Culture | The Leadership Coach™

On Being A Champion

Posted on 16. Dec, 2010 by Paul Andrew.

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“Champion” is a noun, but it’s also a verb. I believe a leader’s ambition should be both: to be a champion, but also to champion others. There’s something unattractive about the person who is great at what they do, but lets it go to their head. They forget that true success is not measured only [...]

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Green Light Policy

Posted on 14. Sep, 2010 by Paul Andrew.

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Most teams have their default setting set to “wait”. If you see an opportunity, write a plan, submit it to the right people, chase it up, wait for a decision to be handed down. Wait. If there’s a problem, tell the right person about it or ask what you’re allowed to do about it. Wait. [...]

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What’s The Story?

Posted on 24. Aug, 2010 by Paul Andrew.

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Great leaders have long understood the power of stories. A well-told story can achieve what operations manuals, mission statements, KPI’s and staff meetings rarely do. Renowned business author and speaker Tom Peters, in his book Leadership, said “A key – perhaps THE key – to leadership is the effective communication of a story”. That’s a [...]

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Bottleneck

Posted on 16. Jul, 2010 by Paul Andrew.

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What if one person, one department, or one process was seriously limiting the impact of your whole organisation? What if growth wasn’t so much about turning up the water, as it was about getting the kink out of the hose? What if the pressure you felt was largely created by the significant difference between the [...]

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What’s Your Leadership Footprint?

Posted on 11. May, 2010 by Paul Andrew.

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In more recent years we’ve become aware that every person, every company, leaves a mark on our natural environment. Increasingly we’re being forced to consider issues like our “carbon footprint” which are very tangible ways of measuring the extent to which we damage the earth as we go about life and business. That footprint was [...]

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Being Adaptable Is Over-Rated

Posted on 15. Mar, 2010 by Paul Andrew.

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For years I’ve sung the virtues of being adaptable and to be fair adaptability does have real value in certain situations. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not enough. Being adaptable is over-rated. By definition, leadership is bringing change to the world around you rather than simply conforming to what already exists. [...]

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What Every Leader Wants (And Why Most Don’t Get It)

Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by Paul Andrew.

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Recently a coaching client asked me, “How can I get my team to be more proactive?”. Good question. If you asked just about any leader if they want their team to use more initiative and be on the front foot, they’d say “Yes”… but ask them how they can build the sort of team where [...]