Engaging People, Powering Companies - The Leadership Podcast

Episode 108: The Power of Mindset

Have you noticed how much easier it is to deal with the challenges of work when you come back from holiday as opposed to how you felt before you left? Nothing else changes except the mindset we bring to our work. When we get a chance to reflect and recuperate, it can have a massive impact on our outlook and our resilience. Mindset is the secret ingredient that allows us to make the most of opportunities and to help us be more optimistic. How do you develop your mindset to help you achieve more a...

Episode 107: Developing Entrepreneurial Skills and Mindsets

We hear so often how the world is more VUCA/ BANI/TUNA/ RUPT - take your pick, but the point is that it's far more complicated to allow organisations to embrace a deliberate strategic approach, resulting in confusion over the long-term direction. It's now harder than ever to think beyond 12 months, with the changing environment around us. If established organisations are now having to go back to embracing an emergent strategic approach, shouldn't we be looking to develop the skills of leaders an...

Episode 106: The Power of Conviction

Have you ever experienced a moment in your life where you knew what the outcome was going to be, you could see it, taste it, and you were in no doubt what it would become? Having such a strong power of conviction allows us to move forward from the natural state of fearing change, fearing uncertainty, and fearing losing what we have as we strive to achieve more. Sometimes, our internal narrative can be our biggest blocker. When we develop such clarity over what we're looking to achieve, it can so...

Episode 105: Spotting and Eliminating Toxic Micro-Cultures in an otherwise Positive Organisation

A company reputation matters. Those organisations that have a reputation for a great culture will attract people because of that culture. But that reputation could blind us to the toxic micro-cultures that may exist, resulting in people suffering in what should be a great culture. What can leaders do to uncover these toxic micro-cultures? What causes these cultures to develop in the first place? Join Amrit as he explores this topic in this week's podcast.

Episode 104: Are you Motivated Enough to Improve Productivity and Performance Across Your Organisation?

This week we're facing into the hard truth of whether senior leaders and CEOs are motivated enough to improve productivity and performance across organisations. Doing nothing can actually pay off. Many senior leaders will get their bonuses, and one could argue, they are almost being incentivised to maintain the status quo. But across every organisation, everyone knows those areas that need improvement or require attention, which will improve productivity and performance, but nothing is being don...

Episode 103: Managing Ineffectiveness

Welcome back! Now that the summer is over, and we hope you have enjoyed time with family and friends, having rested, we hit September with the enthusiasm of starting the new year like we do after a Christmas break. This quarter is critical to many businesses so it's important that we are being as effective as we can possibly be. A specific request from a listener this week about a manager who is making her feel alienated from the team, and managing poorly. She has sent through a request for Amri...

Episode 102: How Much Are You Using Your Intuition at Work?

How much are we relying on data to make important decisions? Data is critical, but in our quest to process data at an exponential rate, to the extent that we need to rely on AI to provide us with insights, are we missing a critical human component? What ever happened to 'gut feel' or instincts? Have you ever had a moment when the data all pointed one way, but your gut told you to go another? What information did your brain have to make you consider the alternative path? Join Amrit as he explores...

Episode 101: Time and Urgency

Details of Oliver Burkeman and his book: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/ Details of out YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@and-evolve/videos

Episode 100: Celebrating our 100th podcast

Here at &Evolve, we've been running our podcast over the last three years, hoping to provoke thought, to consider how we can improve the world of work and improve the lives of everyone, whilst at the same time improving performance and productivity. With our special 100th episode, we wanted to do something different. This week Amy Billings, and Carole Castle from the &Evolve team who help support our clients, will be guests to share their thoughts all about leadership and cultures, shari...

Episode 99: Developing Wisdom

We have a real treat for you this week. To support you in your quest to develop greater wisdom, we have our accompanying digital Reflective Practice Journal which you can download immediately after the podcast, using the following link: DIGITAL REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

Episode 97: Succession Planning - Preparing for the Exit of the Baby Boomers

How many Baby Boomers make up your organisation's senior leadership team? Are you prepared for them to begin retiring? Whilst they may not all choose to, in the U.S. alone, 2024 is going to see the largest population of people in its history, celebrate their 65th birthday. In the U.K., the baby boomer generation make up almost 25% of the population. How prepared are our organisations for when they retire? Have we got robust succession plans in place? Is hiring externally always of value? Join Am...

Episode 96: Understanding Gen Z

Welcome to a special episode of our podcast where we delve into the intersection of social media, expectations, and stereotypes within the workplace for Generation Z professionals. In this episode, we explore how social media influences the way Gen Z approaches work and relationships within their careers. We'll discuss the unique expectations Gen Z brings to the workplace, from a desire for purpose-driven work to a preference for flexibility and authenticity. We’ll also address common stereotype...

Episode 94: Breaking the Caste - Creating Inclusive Workplaces

What drives discrimination? If the colour of someone's skin is the only reason, how did the holocaust happen with Nazi Germany creating a 'Master race'? What then do we make of the caste system in India, where some people born into castes are considered untouchable, where their very touch could pollute another? Is race a version of a systemic caste system where humanity has artificially created superior groups and inferior groups, putting in place structures to perpetuate this very notion? Despi...

Episode 93: Flexible Working and the Hybrid Ceiling

Just when you thought companies had adapted to remote and hybrid working, Boots announces that all their employees must come back into the office five days a week. The reason? Because they felt remote and hybrid working was having an impact on their culture. Cultures are made up of the values we hold most dear. What are the values driving Boots? Are companies making decisions aligned to their values? And for those who choose to work remotely, what impact is this having on their chances of career...

Episode 92: Are You Communicating to Your Employees Like Investors?

Have you noticed how when companies have had a fantastic financial performance, they share the great news, but then tell employees they cannot invest in any additional resources because they just don't have the budgets? It leaves employees confused about the decisions being made, and questioning where all the money is going to? Leaders are working in a different time zone to employees, and if this isn't taking into account, it can cause disengagement, rather than driving engagement. Join Amrit a...

Episode 91: Leadership - Power and Hypocrisy

Is it inevitable that power will corrupt? Is this something we need to accept as the frailty of the human condition, that as soon as we achieve powerful positions, corruption is inevitable, irrespective of who you are and your benevolent intentions? Whilst power tends to corrupt, could power attract those with pathological tendencies acting like a magnet, only enhancing and magnifying what already existed in those people? What can companies do to protect those positions of power from those looki...

Episode 90: Values, Identity and Our Best Performance

How much does your reputation matter to you? Obviously, we don't want people around us saying horrible things about us, but for some people, that can matter far more than for others. How important is reputation to those best performers? What role does having a clearly defined identity play in helping performance? It turns out, quite a lot. Our Values and Identity play a pivotal role based on the experiences of authors of a new book 'Learned Excellence', findings we can all apply to improve our o...

Episode 89: Are Your Employees Living in Poverty?

Would you know if your employees were living in poverty? What signs would you see? Would a drop in performance towards the end of the month be something you would ever associate with poverty, questioning whether some people are rationing food because they have no more money? This might sound extreme, but with the findings from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighting how millions of employees are living in poverty, what does this mean to the role of the employer? Join Amrit as he explores thi...

Episode 88: the Post Office Scandal - What can we learn?

Many of us will have watched the documentary called 'Mr Bates vs The Post Office', which showed the way sub-postmasters were treated after the roll-out of a new computer system which started to show hundred of sub-postmasters having huge gaps in their takings. Instead of questioning the system, the default of the senior leadership team was to blame their people. Not just blame, but to pursue criminal prosecutions and convictions, which were based on errors. Lives were wreaked, lives were lost, y...

Episode 87: Stop Doubting Yourself - Imposter Phenomenon

Despite all the experience you have across your career, do you find you doubting yourself? Do you suffer from Imposter Syndrome? Are you afraid of being 'found out'? You are not alone. Many of us suffer from this and for those in senior positions, it could go on to impact on the culture. How can we overcome this and what could we do to improve how we feel? Join Amrit as he explores this in this week's podcast.

Episode 86: The Value of Work is the Value We Give it

How often do you sit there on Sunday night thinking 'I really don't want to go to work tomorrow'? As winter draws closer, the thought of work on a Monday morning may fill some with dread. But whilst most of us think work is a means to an end - if we could find another way of earning a living, we would, could work mean something completely different? What if work just happened to be an avenue for you to positively touch the lives of the people you come into contact with? How would this change how...

Episode 85: Multiculturalism and DEI&B

Episode 84: Developing Leadership Open-Mindedness

Have you ever been accused of flip-flopping? When we think of leaders, we often have images of strong, charismatic individuals who are clear visionaries, with the ability to immediately know where to go and how to get there. Whilst this applies to some very exceptional people, the world is full of great leaders who are more open-minded. When being open-minded is a great predictor of workplace success, engagement and innovation, isn't it more important that we focus on developing this critical sk...

Episode 83: Embracing Personal Uncertainty and Change Whilst Being Our Best at Work

How is your home life? Perfect and all unfolding the way you planned it out? I suspect not. Whilst there's a huge focus on employee experiences and employee engagement, we can often forget the human beings experiencing life outside of work, trying to cope with the uncertainty life throws at us, and the constant change we are having to deal with. This week, Amrit shares his own challenges over the summer that made him reflect on how hard we can be on ourselves, trying to control things we cannot,...

Episode 82: Stop Blaming Gen Z

How many times have you heard the word 'entitled' when people describe Gen Z employees? What's so different about this generation than any other, that they can't seem to handle work? Well, maybe there's nothing wrong with them, and it's our work we need to fix. How supportive are our workplaces to those aged 18-24 years? Have we got lazy with job descriptions and recruiting the right fit, only to use Gen Z as our scapegoats? Join Amrit as he focuses on Stop Blaming Gen Z's in this week's podcast...

Episode 81: Challenges of Promoting from Within

Many organisations are focused on promoting from within and whilst there are huge benefits, promoting someone to manage the team they were part of can be a huge challenge. The balance of still being friends, whilst managing performance can in itself cause problems and damage the very trust that underpinned those relationships. What can organisations do to better support newly promoted colleagues who are now managing the team they were part of? Join Amrit as he explores this topic.

Episode 80: Trust in Leadership

Following the report from the Institute of Leadership, the Index of Leadership Trust 2023, trust in CEOs was shown to be lower than trust for line managers. Despite the millions spent on employee engagement each year, what are organisations, and more importantly, CEOs doing wrong? How can we focus to rebuild trust? Join Amrit as he explores this topic in this week's podcast.

Episode 79: UK Employee Engagement Levels - What's Holding Us Back?

We've just had the release of the Gallup report highlighting that the UK has some of the lowest employee engagement levels across the world - a figure of only 10%! When you combine this with our productivity amongst the G7 countries, you've got to question why this is? Do you believe it really is only 10%? If so, what might be causing this and why is it remaining so stubbornly low? Join Amrit as he shares his thoughts on this topic in this week's podcast.

Episode 78: Extraordinary People creating Extraordinary Companies

Would you describe yourself as extraordinary? Most of us would have an immediate reaction of 'absolutely not!. But what if we were all extraordinary, but we just hadn't taken enough time to see it, appreciate it, acknowledge it? How can we possibly see extraordinary in others, if we cannot see it within ourselves? What are the traits of extraordinary people? And as leaders and managers, if we cannot see the extraordinary in the people around us, how could we ever create remarkable companies? Joi...

Episode 77: Leaders: The Weather Makers

In the UK, we've been experiencing lovely weather, and have you noticed how much nicer everyone is to one another when the sun shines? The weather makes a huge difference to our mood and motivation. Yet we don't often think about it, but leaders create the weather in our workplaces. Think of managers as the gardeners - there's a limit of what they can do if the weather doesn't help them. Join Amrit as he shares he thoughts on the impact leaders can have on managers and their ability to be effect...