Almost every leader has a default. Some explain and direct. Some ask questions and wait. The style itself is rarely the problem; it’s that we do it without thinking about who’s in front of us.
What makes one person a winner in a crowded competitive field? It’s almost never one single dramatic moment, luck on the day, or talent alone. It comes down to small things done repeatedly; to attention pointed at the right place at the right time.
Protecting your capacity doesn’t mean damaging relationships. Done well, it does the opposite. People trust a considered “no” far more than a resentful “yes”.
Difficult teams are the same. Conflict, defensiveness and firefighting are symptoms, not causes. More often than not, what sits beneath them is a form of anxiety.
How a UK tech leader scaled from 35 to 100+ employees while shifting from a “start-up” mindset to a mature, high-performance culture.
“Bring your whole self to work” is one of those phrases that sounds plausible until you stop and really think about it.
The answer isn’t more energy, more communication, or even better ideas. Instead, it’s a shift in how we think about change itself.
When an organisation implements changes, people don’t go back to their old ways because of a lack of effort – change fails to stick because organisations have a natural resting state or equilibrium which is harder to shift.
Managers are busy and calendars are full, so it’s easy to rely on the structure that already exists and have people just work towards their formal review or appraisal. There is a well-developed process in place, and goals can be discussed in detail during that time. But there is a major hiccup there; performance doesn’t happen quarterly or annually, it happens every day.
The final blog in our three-part series looking at what leaders put off, often to their detriment, looks at something that sounds almost ironic for senior leaders: thinking time.