviours that your team starts picking up on. You wanted to be a good leader. Therefore, you did the things that make you a great leader. You talk about developing people with the concept of leadership and...

Branding requires leadership. One can start or have a company with great products or services and doing well in the market. But a brand can be nebulous or inconsistent and it really requires a top-down perspective to define what is it that ties all the products, the people behind it together and what the brand stands for. So that the people on the other end, who are receiving the messaging and using the products or services have a clear understanding of what and who the brand is. A brand is a reflection of its people and the people reflect the leadership they have. For larger companies, the challenge is that there are multiple stakeholders and brands. Which results in having a lot of things to align. When dealing with multiple people managing multiple brands, for a company, alignment is really challenging. Simply because people have different perspective. It's a two-fold exercise. You have leadership, you have employees which form the corporate brand, then you have product and service brands. The products and service brands have to be congruent with the corporate brand. It's the congruence that brings about the extent of success. The leadership is what sets the tone for what the brand is. Be it a large company or a small one. The brand then sets the tone for what the product and services will be and how the company will act towards their community. It makes leadership very critical. For small and medium sized business who have been operating for the past 20 years or so, often have their founding members involved. This has an implication on the leadership, as how these founding members have run the business and projected the brand has shaped their success how the brand and its products and services are perceived. In such situations there's a lot of emotional attachment involved being the founders.  Similarly, with larger companies there is an emotional attachment with the way the brand is portrayed and communicated. Leadership plays a key role here in leading the necessary brand output objectively and for the benefit of the brand. It's always good to work backwards by starting at the touch-points the brand interacts with its constituents and understand what is it that the people need. Connecting that to messaging and the brand story helps to see what is necessary. Keeping the communication tight and clear is where leadership plays a critical role to ensure the team have the clarity of marketing objective and the brand's purpose and being able to connect and deliver on it. Three key things to keep doing daily to make a brand compelling and engaging requires leadership, focus and clarity of message. Susan can be reached at https://www.susanmeierstudio.com/ (https://www.susanmeierstudio.com/)

We are soulful beings having the human experience. Sometimes there tends to be a conflict between the head and the heart. Which, if one were to go in a bit deeper, is about who we are as souls, housed in our human bodies that are not everlasting, In our humanness we have the need to survive, and protect ourselves and the experience of fear. For many of us in the leadership space we don't have the physical threats anymore. Leaving aside this pandemic which has brought about a significant physical threat. So, what happens is that our identities tend to step in and say 'I'm going to watch out for these threats and keep you safe from those.' What that does, is make us bump up against these fears that bounce off our humanity as we attempt to express ourselves fully. That's where the conflict with self often happens. Leading to getting stuck in one's own mind or the head space. It's not just about the conscious awareness but more about what the subconscious awareness and thinking is. This is where the primal survival instinct kicks in which then relies on our life experiences of what has worked, and we try use those to move ahead.  Leaders are often defined by their success and the ways they achieved it and stick with that. What this does, is it stops the individual from evaluating the risk objectively. Great leaders successfully cross that bridge between their inner self and their conscious thinking to take calculated risks to achieve success. They are comfortable stepping into the unknown because they allow themselves to be guided from within.  That is being authentic. Authentic leadership is often misunderstood by leaders as being themselves as seen by others. In other words, it's a version of themselves as perceived by the outer world which is what leaders hold in their conscious awareness. Instead of actually being driven from their heart and guided by their soul. This is the biggest challenge people face to become better leaders. Once leaders are aware of this and are able to traverse comfortably between their inner self and conscious awareness or, in other words, bring about situational leadership, they become relaxed, comfortable, and grounded. They are then able to deal with anything as they keep their consistency and balance. This is a cycle of crossing back and forth. Many leaders think that what's required is to do what it takes to get to the leadership role and that's it. There's a feeling like I've fixed myself. But that isn't it. We're constantly bumping up against our humanity. Having the awareness of recognising our thoughts and feelings enables one to then engage with some tools or strategies to confront and work through it. A tool that is extremely helpful is simply recognising the situation one is getting out of, being where you are. Doing this involves digging deep and seeing what the benefits are such as the need to be self-righteous and making other people feel they are wrong for oneself to feel good. These, in their own way, become limiting and needs to be worked through and changed. (More on this can be viewed here: https://spencersnakard.lpages.co/masterclass2018replay/ What helps is being aligned with who you really are and knowing what you are here for or, in other words, being noticeably clear about your why and your values.  Remember who you are know that you are a divine magnificent being. You are perfect and whole as you are. There's nothing missing, nothing lacking and nothing wrong or broken that you need to fix. You are perfect exactly as you are. Remember that and everything else that you feel is not working simply melts away.

There's this perspective or view in modern leadership that the old style of leadership is all about command and control and that the modern style of leadership is all about empowerment. This concept of empowerment is something that the military has been practicing for quite some time. The decision-making power has to be delegated as depending on the situation, the person on-the-ground is best equipped to make the decision. Developing this ability, in the military, is through scenario training. The other point is that leadership is shown through your behaviour. It's dependent on the way you lead by the example you set. In the military you can't have a difficult conversation about fitness if you're not fit yourself as a leader. That undermines your authority. Which leads on to an area on corporate leadership where there's a view that teams work for the leader whereas actually it’s the other way around. Here's where a mindset change is required where, as a leader, you're thinking about how to set your team up for success and how do you remove the obstacles they could or are facing. The modern leader has to quickly understand the context. Evaluate the situation and then work out what the team needs to be doing. This is the point where control comes into play. Do I give control to my team? Or do I retain it for myself? Really good leaders have a sense of where they naturally are on this spectrum and then act accordingly. In the process creating an environment for learning. Which brings to fore the necessity of going deeper into a situation that might look like a failure. In the corporate world there's truly little of that. This is where there's value in the debriefing process. In the corporate world leaders are afraid to admit there's something going wrong. A debriefing process provides a number of values. Knowing that performances are going to be challenged and getting pointers on what could have been done better being two key ones. The flip side is to look at a debrief when things have gone really right and the team's hit the nail on the head. There are immense learnings from that. Digging underneath the surface to know what was done and how was it done brings out what was done differently. Understanding that helps all to learn from it. Learning from your wins is very important. Today behaviour in leadership matters. Impacting on behaviour can be done in a number of ways. One way is bringing it out is to identify who provides inspiration and connect what that person did, as behaviour, to the inspiration felt. Then look at the other side or what's awful leadership like. What this does is bring out how the leaders actually see good leadership from their perspective. What this exercise does is that it shifts people's thinking. Taking this further into how, as leaders, we interact with our people creates an experience. The empowerment motivates and results in transferring the experience out as the customer experience which impacts business earnings and performance.  in leadership what's hardest is the first step. Where the individual's expertise and team capabilities move him or her up to be a leader. That becomes a totally different job. Starting from having people who were team mates now being people who work for the leader. This is where leadership standard and competencies get set.  For organizations that are looking for an edge they need to work out how to recruit people who have the right attitude fit as then these are the talents that can be adapted and groomed to be great leaders.  Roderic can be contacted at www.leadershipforces.com (www.leadershipforces.com) roderic.yapp@leadershipforces.com (mailto:roderic.yapp@leadershipforces.com) https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodericyapp/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodericyapp/)