Welcome to My Blog

I write about leadership, business strategy, people management and setting up in business. Below are some of my favourite postsI write about leadership, business strategy, people management and setting up in business. Below are some of my favourite posts.
The role of the leader: Servant Leader

The role of the leader: Servant Leader

There are many differing ways of defining leadership but one of my favourites is Servant Leadership. It states that the role of the leader is to serve the team so that "the needs of the followers are taken as being most important". Servant leadership requires there to...

How to make clear decisions

How to make clear decisions

Running a business can be a complex and chaotic undertaking at times. There are always a thousand and one things to consider, from sales to finances to delivery, etc, etc. There will always be a lot of people with their own opinions and wanting their agenda to be met....

Your first priority

Your first priority

Successful managers are those who demonstrate strong levels of empathy, which is why, as a manager, your first priority is always to your team. The Power of Intimacy The Trust Equation teaches us that "Intimacy" (i.e. that bond you create with someone else) is an...

The benefits of regular, formal meetings

The benefits of regular, formal meetings

Yes, I know, I am going to advise you to have more meetings. But the trick with meetings is not the number of them but the quality of them and I am going to explain why good one-to-one meetings with each of your team are very importnat for creating engaged staff, in...

The Power of Failure

The Power of Failure

You have messed up. You have made mistakes. You have failed. We all have. I do, my friends do, your friends do. The problem is not that you fail but that there is such a stigma attached to failure. We are always scared to admit how we have messed up, people are...

Founder Syndrome

Founder Syndrome

Over recent months, I have talked to quite a few people who have either set up their own company or who work directly for the founders of the company. Some of the conversations have had a real tension in them. The companies have reached a stage of growth where the...

Friendly but not friends

Friendly but not friends

From time to time, I talk to managers and they tell me about their teams and say things like “we get on really well, we are really good friends”. It is lovely to have such a close connection with the people you work with ... but it can lead to problems if you are not...

Team vs Individual

Team vs Individual

This post is a reminder that you manage both a team and a series of individuals. A good manager will spend some time focussing on the team (goals, dynamics, culture) and some time focussing on the individuals (well-being, motivators, behaviours). So how do you do...

Is your business ethical?

Is your business ethical?

The recent expose of Amazon which showed a UK fulfilment centre routinely sending returned and unwanted items to landfill brought the topic of business ethics into the foreground again. As we see increasing evidence of climate change, as activists highlight issues...

The dangers of working from home

The dangers of working from home

Whether we liked it or not, over the past 15-16 months we have been subjects in a global social experiment. For years, people had advocated the benefits of working from home and then we got the chance to try it … in fact, it was forced on us. As someone who has worked...

The Art of Delegation

The Art of Delegation

You are busy. Very busy. You have a full inbox and not enough time to deal with it all. Then your boss assigns someone to you to help with the workload but now you have to make time to delegate? New managers and business owners, especially, find it hard to delegate....

Top five tips for chairing great meetings

Top five tips for chairing great meetings

I have always had a really low boredom threshold at meetings to the point where I have been a disruptive influence … not proud of it, but I hate being bored. So whenever I chair meetings, I try to make sure they are to the point and interesting. I have chaired...

Onboarding: Is the weak link getting weaker?

Onboarding: Is the weak link getting weaker?

by Ian Luxford of The Motivation Agency It has been very impressive to see organisations and their people keeping calm and carrying on through the disruption of the pandemic. Also slightly concerning that, in some cases, carrying on means continuing to get it wrong....

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