VIDEOS

If you’re a people leader I’m sure you’ll find this Effective Leader’s Coaching Questions Pack valuable...

During my 20-year career as a leadership coach and trainer, I’ve witnessed the power of recurring, predictable systems to elevate leadership effectiveness, people engagement and career progression. 

In lesson 7 of my leadership program, Elevate in 90 Days, I support leaders to establish a system to deliver consistent 1:1 meetings, with a template to address goals, delivery, development, wellbeing, career planning, 2-way feedback, business values and more.

Over the last two years I’ve worked with a director in an organisation who implemented this 1:1 strategy for herself, and then empowered her leadership team with the same system for consistency across the entire team. She then took it a step further to establish a system to meet 1:1 with every person in her team of 80 people, to ask them high level coaching questions.  

Over the last 18 months this Director has met with every...

Many leaders who work with me are at a crossroads, unsure of what to do next with their career planning. By the time they reach me, they're often in a state of feeling confused, stuck, lost and even unhappy.  

The risk for these leaders is that their state of confusion can show up in the workplace as disengaged, disheartened, withdrawn and possibly toxic. A shift in their behavior can create a negative shift in the perception of them with management, their peers and their team.

They may say things to various people in the business such as, "I don't know if I want to be here" or "I'm lost". 

Now, while this communication may be honest, if it’s not delivered in an empowered way it can be detrimental to your brand. The people you speak with may share your feelings with others and it can ripple out across the business, impacting people’s perception of your engagement and question your value in the business.  

Now, I’m not saying that if you are lost or stuck, you don't communicate that...

I’ve noticed a growing trend of people leaving the corporate space, because they believe that they can't fulfill their yearning for purpose, or to explore their passions while in a corporate environment.  

It saddens me to see these people giving up on what was previously their dream, because they have lost their way in the corporate world, believing there is no way to attain fulfillment if they stay. 

Of course, for some people leaving is the best pathway, but for many there are ways to find alignment without venturing too far afield from their current trajectory. 

If you’re contemplating where to next, I’d like to encourage you to be open minded and explore how you can align your passions, purpose and interests within your current organisation or industry. 

How can you evolve and expand your role to bring you greater fulfillment? 

One of the activities I do with my clients to help them with role and purpose alignment is map out a delivery timeline and ask a number of questions t...

What leadership career ladder are you climbing, and are you climbing the right ladder for you?

I am working with a leader in middle management, who is at a point where he is wondering: Do I elevate beyond where I am and apply for the director role? 

This manager is a technical expert, and like so many leaders in organisations he's been promoted up the ranks without any quality leadership or management development.  

One of the key challenges he’s facing right now is that he has received feedback that his team is losing trust in him, as he doesn’t delegate work and wants to deliver much of the work himself.  

He’s doing the work, rather than delegating the work. 

One of the questions I asked him was, ‘Do you want to let go of the technical aspect of your work or does that bring you joy?’  

Through our coaching journey he has realised that he will always want to do some of the technical delivery himself, as it fulfills him so much. He has also recognised that while he really does e...

Today, I want to talk about how important it is to build your network, even if networking takes you out of your comfort zone.  

A lot of the leaders I work within organisations say to me, "I don't want to build my network because it feels like I'm being political.”

I want to challenge this thinking. I want to invite you to reframe networking in your mind from ‘playing the politics game’ to wanting to find out how can you add greater value to the business. 

Ask yourself, ‘How can I and my team provide greater value to the business?’  

Allocate time in your calendar to meet with stakeholders in the business to ask them, "How do we provide our greatest value to you?", "How can we support your business area more?" and “Who else should I be meeting with to add greater value?” 

By doing that you both strengthen your existing network and build relevant new connections. Keep in mind that all of those people have connections as well.  

What you're doing is building relationships, build...

I recently watched a conversation between Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, in which they discussed how they allocate time in their calendars.  

Warren Buffett explained that he deliberately keeps his calendar practically clear, because what he values most is the freedom and space to have strategic thinking time to step back, have great ideas and come up with solutions. 

I've worked with leaders for 20 years and in my experience their calendars are typically the opposite; jam-packed with meetings with little time to action what is agreed to in the meetings. When you add relentless email to the mix, there’s little time to step back and do the high level thinking that can influence positive change. 

Also, when you consider that many organisations have a culture of hard work and being busy, it can lead to the perception that to just sit and think is ‘slacking off’. 

I want to challenge the thinking that if you're not in a meeting, or you're not at your desk, or you're not checking your e...

In this video I share how I helped a manager clarify the direction of his career.

Today, I want to talk about self-leadership. More specifically though, I’d like to focus on how you can access the support you need to thrive, grow, and most importantly, to PROVIDE YOUR GREATEST VALUE to the business and your people.  

When I work with leaders one-to-one in a coaching format, we usually circle around to the question … how often are you catching up with your manager? Because it’s my experience that when leaders have consistent, quality one-to-one time with their managers they are more engaged, more purposeful and more effective – overall, more valuable. 

But despite this, many leaders don’t get the one-on-one time they desire or need to thrive. Indeed, many leaders are resigned to the fact that they won’t ever have quality time with their managers, often citing things like, ‘my manager's really busy’.  

Now, when I dig deeper and start to explore what they actually talk about during the meetings, things are even more revealing. 

Think about yourself for a moment. 

Build your network by reaching out to the business and learning how you and your team can add value and make a greater difference.

Watch more videos like this at madleaders.com.au

At times it can be tricky to communicate the internal and external clients' expectations to the team. Here I suggest a creative way to engage the team and demonstrate expectations.

Watch more videos like this at madleaders.com.au