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Many of my clients are already high performers. They are also committed to developing people and fostering a culture of learning and growth. They adopt a leader-as-coach approach, empowering and supporting their team members to find their own solutions rather than telling them what to do. Yet I see some of these high-performing leaders inadvertently...
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I have always loved swimming. When I was a kid, I joined the local swimming club and competed in various events. I wasn’t the fastest swimmer, and I was happy when I won a bronze medal. But every year, I trained hard to win a points trophy because that meant I was constantly improving my...
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Years ago, the organisation I worked for appointed a senior leader with a challenging and destructive personality. When he started an internal communication informed us of his illustrious career and what a difference he would make. Not long afterwards, he brought in a small team of acolytes who sang his praises and justified why it...
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Driven. A word past colleagues would use to describe my approach to work. It may be why complex and challenging work assignments kept coming my way. Each success led to a new challenge. Being a consistent and reliable performer can be a quick path to promotion when you are in your twenties and early thirties....
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Can you relate to how hard it is to break some habits? Are you frustrated at your inability to make a change even though you’re either deeply committed to it or have no doubt you will be better off having made that change? If so, you’re not alone if you find yourself undermining your efforts...
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Do you think you’re assertive? During an Embrace the Unknown workshop, some participants were extremely surprised to learn that their Indicator of Ambiguity (IAm) profile identified they should focus on developing the skill ‘Assertion’ to build their tolerance of ambiguity. I had conversations with several people who were confused because they believed they didn’t have...
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One of my clients learnt the hard way when they hired someone without doing sufficient due diligence. That hire, who is no longer an employee, wreaked havoc on the client’s business during their short time there. They behaved in a manner inconsistent with the client’s values and ethics. The business’s clients and the network of...
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No one likes a bully, and if you’re a leader, one of your fears could be that others experience your behaviour as bullying. What you may not expect if you’re in a senior role is being bullied by a subordinate. Clients and professional colleagues have recently shared their experiences with openly and passively aggressive behaviour...
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How often have you felt frustrated about weather uncertainty this last summer? You diligently check the forecast and confirm it’s expected to be fine, but then it rains buckets, spoiling your plans. Or you cancel your plans because of a predicted severe storm that never eventuates. We accept that we cannot control the weather. However,...
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I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘assume makes an ass out of you and me’. This was certainly the case in 2010 when 1,167 retired military officers wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama, who was considering repealing the law that banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. Those retired officers...
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Early in my career, I often sat on one side of the table supporting senior managers to effect change while union officials and delegates, concerned about how the change would affect them, sat on the other side. It wasn’t unusual for the union officials to get worked up and put on a show for their...
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Are you one of those people who comes out of a meeting deflated when the conversation is dominated by known complex challenges and unknowns? Do you take it in your stride, or are you oddly excited about the challenge and completely at ease with what is still unknown? You’ve probably been in many uncertain situations...
Read itIf the complexity in your organisation isn't going anywhere, and you have less certainty than you'd like, that's ground Susanne has worked for thirty years.
Start with a conversation to find your team's way through.
