Organisations need to constantly change and adapt in order to stay competitive these days. But leaders faced with the task of ensuring employees change and adapt to move forward face some difficult challenges. By nature, people are resistant to change. It’s a survival instinct, a defence mechanism; if we avoid sudden change, we minimise the risk of danger. Leaders today, or anyone in a position of managing others, can benefit by having a deeper understanding of the psychology behind why we are immune to change and what we can do to approach change.  ..

Leaders who manage to keep their staff satisfied and motivated in their jobs, enjoy much better levels of productivity and lower levels of turnover. Good leaders strive to build strong, healthy relationships with the individuals in their team where mutual respect and trust exist, and communication can thrive. There have been countless studies and research into techniques to keep staff happy and motivated, but perhaps one that stands out to me is a technique favoured by psychologists with their clients that encourages their clients to be the best version of themselves and works to develop a strong and trusting relationship between therapist and client; a technique originally founded by psychologist Carl Rogers, known as unconditional positive regard.  ..

Imagine you have just been appointed a leadership role in a company. Would you walk into the job expecting that you will instantly be granted the respect and trust required to effectively lead your team? Hopefully not. Respect and trust take time to develop and a good leader knows they need to invest the time and effort to earn the right to lead. The best way to develop trust and respect is to work on building strong and meaningful connections, with each individual within your team. People are more likely to respect and follow those leaders that they feel they have a connection with. ..

Have you ever been in the situation where you have to lead someone in your team who seems to have their mindset stuck in past? Perhaps you have moved offices and they keep referring to ‘the good old days’ in the old office. Perhaps you have restructured your team and have someone in it who keeps referring to the old structure as ‘The A Team’, making newer members feel bad. Perhaps they are often saying “We tried that before and it didn’t work”.. Alternatively, you may have managed people who are particularly impulsive and tend to take more risks than you do, and you find yourself holding them back somewhat. Where we are in our mind plays a big role in our ability to move forward.  ..

I’d like you to imagine a newly built brick wall. The best the wall is ever going to be is when it is first built. It stands to reason that over time, given no care on ongoing commitment to its maintenance along the way, the wall will deteriorate. One day it may even collapse. The same principle applies to organisations. Left to its own devices without effective leadership, organisations are nothing more than a group of people, a mob.  ..

Last week I explored the attributes of optimistic and pessimistic people in my article Learn to be more optimistic PART 1 and how to identify them through their explanatory style. The fact that optimism can be learned and actively applied through some tried and tested techniques is something we can all embrace in our personal and work lives, regardless of exactly where on the scale our natural levels of optimism lie. ..

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? You may not always see the world through rose-coloured glasses, but chances are you are an optimist. Research indicates that up to 80% of us are. Being optimistic is vitally important in determining how you bounce back from setbacks, how you perceive the world around you and how persistent you are to achieve the things you want to achieve, both in the workplace and in your personal life. But if you fall in the category of 20% of people who are pessimists, there’s some good news. Optimism can be learned.  ..

Human beings are motivated to assign causes to their actions and behaviours. Attribution is the process by which individuals explain the causes of behaviour and events. You may have heard of Weiner’s attribution theory; one which assumes that we try to determine why people do what they do, or the way in which we interpret causes to an event or behaviour. ..

In an ideal world, all emerging leaders should receive many years of coaching, formal training and mentoring to prepare them for the powerful and challenging role they are destined to step into. By the time they move into their first leadership role they should be 100% ready to tackle the day to day challenges that arise, leading their team with great confidence and ease. In reality, this rarely happens. Most leaders receive very little leadership training before stepping into their first leadership role. More often than not, first-time leaders jump straight into the deep end and have to bumble their way through, learning the ropes as they go.    ..

All too often, when a new leader joins an organisation they jump in feet first and are eager to make an impact straight away. Some of this comes down to our culture of busyness or our ‘cult of speed’ that I wrote about in my previous blog. We don’t want to be seen to be wasting time, we feel the need and the pressure to get things done and make changes quickly and efficiently. New leaders know that all eyes are on them and everyone is holding their breadth to see what their next move is going to be. To be seen to do nothing, straight away, can be misconstrued as a sign of weakness, a sign of failure. The new leader joining a business may be highly anticipated, with the employees expecting to see changes and improvements made quickly. The pressure is on for the new leader to perform. ..