Moment #65 // If you want to be a great leader, you have to learn to read the play – to know when it’s appropriate to push one of your people harder, when it’s appropriate to work more closely with them, and when it’s appropriate to stand back and let them get on with it. In this Moment, I take a look at Situational Leadership Theory (SLT). This model gives us guidance for how to adapt our style so that we have the best chance of getting through to our people, and enabling them to be successful....
Apr 21, 2024•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #294 // “If you can create a culture that values momentum, you will almost always outperform teams that don't!” I often talk about the need for speed. As a leader, placing a premium on forward progress is one of the most reliable tools you have to achieve execution excellence in your team. If you can create a culture that values momentum, you will almost always outperform teams that don’t. Teams that don’t value speed just seem to stagnate. I’ve seen lots of them over the ye...
Apr 16, 2024•23 min•Ep 294•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #64 // Many CEOs and senior executives talk a good game when it comes to culture change and transformation… it’s almost expected. But, even though they might make the right noises , it doesn’t necessarily mean they have the commitment to set a higher standard, or generate the level of momentum it would take to lead the change successfully. Pretty much every senior leader says they want a constructive, high performance culture. But very few can clearly articulate what this means… and even ...
Apr 14, 2024•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #293 // “ I look at my high performers with one thought in mind: What will it take for them to get to the next level?” When you focus on setting a high standard for performance, it’s easy to fall into the habit of managing the exceptions — to focus on the people who fall behind, or don’t meet the minimum standard you’re trying to preserve. The old saying that the squeakiest wheel gets the oil is as true in the leadership context as it is in every other aspect of life! When p...
Apr 09, 2024•19 min•Ep 293•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #63 // Times are tough and, when the pressure is on, it doesn’t take long before companies start to squeeze their suppliers in an attempt to find cost savings. Unfortunately, your suppliers are facing exactly the same pressures you are. Their costs are rising too, and they’re experiencing the same difficulty in finding and keeping their best people. Knowing how to manage your suppliers for optimum long-term benefit is critical, especially as you seek to outsource more and more of the comp...
Apr 07, 2024•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #292 // “ In team sports, “leading from the front” means a completely different thing than it does in business. ” There are a number of elements that contribute to your leadership identity. Many leaders let their identity form organically, without much conscious thought or planning. That’s fine, but there’s an enormous amount of upside to be captured, if you choose to be deliberate and methodical in your approach. For every leader, regardless of level, industry, company size, or location...
Apr 02, 2024•19 min•Ep 292•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #62 // The board of directors is increasingly seen as the accountable body for ensuring ethical, responsible behavior from companies. But we still seem to be witnessing some pretty spectacular failures in corporate governance. To me, this isn’t at all surprising. The board has very little influence over what the management team does on a day-to-day basis. Boards have limited control over what really goes on. I’m sure that many professional directors will disagree with me on this… bu...
Mar 31, 2024•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #291 // “ The boundaries between our work and personal lives have shifted, and leaders need to deal with the fallout. ” When I began my corporate executive career, the only concern leaders had for safety was to ensure that people working in dangerous environments didn’t get seriously injured or killed. Then, there were a lot of businesses that didn’t even need to think about the word “safety”, because they were predominantly white-collar, office-bound enterprises. For most of my senior l...
Mar 26, 2024•22 min•Ep 291•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #61 // What if your people knew exactly what to expect from you? What if they understood your style, the objectives that drive you, and the things you value the most? If you want your people to be really clear on what you’re after, developing your own Leadership User Manual can be a simple but effective way to lay out the ground rules, and establish your expectations in an unambiguous way. This could save years of trial and error, and give your people a clear path to thriving under your ...
Mar 24, 2024•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #290 // "The best leaders do what's needed to master their stakeholder ecosystem, taking it from chaos and unpredictability to control and alignment." In last week’s episode , I outlined the 10 key ingredients that contribute to your promotion prospects. In doing so, I realized that, after almost 300 full-length episodes of No Bullsh!t Leadership , we hadn’t yet produced one that deals specifically with the key discipline of stakeholder management. Well, this is it! In today’s complex or...
Mar 19, 2024•18 min•Ep 290•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #60 // I’m a big believer in avoiding the problems that inevitably emerge when you become too isolated, or spend too much time cocooned in your own little world. There’s no end to the number of consultants out there who hold themselves up as experts, and promise to make your business better in oh-so-many ways. How would you know which options are likely to give you real value for money, and which are likely to be an expensive waste of time? The management consulting market is segmen...
Mar 17, 2024•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #289 // “ In the absence of your ability to handle pressure at your current level, your boss is going to think twice about promoting you ” Although every episode of No Bullsh!t Leadership is peppered with practical guidance on how to improve your leadership confidence and performance, I’ve never given you the specific recipe for improving your promotion prospects — until now! In this episode, I lay out a holistic inventory of the things that contribute to your promotability.  ...
Mar 12, 2024•22 min•Ep 289•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #59 // Collaboration is one of the big buzz words of 21st century leadership. But the concept of collaboration in business dates back to the 19th century, as an underpinning feature of the theory of the firm. Although there are a lot of benefits to collaboration, the pendulum has swung too far. We’ve devolved into decision-making by consensus , and management by committee . The alternative is to empower your decision-makers with strong, single-point accountability. If you focus on collabo...
Mar 10, 2024•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #288 // “After almost 62 years on this planet, you'd think I'd know better – and I kind of do – but it doesn't mean I always get it right. ” We all know what to do, for the most part. Each day when we wake up, we can either choose to do it, or not do it. If we choose to not do it, then our brains quickly come to the rescue to tell us why that’s the best decision under the circumstances — this is rationalization , and we all master it at a pretty young age. But, no matter how hard we try ...
Mar 05, 2024•20 min•Ep 288•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #58 // Conventional wisdom tells us that we have to put people before profits … that if we look after our people then, in turn, they will look after our customers, and the business will thrive. But the problem with conventional wisdom is that, even though there’s always at least some grain of truth to it, it’s easy to oversimplify, to rationalize, and to misinterpret. The people before profits mantra is one of the great oversimplifications of leadership. If we did put our people first, do...
Mar 03, 2024•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #287 // “It's way easier just to roll your sleeves up and fix something, than it is to put in the hard work of leadership to lift someone else's capability. ” As a leader, you face daily pressures which are quite different from the pressures that confronted you when you were a carefree individual contributor , responsible only for your own work. The type of pressure, and its intensity , depends on a number of things: the sector you’re operating in; the organizational culture; the compete...
Feb 27, 2024•20 min•Ep 287•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #57 // Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is often summarized as: the survival of the fittest . But, in fact, Darwin’s conclusion was that those who survive aren’t necessarily the fittest – they are the most adaptable . As a leader, one of your most valuable characteristics is your capacity for change. Change is constant. But many of us don’t cope with it particularly well. We often struggle to understand the change that we’re asked to adapt to in our work lives… and what we don’t under...
Feb 25, 2024•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #286 // “ While one in four people in the workforce have managerial responsibilities, very few have actually been trained. 82% of leaders are accidental. ” Many people in leadership positions were promoted because they were good at their jobs — their technical jobs. When ambitious professionals want the status, the power, and the money that come with career advancement, they have to accept that leading other people comes with the territory. With little leadership training, and even less ...
Feb 20, 2024•16 min•Ep 286•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #56 // We talk a lot as leaders about how to give feedback, and it takes many years of experience to actually get good at it. What we don’t talk about nearly as much is what to do when we’re on the other side of the table! Receiving good quality, helpful, accurate feedback is essential if you want to reach your performance potential. If this is true, then why are we so averse to receiving feedback? Learning how to receive and implement feedback is a critical skill for leaders ...
Feb 18, 2024•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #285 // “ If you make decisions in isolation, you're likely to miss the implications of those decisions on the whole ecosystem, and this is often where the cracks begin to appear .” Like many of you, I’ve done quite a bit of flying over the course of my adult life. I’m not a nervous flyer at all, but I’m always interested to see what’s happening in the world of commercial aviation. This bumper episode is a mini case study on Boeing, which has been in the news again recently – for all the...
Feb 13, 2024•28 min•Ep 285•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #55 // Being right isn’t everything – it’s just a good start. Many leaders like to position themselves as “ the smartest person in the room ”. And there’s a lot to be said for superior intelligence. But you have to know how to use your intellect to get the best possible outcomes from your people. To excel as a leader, you have to go way beyond your pure intellectual horsepower, and enter the nebulous world of emotional intelligence and human connection! You can take a deeper dive in...
Feb 11, 2024•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #284 // “ There are very few bosses who will say “no” when asked if they’d like feedback. But even though they might say “yes”, you have to read the play – do they really want to hear it ?” I spend a lot of time and energy helping leaders to build their capability in giving feedback to their people: how to engage them in difficult conversations; how to review their performance; how to know when it’s time to say goodbye to someone who isn’t performing. Let’s face it, if you want to be eve...
Feb 06, 2024•19 min•Ep 284•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #54 // We all think we know how to negotiate. After all, our negotiating skills are honed from birth, as we tussle with our parents to try to convince them to do what we want them to. Despite this, I learned a number of years ago that my negotiation skills were not what I thought they were. I was humbled in a fairly straightforward mock negotiation at business school. But what I learned in the following weeks equipped me to go on to negotiate and win several large contracts, worth b...
Feb 04, 2024•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #283 // “ If your people trust and respect you, there's nothing you can't say to them. ” When we talk about trust in the context of leadership, it’s normally about how to get your people to trust you! And, of course, this should be a critical focus for leaders at every level. But today’s topic runs a little deeper: how much trust should you give to the managers who work for you? ” Regardless of your org structure or the size of your team, at least some of your direct reports are bo...
Jan 30, 2024•20 min•Ep 283•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #53 // The factors behind the increasing levels of work stress that people are experiencing are many and varied – it’s a complex issue. What is pretty clear, though, is that more and more leaders are reporting that they are burnt out. But, if you apply a couple of relatively simple and practical remedies, you will be able to protect yourself from burnout. SImple? Yes! Practical? Definitely! But easy? Absolutely not! It’s not easy because you have to learn to push back, and set some ...
Jan 28, 2024•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #282 // “ A lot of the more senior leaders reject No Bullsh!t Leadership, because the higher up they go, the more they have to lose – they have to protect their position, their image, and their identity. ” Our first episode of No Bullsh!t Leadership was produced in August 2018. This week, we achieved a major milestone - 5 million downloads of the podcast. To be perfectly honest, Em and I are pretty ordinary when it comes to celebrating success… and I often cringe at the thinly-veiled, se...
Jan 23, 2024•22 min•Ep 282•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #52: Building Professional Credibility // 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 . Credibility is the hallmark of all great leade...
Jan 21, 2024•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #281 // “ If you focus on trying to make your people happy instead of providing the opportunity for them to develop their self-esteem, you're missing the point. ” Team morale is built through proactive commitment and focus. It doesn’t just happen. One of the great misconceptions of leadership is that, if you make people happy, they will perform better and team morale will be high. Although this is possible in theory, it is highly unlikely to happen in practice. One of our listeners...
Jan 16, 2024•19 min•Ep 281•Transcript available on Metacast Moment #51// We’ve all sat in meeting rooms where we’ve been subjected to death by PowerPoint. For every leader, the ability to present information in a compelling, interesting way is your basic table stakes: it should be a vital element of your core leadership competencies. The good news is, it’s never been easier to put together a great presentation to get your point across. These days, there’s no excuse for a poor presentation, so I want to share some basic tips, to help you reduce your likel...
Jan 14, 2024•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode #280 // “ The productivity decline isn’t just a flash in the pan: it’s a structural reset that we're all going to have to grapple with in the coming year. ” At the end of each year, I spend time analyzing a variety of sources to come up with a view on the range of possible outcomes for the year ahead—across business, politics, and society in general. Without trying to make any fearless predictions, I like to have some sense of how the world is trending: trend is your friend! Using source...
Jan 09, 2024•25 min•Ep 280•Transcript available on Metacast 
