I regularly spend hours scouring the web and exploring books in search of the latest leadership thinking; an activity that I know few leaders can devote much time to. Every few weeks I share some of the more insightful, thought-provoking and useful articles and ideas I come across, adding some personal perspectives and tips in each case via my “Three of the Best” Leadership Insights newsletter. My goal is to do the hard work of sifting through the morass of information out there, so that you don’t have to.
This page is an archive of all of everything I’ve shared to date. If you would like to receive new content as soon as I release it, you can sign up for the newsletter here.
Attention Training: The Fundamental Pillar of Success?
“Understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success.” ~ Tom Davenport, former director of Accenture Institute of Strategic Change My childhood home had a steep driveway, sloping up to the road. Dad wanted to leave to...
When Conversations Get Crucial
What is a crucial conversation? One description, the one used in this article, is that it is “a discussion between two or more people where stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong”. It is this combination of high stakes, differing opinions and strong...
The Best Way to Decide: Fast or Slow?
There can be few things more important to leaders than their professional judgment. As Jim Collins clearly demonstrated in his best-selling book, Good to Great, leaders have the power to build spectacular success stories or drag their companies into decline. Which way...
Exercise and “Smarts”: The Link
“Healthy body, healthy mind” is an old maxim, the validity of which has long been accepted. The more that scientists investigate this link, however, the more startlingly relevant it appears to be. It is only 40 years or so since psychologists believed that...
Why Balancing the Brain is Vital to Great Leadership
The majority of leaders, in my experience, are already familiar with the notion of ‘Level 5’ leadership, a term coined around 20 years ago by Jim Collins and made famous in his best-selling book, Good to Great. He used it to describe the very best leaders: those...
Disliking Others – Is it Really About Them?
"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I'm wise, so I'm changing myself." ~ Rumi The conditioning we receive throughout life is so pervasive and powerful that it’s literally impossible to be aware of the psychological influence that it has on...
Take the Opportunity for Growth
You may well be aware by now of the work of psychologist and Stanford University professor, Carol Dweck, who identified the important difference between what she called “fixed” and "growth” mindsets. The fixed mindset belief is that our capabilities are innate...
Maximising Influence: The Secret is in the Preparation
What is leadership? This simple question has spawned dozens of theories, literally thousands of definitions and hundreds of thousands of books. However, while researchers disagree in many areas, there is one viewpoint on leadership where there is almost unanimous...
The Viral Impact of Emotions
Emotions can be infectious…… 24th November 2017 was Black Friday, and hundreds of thousands of people were in London’s Oxford Street for the sales. It was not long after the multiple terror attacks across London but life had moved on and all was calm. That calm, it...
Empathetic Listening is a Gift
Listening, deeply listening, is probably much harder than you think. This is because real listening is not about hearing what is spoken – it is about understanding the speaker. It is about picking up was isn’t said, as well as what is. One of my favourite statistics...
The Germ Vs. The Terrain, Part 2: Time for a Change of Model?
In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the process of scientific revolution, and I described how the world came to accept what has now become the central pillar of Western medicine – “germ theory”. We looked at: How difficult it can be for scientists, explorers, or...
Leading Through Adversity to Emerge Strong from the Lockdown
I love this article, which addresses a key question: How do we take action to lead, and emerge strongly, from something challenging that we (individually and collectively) have never experienced before? The authors identify two specific challenges businesses are...
Leaders Who Give, Gain
There’s no doubt that the people who work for you are much more likely to give their best if they, emotionally, choose you to lead them. One way of achieving this was highlighted by a fascinating study conducted at the University of Kent. The research was based around...
How Our Personal Stake Can Cloud Judgment
If there is one factor that has defined the challenge leaders have faced in the last few unprecedented weeks and months, it must be uncertainty. In times like this, being able to change course and maintain our adaptability is absolutely vital, particularly as we seek...
The Germ vs. The Terrain, Part 1: The Rise of Microbes
For the health and wellbeing section this time, I want to cover a subject which also has great relevance to leadership in general, because it looks at core aspects of the advancement in knowledge of all kinds. Due to the amount of information involved, I’ve split the...
You Can Buy Hands, but Hearts Must be Won
Employee engagement is much more than a simple buzz phrase or management fad – most would now readily accept that it’s a fundamental requirement for high performance. Yet, despite its critical importance, Gallup and others continue to report abysmal levels of positive...
The “Better than Average” Trap
There are two areas of understanding involved in our sense of self-awareness: Who we believe that we are – our identity, including our values, fears, thoughts, feelings, behaviours, strengths and weaknesses, drivers and motivators. How we fit into the world around...
Home Working Lessons from Cockroaches
After weeks of lockdown, science suggests that significant numbers of those being forced to work in isolation could be finding it progressively harder to maintain their motivation. Part of the problem is the double-edged sword of a human trait described by a...
The Importance of Vitamin D
When it comes to maximising health, I’m a great believer in taking supplements, particularly in the modern world where so much of the food supply is grown in depleted soil, which has resulted in our food having much lower concentrations of essential vitamins and...
“Because the Answers Have Changed”
The title of this section is probably one of Einstein’s less well-known quotes. Nevertheless, I believe it’s also one of the most powerful and important things he said, particularly because of the way it relates to our ability to learn, grow and handle change. The...
The Need for Psychological Safety
Understanding the dynamics of effective teamwork is becoming ever more important, as businesses face relentless pressure to increase their profitability. Studies, however, consistently and convincingly demonstrate that structuring people into teams may be...
Zoom Fatigue: A Hazard of the Times
Don’t automatically assume that video will be better than a phone call – the overloading of the brain as it strives to make sense of information which it expects to be there, but can’t find, has a mental cost which needs to be taken into account. In the context of the...
Struggling to Find the Time for Exercise?
I'm still waiting for the day when a leader tells me that they don't struggle to manage their workload. Under such unceasing pressures, it is easy to deprioritise maintaining our physical health and fitness. Doing so, however, comes at a high price. Fortunately, more...
Leading When Uncertainty is Pervasive
If you do not believe in the possibility that you can change then you have, probably without realising it, also accepted the belief that you are already all that you are going to be. The question, then, is how meaningful change can be achieved, and how quickly.
Developing Inner Agility
This article, from McKinsey & Co., suggests that, "To navigate effectively, we must learn to let go—and become more complex ourselves". The concept of developing greater personal complexity encapsulates the approach that I've adopted in virtually all of my work....
Building Resilience by Managing Your Mood
A quick question: how reasonable is it to suggest that you set yourself a standard whereby you take responsibility for your mood 100% of the time? For many people, this might seem an unreasonable expectation. After all, things happen that feel bad, and it seems...
Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
In conversations about resilience, an area that is commonly undervalued is the importance of keeping our physical body fit and strong. It has long been proven that this has direct, beneficial effects on mental health. Many people know this at some level, but struggle...