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Being a middle manager is difficult and it’s getting more so. Decades ago, middle managers were just there to control and coordinate the work of others. But as technology can now lend a hand with this – improving productivity and online coordination and monitoring, there’s pressure on middle managers to perform a huge number of […]

Does managing ever make you feel exhausted? Are you fed up with directing your team towards solutions that they should know exist? What if there was, at least sometimes, another way? I would guess that what I’m about to say isn’t new to you. But if you took a step back and moved into a

In conversation with one of my coaching clients recently, they made a remark that stuck with me: “If I gain one thing from this year, I want it to be resilience. I’ve had enough ****ing opportunities to develop it after all.” This resonated for two reasons. Firstly, because I think by and large we’re all

There are some office activities which convert very easily to an online environment: meetings with a clear agenda, collaborating over document editing, and conveying information. A good blend of having the right technology and the tasks not being too abstract helps. But one area that can leave work teams feeling stressed and confused is how

Influence – what does it mean to leaders? Influence is, in the opinion of many commentators and researchers, the lifeblood of leadership. If you want to be a great leader, you need to be great at influencing. Influence is, after all, the ability to affect change in actions, behaviours and decisions. Another way of thinking

Find out how Smart Collaboration can benefit your business performance.   I am delighted to have been awarded accreditation to use The Smart Collaboration Accelerator with my clients. This is a superb, research-based assessment that is used to guide leaders and teams through the process of understanding their behavioural tendencies, in turn using this insight

No matter which leader you look at, or which type of business leadership approach you subscribe to, almost all of them have one key skill in common: influence. All the way back to the earliest business leadership theories in the 1950s, to those of today, a good leader is usually seen to be one who

Storytelling? At work? Reeeeeaally? Not in our setting. Wouldn’t work. But actually, what you’ll find if you look around, is that people are already telling stories everywhere you look. They’re telling stories to inspire, motivate, change behaviour, sell products, warn people, or to explain what the organisation’s culture, policies and practices are (see the diagram

In every firm I’ve worked with, there are always some juniors who are instinctively great at managing their managers. They raise difficult issues with no difficulty; they get their great ideas tabled at big meetings; and they are able to move their careers forward without appearing over-assertive. In fact, those workers who are good at

I’ve been involved in a big leadership development project recently for a firm who are looking to improve their leadership. They’re already very successful and have a very positive culture, but of course everyone can always aspire to better. Part of the process has been a 360˚ leadership survey in which a handful of people