Episode #244 // One of the toughest elements of leadership is managing your people’s performance. Everyone has to meet a minimum acceptable standard, of course… but beyond that, you also want to be able to lead your best people to perform at their peak. We get an endless stream of questions about the performance management ecosystem, particularly when a team member slips into chronic underperformance. There’s no doubt that every situation is different, but there are some common themes running th...
May 02, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 244
Moment #14 // On one level, politics can be seen simply as a process of influencing. But more often, it’s a devious, divisive tool used by unscrupulous individuals to further their own standing—it creates a toxic and cancerous culture. How do you spot a political animal? Office politics can be incredibly destructive, but there's no organization that's completely immune to it. No great leader plays politics, but they’re acutely aware of it: and the first step is to be able to recognize a po...
Apr 30, 2023•3 min
Episode #243 // Whatever you try to achieve as a leader relies, at least to some extent, on your credibility. If you have strong personal credibility, it makes everything you do inordinately easier. Credibility galvanizes your team… it instills confidence in the people above you… and it ultimately becomes an integral part of your leadership brand. Without it, every yard you manage to move forward feels hard. There’s no shortage of smart executives in the world, but there are v...
Apr 25, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 243
Moment #13 // Do you have decision fatigue? During the course of every day, our brains are forced to make thousands of decisions, big and small. The cumulative effect of all these decisions is mental fatigue, which can result in poor judgment and irrational decision making, even when faced with relatively simple decisions. But using the decision fatigue label provides an excuse for not dealing with something that we should actually deal with. Making decisions is part of life, it's part of ...
Apr 23, 2023•4 min
Episode #242 // The question we used to ask only occasionally has now become more frequent… “ how old is too old? ” While most countries still regard the retirement age for the average citizen to be somewhere in their early to mid-60s, one of the big societal trends in wealthier countries is the aging population. As the population ages, many people will choose to work for longer, either to satisfy their need for purpose, or through financial necessity. The bottom line for leaders is that you’re ...
Apr 18, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 242
Moment #12 // Blaming others when something doesn’t go to plan is one of the most insidious leadership behaviors. It’s a cancer in your culture that has to be eradicated. When a leader tolerates the blame game, excuses become the norm, and organizational politics thrives. You have to learn how to deliver bad news, even when your boss doesn’t want to hear about it. Equally, you have to encourage your people by rewarding those who choose to take the path of strength and proactiveness, creati...
Apr 16, 2023•4 min
Ep #241 // It’s always been a tough ask to get your boss to provide additional resources, whether it’s money, people, or assets. And it’s certainly not getting any easier in the current environment. Businesses in virtually every sector of the economy are being squeezed with rising costs, high interest rates, and a bear labor market. The mantra of doing more with less has never been more pronounced than it is right now: it’s simply the default position, whether by design, or by sheer necess...
Apr 11, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 241
Moment #11 // One of the most important roles that a leader plays is to set the right standards for performance and behavior. Sometimes, we think we're setting an appropriately high performance standard, but the exceptions we make indicate otherwise. How do you actually set the standard? And if it’s higher than people are used to, how do you communicate what you need from them? Never walk past an inferior standard of performance or behavior—it either builds or breaks your culture! You can take a...
Apr 09, 2023•4 min
Episode #240 // We’ve all come across people during our careers who are really good at what they do, but are just awful to work with. They seem to think that their superior performance gives them the license to behave in any manner they see fit, and they don’t observe the usual social protocols that are essential in maintaining a stable team. Talented jerks come in many different shapes and sizes: there’s no one-size-fits-all description of how they show up in a team. Some are just terminally an...
Apr 04, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 240
Moment #8 // If you need to be liked, and you have aspirations of being a leader, you’re going to find yourself in trouble pretty quickly. Virtually everything you do as a leader puts you into a potential conflict situation. Seeking popularity will stunt your leadership growth, dull your decision-making, and feed your tendency to procrastinate. Popularity doesn’t matter… respect does, which is why you need to be comfortable with the concept of doing hard things that may make you unpopular. You c...
Apr 02, 2023•4 min
Episode #239 // The proverbial high performing team has become a leadership cliché, and I can’t count the number of leaders who claim to have built a high performing team (often, despite objective evidence to the contrary). But what if the culture you’re leading in is actually a low performance culture? We get lots of questions from leaders about the difficulties they have applying basic performance management principles and, more often than not, the root cause is a pervasive, low performance cu...
Mar 28, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 239
Moment #9 // Many leaders claim to have built high-performing teams but, in my experience, most can’t even clearly articulate what a high-performing team is! And if you really want to build a high performing team—then there’s going to be some pretty tough leadership work ahead. Many leaders fall at the first hurdle: high-performing teams are comprised of high-performing individuals : no passengers, no tourists! You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.2: Building a High-...
Mar 26, 2023•5 min
Episode #238 // Leadership drives culture, culture drives performance. Today, we look at a few very common team culture dynamics, and give some perspectives for how you might be able to handle these situations, when you find yourself in the middle of them. The first is the incredibly common phenomenon of the supposed star performer who ‘manages up’ brilliantly, but doesn’t actually deliver… and the boss is too weak, or too conflict-averse to hold them to account—they’d rather let the rest of the...
Mar 21, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 238
Moment #8 // Permissive Leaders Make People Unproductive AND Unhappy I've seen the devastating effects of laissez-faire leaders. They seem to think that if you keep people happy , they’ll naturally give you their best work. In my experience, this is almost never the case. Worse still, these leaders often mistake a constructive culture, to mean you can only say positive things to people. Make no mistake, there's nothing soft about a constructive culture. It only exists when a leader d...
Mar 19, 2023•4 min
Episode #237 // If you feel as though you’re struggling to hire the right people at the moment, this episode will rebuild your faith in the process, despite the current labor market dynamics. Unfortunately, a few poorly-timed or unexpected resignations can leave critical gaps in your capability. And this feels even worse when you place an ad on an online job board expecting an influx of high-quality candidates, only to hear the sound of tumbleweeds sweeping across the tundra. This can affect you...
Mar 14, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 237
Moment #7 // Building a Diverse Organization Isn’t Simple If it was easy to build a diverse organization, everyone would have already done it. There's a couple of limiting factors that I've learned from experience make this incredibly difficult. Historical disadvantage, subconscious bias, and a lack of forward thinking all contribute to this vexed problem. So where do you start? You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.11: Pale, Male, and Stale ———————— FREE 5 DAY LEADER...
Mar 12, 2023•4 min
Episode #236 // Have you ever wondered why people who are clearly at the top of their game all of a sudden have a steep decline in performance? Things that they’ve been able to routinely do at an elite level all of a sudden seem to be beyond their reach. I saw an example of this just recently, where a professional NFL footballer inexplicably lost the plot. His physical abilities were no different after the slump in form as they were prior to the slump. But it looked like his mental state was nig...
Mar 07, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 236
Moment #6 // Great leaders set an appropriate decision-making culture. People need to know that robust challenge is expected and rewarded , not frowned upon and suppressed. You have to be able to challenge each other , if you want to bring out your best. This invariably involves some friction… but it’s the only way to bring the often opposing views to the table, debate them, and work through them together. You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.20: Make Great Dec...
Mar 05, 2023•3 min
Episode #235 // Momentum is really picking up for Your CEO Mentor in 2023, so in this episode I thought I’d share our plans for the evolution of No Bullsh!t Leadership . Of course, the fundamentals will remain the same. Our purpose keeps us focused on delivering practical, high-quality content every week to cut through the spin, the noise, and the political correctness that dominate today’s world of leadership development. We’re here for one reason, and one reason only: to improve the quality of...
Feb 28, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 235
Moment #5 // What’s Busy Work, and Why Is It So Common? One of the hardest things to do in any organization is to stop activity once it’s started—even if you know it’s not delivering value. It gets a life of its own, because people get emotionally attached to it, and they protect it. “Busy Work” is activity that keeps you occupied , but doesn't necessarily create value . It's justifiable to anyone who happens to look, based on the hours of effort it consumes. But is it useful? You can...
Feb 26, 2023•4 min
Episode #234 // Without Amy Porterfield there would be no Your CEO Mentor, no No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast and no Leadership Beyond the Theory , the program that has transformed thousands of leaders on six continents! Amy’s work laid the foundations for our business model, and it’s her content that enabled Em to develop the strategy that convinced me to quit my CEO gig and start this business, following my true calling. I was incredibly fortunate to have a deeply insightful conversation ...
Feb 21, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 234
Moment #4 // It’s great to lead from the front, but you have to understand what that means. You can’t do your people’s work for them, only to say, " I'm leading from the front .” That’s not leading from the front, and it’s not setting a virtuous example. Just the opposite. Listen to what leading from the front really means. You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.88: Rolling Your Sleeves Up ———————— FREE 5 DAY LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE: Want to boost your leadership cap...
Feb 19, 2023•4 min
Episode #233 // Workforce layoffs have continued in the US, as large companies trim the fat in advance of the recession that looks likely to head our way. But the latest data on economic growth and jobs are more positive than most commentators expected. Europe is leading the way, with some better than expected growth figures, and the US added almost 600,000 jobs to the economy in January, which will keep an already tight labor market highly strung. So, with US unemployment at a 50-plus-year low,...
Feb 14, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 233
Moment #3 // Why Most Leaders Avoid Hard Conversations Why do so many leaders choose to avoid hard conversations? It's much more about a lack of will than a lack of skill . Avoiding interpersonal conflict isn’t that hard, and it’s easy to rationalize why you don’t need to do it. Competent leaders know the power of difficult conversations, and they recognize that it’s the only real path to high performance. You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.6: The Psychology ...
Feb 12, 2023•4 min
Episode #232 // Motivation can be pretty tricky. Trying to work out what you can do to help your people reach a state of motivation and stay there for a little while is more complicated than it sounds. Should you try to make them happy? Should you pay them more? Should you lavish them with praise and positive feedback? The truth about what motivates people might surprise you. Interestingly, the path to motivation isn’t an easy one, and it’s not a path that many people will tread of their own acc...
Feb 07, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 232
Moment #2 // Ban These 5 Words from Your Corporate Values Virtually every company has a set of values that adorns its glossy brochures and marketing materials. But many of your customers (and your own people), will be deeply cynical about them. What words should you avoid, and how do you not fall into the trap of having a meaningless set of company values. You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.10: Are Company Values Meaningless? ———————— FREE 5 DAY LEADERSHIP CHALLENG...
Feb 05, 2023•4 min
Episode #231 // If you’re a regular listener of No Bullsh!t Leadership , you’ll know that I speak about talent frequently, in a range of different contexts. But the word “ talent ” is so overused these days that it’s hard to differentiate between the real work of nurturing and developing your best people, and the more mundane aspects of running a business. There’s a number of critical components to understanding and managing the talent you have—and you won’t know who your real talent is unless y...
Jan 31, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 231
Moment #1 // The Purpose of Leadership We sometimes forget what the true purpose of leadership is. It’s not to entertain your people during their working hours, and it’s not to focus on helping them to live their best lives. Leadership is about creating the right standards, conditions, and culture to optimize results. You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.4: What is Leadership... Really? ———————— You can connect with me at: Website: https://www.yourceomentor.com Faceb...
Jan 29, 2023•4 min
Episode #230 // In this modern era of enlightened inclusiveness, the pendulum has swung decisively from independently operating silos towards sharing and collaboration. This has seen the resurgence of role sharing, at all levels, in organizations of all sizes. Collaboration is a critical ingredient to working successfully in the complex organizations we now live in. But what happens when accountabilities are split to the point where they become opaque, confused, or misunderstood? From low-...
Jan 24, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 230
Episode #229 // In the world of modern leadership, we’re conditioned to believe that humility is the most essential characteristic we can possess. And there’s no doubt that some measure of humility is important. But it’s easy to misinterpret this to mean that we shouldn’t display confidence… that confidence is somehow the enemy of humility. Nothing could be further from the truth and, in my experience, a leader who lacks confidence can be just as dangerous as a leader who lacks humility. In this...
Jan 17, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 229
