Managing change remains one of the single biggest challenges for leaders today. By our very nature we resist change and lean towards maintaining the status quo. Being a leader who can be flexible and lead the way forward in times of change, showing their adaptability and inspiring others to do the same, is no easy feat. Understanding the psychology behind what motivates us to change is important in determining how to ignite change in your staff.  ..

In his enlightening 20-minute TEDx Talk, Kaufman poses the question “How long does it take from starting something and being grossly incompetent and knowing it to being reasonably good?” The answer, he argues, is just 20 hours. That equates to 40 minutes a day for a month, or 20 minutes a day for two months. With just 20 accumulated hours of focused, deliberate practice, you can go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing something well. That’s encouraging if you are faced with the daunting task of having to learn a new skill at work, learn all about new technology, learn to play a musical instrument or even learn a new language. So how can you go about pursuing this 20-hour challenge? How do you ensure you invest those 20 hours in the most productive way? Kaufman defines four steps to learning a new skill;  ..

When we are faced with things we need to change, we are compelled to look at the surrounding information and issues contributing to the problem to try to fix it. There is often a complex web of issues that need to be dealt with to fix any one problem. When you need to change, this way of looking at problems can leave us feeling overwhelmed, demotivated and inactive, as the steps to ‘fix’ the problem are just too numerous, to complex or too big to deal with.  ..

During my many years of working with leadership teams, I can whole heartedly say the key to leadership teams working well together is good communication. Having a leadership team that has good and open communication or at least having everyone committed to trying to achieve that is essential. Often when I first start working with clients, they have a crisis situation whereby their leaders are at locker heads, are not talking to one another or are using less than optimal communication that results in defensive and conflicting relationships. Leadership meetings are not as productive as they ought to be and are leaving attendees feeling drained and conflicted. This is a lose-lose situation. This way of working has often, alarmingly, become ingrained and if the leaders are not working harmoniously and towards common goals, the overall culture of the organisation is also negatively impacted.  ..

Highly effective leaders tend to be able to adapt their leadership approach to suit the circumstances at hand. They know when it’s time to take a back seat and simply listen and the when it’s appropriate to step forward and take an authoritative stance.  ..

Its’ that time of year, where there is a higher incidence of musical chairs in the corporate world with people changing jobs. If you are in a leadership role, chances are you’ll have a resignation or two on the horizon, or new job openings and will be faced with the inevitable task of having to recruit new people to fill roles. Interviewing candidates can be a daunting process and there is endless advice I can offer you but for the sake of this article, I will focus on a couple of ‘traps’ managers often fall into when interviewing candidates for a role. ..

Reliability is one of the most desired attributes of any of good business. And it stands to reason that a reliable company is the sum-total of reliable individuals who work within it. Reliable people easily establish relationships, build deeper connections, are given more responsibility in their work and most of all, are considered trustworthy. When we have the trust of our employers, our colleagues and our customers, we have the foundation to really thrive.
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If you gathered your team together and asked them “hands up who thinks meetings are fun or that we should have more of them?” it’s likely you’ll be met with a stony silence or roar of laughter. Most of today’s office professionals not only dislike meetings, generally, many of them think the meetings they do attend are a waste of time.  ..

The only constant in life is change itself. If you are in a leadership role, there is one thing we know for sure, that you will have to manage your way through changing environments and challenges in the year ahead and will be thrown all sorts of curveballs. It’s not a warming thought, we all know it’s true, yet instinctively we still resist change and find it threatening. We are creatures of habit and hen it comes to work, most of us feel like the rug is being pulled from under us when change is imminent. Yet in this changing world, our companies would wither and die without embracing change.
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Who knows what 2019 has in store for us. Certainly, the one thing we can count on is ongoing change and uncertainty, so it’s critical that leaders can take whatever is thrown their way it in their stride throughout the year. Here are five leadership resolutions that all leaders can, and should, embrace in the year ahead. ..