by Astrid Davies | 5 Nov 2021 | Leadership Matters
“Discretion” is also described as “circumspection” or “the act of being discreet”. As clear as mud to most of us. Nevertheless, I am using this old saying and changing it slightly, to make a point in this article.
Much of my work is carried out in secret. 100% discretion guaranteed. Now, I am no MI5 agent. Nor do I encourage my clients to engage in underhand practices in any way. What I mean is that lots of my clients do not feel able to admit they are working with an executive coach. Many of my clients are lawyers and accountants – people to whom others turn for definitive advice. As I have noted in one of my earlier blogs, there is a widespread misconception “out there” that being coached means you NEED to be coached. Or, put another way, that you need to be fixed in some way. It’s a deficit model.
No-one can know
What this means in practise is that I often work under “NDAs” – Non-Disclosure Agreements. As I write, I have two in place covering my work with a financial organisation and an international charity.
This also means that, when I operate my leadership development networking product, the Future Leaders’ Breakfast® club, I am discreet. Unless our attendees are happy to be part of the LinkedIn and Facebook groups, or they choose to say they attend, I tend not to tell anyone they do. It’s not because they have asked me to keep it quiet. It is simply because I think it is nobody’s business if they do, as the song said.
What does discretion guaranteed actually mean?
It’s simple. The target market for Future Leaders Breakfast® club (FLB®s) is young people who are new to management positions.
Who actually attends? Lots of young people often trainees or newly-qualified professionals who are starting to have responsibility for other colleagues.
Who else actually attends? Managers, Associates, Partners, Directors. We’ve even had Equity Partners and a Chief Executive. People from public, private and voluntary sectors. People who all want to network in a fun new way. Probably, those same people all want to pick up some leadership hints and tips that they had not previously been taught.
And this is the point. How many people are actually taught how to manage and then to lead, as well as being taught how to be successful lawyers / bankers / surveyors / accountants? Very few. This is why we run the FLB®s. We provide a service which most business leaders daren’t admit they need!
What could this mean for YOU?
If you are already leading a team, but not 100% sure that you know what you’re doing, leadership-wise, FLB®s could be for you. Who’s going to know if you are actually learning something at the same time?
No-one!
No one will know that you are actually learning things you didn’t already know, when you come along. Like I say, discretion guaranteed. So, FLB®s are a brilliant way to learn how to be an even better manager, and a better leader – discreetly. The beauty is that the networking acts as a smokescreen, keeping your lack of management knowledge tightly under wraps.
So, it would be really easy for you to come along to our networking events and pick up lots of handy hints. This would help you manage and lead your team for success … and no one will know you’re not just there for the networking. You win all ways.
Our FLB® mailing list is the best way to find out more. You’ll be first to know about our events as we open back up as the pandemic subsides. Come and join us to build your handy local connections … and make sure you are the best manager and leader you can be.
by Astrid Davies | 15 Oct 2021 | Leadership Matters
People have coined a lot of phrases as a result of Covid. “The Great Resignation” is the latest, but perhaps one of the most telling.
There appears to be a pattern of disenchanted employees leaving their jobs as a result of their lockdown experience (good or bad). This seems to be widespread across business in the Global North countries.
Some people have left their jobs because lockdown made them realise they could be happier and more productive working for themselves. Other people have left their jobs because they wanted a whole new way of life, having worked from home for so long. And then there are the people who would have happily stayed, had their boss not been such a problem. This last group are the ones on whom I am focusing in this article.
People leave bad bosses
This is a truism, yes. However, that grain of truth in the saying is a real problem when businesses are seeking to recover the global pandemic and its economic impact. There are simply too many bosses doing a bad job of managing and leading. This is actually driving talent out of businesses that haven’t spotted the problem, into the arms of more innovative, forward-thinking and self-aware organisations.
Organisations don’t become innovative and self-aware by themselves. Someone in a leadership role decides that is the way forward. In fact, it is often decided by someone with a real drive for excellence and success. That person will probably inspire, but they will definitely set a clear new vision and path, which others really want to follow.
This is massively important to me – it’s what my company does, coach and mentor leaders to introduce sustainable change for good. In addition, however, it is important to me as an individual. That’s why I set up the Future Leaders Breakfast® (FLB®) club back in 2017.
The club was formed specifically because I could see local businesses run by well-intentioned people who simply couldn’t manage properly, let alone lead. In fact, these people were often set up to fail, because they were trained to be superbly successful fee earners in their chosen profession … but no one had ever shown them how to manage a business.
Consequently, everything was about the fees and the income, instead of the major asset – the people who worked in the business. I saw poor communication around organisations, messaging to staff that really didn’t motivate, and poor acknowledgement of staff contributions and successes. Indeed, I even noticed a lack of basic “Hello”, “Please” and “Thank you”.
How FLB®s break the cycle
The aim of FLB®s is to create a fun way for more junior staff in organisations to learn how to break that cycle. We welcome businesses, charities, public sector. Essentially, anyone who is new to management is welcome. Actually, they don’t have to be junior, just self-aware enough to know they don’t know enough to do a good job as a leader. We have welcomed a range of senior leaders who were new in the role and wanted a way to network – and learn discreetly.
The club offers learning about the essentials of leadership and management, based on using me as the case study for each session, the “lab rat”. I refer to myself as “the lab rat” because the people who attend the FLB®s can test their learning on me as much as they like! Primarily, FLB®s are networking events. That’s why people come to them at the start. Then, they start to make new contacts. By coming back each month, those contacts get stronger. At the same time, their learning gets deeper and richer, as they acquire new skills and swap experiences with their fellow club members.
In addition to having a “lab rat” with a 30-year career to pick through, regulars at FLB®s will build a sound library of leadership theory. They will have a chance to explore a whole range of topics.
Here are a few we discuss:
- task-focused leadership
- situational leadership
- popular theories on leadership behaviour such as Covey and Maxwell
- motivational theories
- performance development
- time management and prioritisation
- successful management of hybrid teams
I could go on.
Despite what I think is a fascinating list of things to explore, FLB® attendees mostly come for the networking. They come for the peer group support and shared cohort experience. In truth, they come for laughs, checking in with peers and even brokering deals.
FLB®s offer all that. They bring together a great mix of people and business backgrounds. We encourage people to have 1:1s outside of FLB®s, to build their network. We’ve even seen business done at the networking tables, which was a nice bonus! Above all, they’re fun. The atmosphere is light-hearted, aiming to get people’s days off to the best start possible. We offer a simple breakfast as a starter too, as an additional reward for getting up and out early.
The Great Resignation didn’t start with us!
And the added benefit of attending FLB®s is that people learn how to be better leaders than some of their current employers. That can help them to progress up their firms to leadership positions where they can introduce real, positive change. It can also help them to realise that they are in the wrong organisation, the wrong discipline or even in the wrong industry completely! Luckily, for the big majority of our regulars, it’s led to promotions and clear communications with their line management.
While we won’t actively encourage anyone to be part of The Great Resignation, we will offer club members the chance to see leadership from an ethical angle, and to build their confidence to give it a try. Who knows where that could take them? Who knows where that could take YOU?
FLB®s are affordable, fun and easy to join. Please get in touch and give them a try. You’ll be so pleased you did … and so will your team.
Image: courtesy of tapanakorn via Canva
by Astrid Davies | 27 Sep 2021 | Leadership Matters
This month, I will be posting across all my platforms to remind you about the Future Leaders Breakfast® or FLBs® networking events open along the South Coast before the Summer. I thought it might help, to start at the very beginning … with our “why.”
Why Future Leaders Breakfasts?
How often have we worked with people who were brilliant at their professional discipline, (engineer, lawyer, surveyor, financier, etc…) but whose people skills were rubbish or totally lacking? There are people in leadership positions up and down the country who should not be there because they are utterly unsuitable for the role. Sadly, in the UK we still promote members based on professional efficacy, rather than whether people are effective managers and leaders. This means there are big gaps in leadership competency and, therefore, leadership and organisational performance.
At a local level, it has to be acknowledged there are some standout business leaders. Nevertheless, everyone knows at least one Partner in a professional firm who is either incompetent, unpleasant, or both. That isn’t OK. It’s bad for morale, it’s bad for productivity, and it’s bad for the local economy. I saw this problem and wanted to fix it. I was determined to find a way to offer accessible leadership development training for those starting out their leadership journey, to build a framework for ethical business in the area.
How to make this happen?
Cue a conversation with the innovative and far-thinking lead of the Business Development team at RSM Restructuring Advisory, Kat Cook. RSM were looking for a new BD activity, and I was looking to introduce this new basis for business development. The Future Leaders concept was born. Introduced as lunches, it seemed like a good idea until the Boat Show took up available parking and attendees’ firms’ Partners were unhappy about the junior staff needing to take time out of the middle of the day. Time for a rethink. Thanks to Kat, Charlotte and Richard from RSM, these monthly networking events moved to their Tollgate offices, at a new breakfast time, and Future Leaders Breakfast ® (FLB®) was born.
Since that time, these networking events opened in Bournemouth and Chichester, as well as Southampton. All three FLBs built a strong reputation for high quality networking, that offered the pre-Covid networking world something unique. Our monthly events created a cohort of like-minded young professionals from Brighton to Poole. They all have found in FLB® innovative networking that really builds high calibre business relationships and leadership skills at the same time.
Why attend?
The immediate benefit for attendees is that they build an invaluable set of skills, supported by quality handouts which summarise the learning as a handy reference tool. Longer-term benefits come from the fact that they belong to a cohort, where shared learning has bred shared understanding and a deeper set of business relationships. There is also a wider benefit for the whole city/regional economy. We’re building a cohort of young professionals rising through the ranks across the key professions, all with shared contacts and great business relationships built on trust and integrity. This will lead to better business deals and better business leadership.
The “What?”
So what makes these networking events so unique? The Future Leaders Breakfast ® formula is a simple but winning one. A low-cost, high value breakfast networking meeting, which sounds so far, so standard. The difference is that the meetings build a cohort of regular attendees, where leadership topics and theories are discussed in a fun environment. There’s personal learning, a simple breakfast, and some great networking with other professionals. Each session has a leadership development theme to the presentation and related table-top exercises and networking. In fact, we’re looking to introduce Institute of Leadership and Management certification to the events too. This will mean attendees can build their skills to accreditation level over breakfast.
There simply isn’t anything else on offer anywhere quite like it.
The “Who?”
The target audience for these networking sessions is people starting out on the management ladder. That’s the point of the name – these are Future Leaders. They want to learn how to do it right by avoiding common pitfalls. They’ll also be free to explore how to use their new skills to create excellent client focus, healthy productivity, and a satisfying career. To date, we have welcomed young people from the professions in the main. However, we have also welcomed attendees from charities, public and government organisations, and local companies. The more, the merrier, and a wider mix enriches the networking (and the leadership insights) for everyone.
We’ve kept the FLB® family together since Covid hit. We ran online webinars monthly, in collaboration with Irwin Mitchell’s Chichester office. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the content we discussed focused on self-compassion, wellbeing, and effective teamwork. In the near future, we are hoping to have the following sites all open and welcoming professionals ambitious for their careers:
- “FLB Bournemouth & Poole” with Trethowans
- “FLB Chichester” with Irwin Mitchell
- “FLB Portsmouth” with University of Portsmouth and Blake Morgan
- “FLB Fareham” with Fareham College and Azets
- “FLB Winchester” with Dutton Gregory
I remain incredibly grateful to those organisations that have had the foresight and thought leadership to back the FLB® project to date.
Future Leaders Breakfasts are open – come and join us!
Hopefully, you have found it interesting to learn more about our networking events. You may be thinking that it could be of interest to some of your organisation’s new leaders. In fact, you may even be wondering how to come along and see for yourself.
We would love to welcome you to a face-to-face FLB® . So if you would like to know more, please get in touch. Let’s work out which FLB® would be the best for you to visit, if you’re based between Brighton and Poole.
by Astrid Davies | 3 Aug 2021 | Leadership Matters, Profiling
How well do you know yourself? We all like to think we know ourselves really well. We might also know a lot of our own strengths, foibles and development areas.
That might not actually be true. And that’s hard for some of us to face … others might actually know us better than we know ourselves.
Sometimes it might be our family – the ones we love (and who have to put up with the most from us!). Maybe it’s our friends – the ones we turn to for support and a good laugh. On other occasions, it might be our colleagues and co-workers. They probably actually see us for longer each day than our friends and family! That’s something to think about.
When you’re spending so much time with people, you’re bound to get on one another’s nerves from time to time. In fact, you may find that one of your co-workers “always” does something you’d rather they didn’t. What you may not know is that they may well think that you “always” do something irritating too. There are some uncomfortable truths that lurk beneath the surface in most workplaces. Those truths may just be perceptions. Perceptions can lay the foundation for misunderstandings. And if there’s misunderstandings, there may be miscommunication. Poor workplace communication is often at the root of low morale, poor motivation and ultimately poor productivity.
There is another way
To know yourself, and to know others around you, you could ask the people around you what they think of how you behave. They may well want the best for you and therefore be helpful with their feedback. They may also feel awkward about giving you feedback about things you do that you ought to either do better, do less, or indeed stop altogether!
Asking people what they think of you is a high-wire act, for you and them. It can put a toll on friendships in and out of work. It can also prey on your mind, if they give you things to think about but you don’t quite understand what they meant, or how it might affect them. And if it affects them in that way, does that mean EVERYONE around you thinks this? That could be really wonderful – or really awful, depending on the feedback.
There is a better way to know yourself.
How would it be if you could ask for objective feedback in a way that is anonymous, easy to do, and which explains the implications of the feedback to you. Sounds good, right? Well, that means you might like to consider taking a behavioural profile assessment.
There are a wide range out there on the market, but most of them focus on psychology-based descriptions of tendencies, preferences or “styles” as they are often known. Most are structured as some form of online questionnaire.
After the online questionnaire is completed, you should receive a report, generated by highly complex algorithms to match your answers against the preferences, tendencies or “styles” of the particular profiling tool you’re using. This report will give you feedback on how you are likely to behave in given situations. The report is likely to give you feedback on how others might see you, particularly if they have a different “style” from yours. What’s more, the report can give you priceless new insights into how you do what you do, and why others react to you as they do.
Following on from this, you might well think that, if everyone in your team had this profile, the level of mutual understanding and clarity of communication would skyrocket. And you might well be right. How might this be?
Well, for one thing, everyone having the same profiling assessment applied to them would give you all a common language with which to describe one another’s actions and behaviours. In addition, you would all have reports which offer an independent, objective lens through which to view yourselves. Finally, you would all have a way to understand the impact of your actions on one another.
The assessments I use
I use a range of profiling assessments. In other blogs I have explained why I use a needs analysis tool to improve team communication. However, sometimes, it is people’s personal style which is the stumbling block. That’s where I use:
These products are all different, highlighting different aspects of a person’s behaviours in work. Some focus on leadership specifically, some focus on key interactions. All of them are strengths-based, highlighting where people are strongest or more intense in their preferences, tendencies or “styles”.
Specifically, what questions would these products help you to answer? Well, they would help you understand or confirm your key strengths. That is always helpful, so you know how and when to deploy your resources to the best effect. No one has time to volunteer to do everything, including things they’re not great at doing, so maybe take this opportunity to focus your skillset on what you do best?
Next, these profiles could help you understand why you find some people easier to get along with in the workplace. Normally, there will be some who feel really on your “wavelength”. There will be some who make you wonder if you are speaking a foreign language when speaking to them, because they either don’t understand you or take offence at things that you simply don’t get.
There are lots of biases at play in the workplace (and in all human relationships); affinity bias is the source of the “he’s one of us” mentality that results in firms recruiting people in the image of the recruiter. This lack of diversity stifles innovation and, ultimately, productivity. So to avoid the inevitable biases at play in your workplace, using an objective assessment of people’s preferences and behaviours is a great way to introduce different points of view, whilst keeping a shared language in play all the while. It’s easy, cost-effective (particularly when compared with the cost of replacing disaffected leavers) and it really works. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t use profiling in my practice.
If you want to find out more …
Please get in touch. We can have a chat so you can explain precisely what your challenge is with your team (or maybe yourself). I can then offer you the profiling assessment which would best meet your needs in my professional opinion. You can access sample reports to get a feel for what you would be finding out. And you can be sure that nothing will be sold “at” you – everything my company provides to clients is necessary and appropriate.
I look forward to explaining all about these great leadership tools to you soon.
Image courtesy of Canva.
by Astrid Davies | 13 Jul 2021 | Leadership Matters
Five years ago, I came across an interesting report, about bouncing back in leadership. It was by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and focused on leaders’ resilience. They reprised it in 2020 with good cause. In this blog I take a slightly different look at its six key lessons learned. These were:
- Destigmatise failure for a resilient company culture
- Develop risk tolerance
- Accept, re-evaluate and face forward
- Leadership for resilience: a balanced mindset and humility
- Mentoring
- Building and using support networks
When I look at this list, I see some interesting groupings of ideas.
First of all, there’s an emphasis on the benefits of agility and flexibility of approach.
When I was qualifying for my accreditation in neuro-linguistic programming, we were taught that flexibility is a key tenet of the discipline. The most flexible person will succeed (or “win”, depending on your viewpoint). That means flexibility in the sense of able to respond appropriately to changing circumstances and keep focused. It also means adapting one’s leadership style to different circumstances AND different people, often simultaneously.
Some believe, mistakenly, that flexible equals weak. That is simply wrong. It takes huge strength to keep focused but remain adaptable and responsive in a complex situation. That’s where conscious risk-taking, and managed “failure” are so vital to leadership success. This is particularly true when you’re bouncing back from something as all-encompassing as the pandemic.
The flexible leader is one who understands risk and how to manage it as a part of their everyday workload. The successful leader is one who combines this flexibility and risk awareness with an ability to keep matters in perspective, so they can accept a situation, deal with it … and move on.
I also notice the importance of self-awareness, to bouncing back in leadership.
Bouncing back in leadership requires a positive and reflective mindset as well as a balanced one. The successful leader needs to understand their own strengths as well as the areas where they need to help of others to improve. Whether a mentor, or a skilled team member whose specialist knowledge can give the organisation the edge, the leader needs to recognise what they have to offer, and work with the other person (or people) to improve their own leadership performance, as they lead their team, or even organisation, forward.
The self-aware leader will understand their boundaries, so they will create and maintain a positive, inclusive, can-do culture. Knowing where to stop, and help people learn for themselves by doing for themselves, is key. That will help their organisation to thrive; this is particularly important in the post-pandemic business world.
The self-aware leader will also be mindful of what they simply should not be doing. It could be things they can’t do, or things they don’t have time to do. There could also be lots of things where others are better-placed to do them than the leader. Understanding that is a big part of being a successful leader. It makes for better headspace, to respond to the business’ need. It also can stop expensive, ego-driven mistakes!
The final way I think the learning divides-up, is people’s reliance and need for people.
A leader can’t be a leader if people won’t be led. The interpersonal skills required by leaders are perhaps more important than any others. It is central to a leader’s toolkit, to deal with others in an effective, positive and human way. Driving people too hard, pushing deals too aggressively, failing to notice other people’s circumstances … these are all leadership crimes against organisational resilience, in my view. A leader must learn to allow reliance on other humans, for help, for effective delivery and for support.
Support while bouncing back? Surely we’re back to weakness here?
If you think leaders don’t need support, you are missing the whole point. Successful leaders exist in a complex, inter-related matrix of relationships, where individuals need other individuals and teams, and even whole organisations. The same applies for teams and whole organisations too. And that’s before you even get near a major crisis, let alone responding to, during and after Covid.
Mentoring is a formal and acceptable word for “leadership support”, where a leader takes inspiration and sometimes even instruction from someone who can teach them what and how. Business and social networks exist to build business, but any leader who ignores the opportunity to connect with other leaders at a human level is missing a massive trick. People buy from people.
Remember Maya Angelou’s quote, part of which is
“People will never forget how you made them feel”.
Leaders need to understand that those people consenting to be led deserve to be treated well, with respect, and to be involved in decision-making. That way, an organisation is well run. It is also in a great place to bounce back from something as huge as the pandemic, because the organisation will have employees who really care about its values, performance and the outcomes everyone can achieve together. People matter. A successful leader never ever forgets that.
I hope you have found these takes on the CMI report of use and interest. If you are doing all they recommend, that’s great. Congratulations.
If you need some help to get you there, I can help with that. Please get in touch and let’s have a chat about getting you bouncing back in leadership.
by Astrid Davies | 30 Apr 2021 | Leadership Matters
In this blog, I’ll explore how refocusing on your leadership skills can keep your organisation ahead of the curve.
At the forefront of or leading in something, such as a developing
situation, field of study or business, social development, etc.
This is how the Free Dictionary’s online idioms reference defines keeping “ahead of the curve”.
Let’s examine what that means. There’s certainly a lot of inherent change in that definition, where you would be “at the forefront”, in a “developing situation”. That sounds unpredictable, evolving and perhaps unclear … precisely the kind of everyday leadership change challenges my clients face.
And in change, there is a lot of potential distractions, which dissipate energy. To keep at the forefront in anything, you will need to be pretty single-minded. The late Stephen R Covey said,
“the main thing, is to keep The Main Thing, the main thing”.
Simple to say, very, very difficult to do.
In the next normal, life will be more complex than ever, and this “developing situation” will offer up a host of challenges and possibilities. In the post-pandemic world, there will be a lot of curves out there.
There will be so many changes looming; some of them will be your choice; some of them will offer you no choice at all. How will you prioritise your resources, to make the best advances you can?
So, to revert to Covey: what IS your “main thing”, which has kept you successful, perhaps even ahead of the pre-Covid curve? What is your organisation’s Unique Selling Point, or singular advantage? Is what worked pre-Covid still going to work in this next normal?
How has the pandemic affected the resources at your disposal? Has the pandemic hit your income streams? Do you have as many people in your organisation? Have new people become available to do different things?
And once you know the answers to these tricky questions, there’s then the issue of you. How are you feeling about your leadership skills? What impact has Covid had on your personal resilience? What else will you need to bring to your organisation, to add that extra something to help everyone bounce back that bit stronger?
Once you know what your “Main Thing” is, and whether it still is your main thing, you have a clear direction. And that in itself will keep you ahead of most of your competitors, while they work out where their organisation now sits in this new world. However, the key is to have not only a plan of what you will do, but how.
That is where the management of change really comes into play. You will know your resources, so will be able to define what you can and cannot do, moving forward. That will help you plan on how you keep your “Main Thing” front and centre for your organisation.
And that is where managing your change, through your people, is going to really put you ahead of the curve. Empowering your teams, equipping them with knowledge and autonomy, so they take decisions that really matter, will be trusting your people to do the right thing well. These are all things that will build you a strong modern workforce. Resilient, engaged and committed to your “Main Thing”, your people will feel they have a real stake in your whole organisation’s success, as you pull together yet again.
All these factors are crucial leadership challenges – and opportunities. You can blame a lot on the pandemic, but you can also thank it for a lot too. You can use it as the reason to give people more freedoms, choice and influence. Experiment and set your people free to experiment too. Everyone will feel they have more of a stake in your organisation’s success. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
It does not, however, sound easy.
If you could use some expert professional help, to refocus your leadership skillset, I can help with that. In addition to executive and leadership coaching, my company can offer you a range of services to enhance how you lead your team into your thriving next normal.
So please book an appointment for a complimentary chat, and let’s make a start on your path to “ahead of the curve”, wherever that leads.
