Can leaders lose their leadership effectiveness over time? Is that a real loss of leadership competence or perceived decline? What could have caused the loss? In the second phase of my year-long longitudinal study on leadership development in SMEs, I noticed a significant decline in the ratings of some managers from a particular SME according…
How well is your organisation navigating the five phases of crisis management in the COVID-19 pandemic?
No one could have predicted the COVID-19, so we thought, apart from Bill Gates in his 2015 TED talk and many others including health officials and experts, politicians, authors and movie directors and apparently a psychic. However, most of us really didn’t see this coming, until after the first case of pneumonia of unknown cause…
Six Complaints About Learning and Development Opportunities in Organisations
According to the study done by Professor Paul James Davis at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, here are the top six complaints of mid-level managers from private companies across S.E. Asia about the learning and development opportunities offered by their companies: 1. Does not relate to my current job/work…I can’t actually use what I have learned….
Your Participants Are Really a Bunch of Animals – The Biology of Facilitation
“Have you ever facilitated a session and observed some participants acting like a bunch of animals?” asked Marcy, Julie B. (2013, p21) and i think the resounding answer from most facilitators would be “YES!”. It’s important for facilitators to be aware that participants are primarily mammals. We have basic physiological needs just like any other…
Successful Managers Don’t Do What Effective Managers Do?
According to the study conducted by F. Luthans, R.M. Hodgetts and S. A. Rosenkrantz (1988), successful managers and effective managers seem to be spending their time on quite different activities. Their investigation on 450 managers revealed that successful managers spent 48% of their time Networking (socialising, politicking and interacting with outsiders), 28% on Communication (exchanging…
Managing Paradoxes in Leadership with Competing Values Framework
Many have debated on the differences between a leader and a manager (Yukl 2010). . Some suggest that one can’t be both at the same time, whereas others simply view them as different roles that may be executed by the same person. I’m inclined toward the latter, because that’s what my clients seem to be telling…
Is it “Leader” Development or “Leadership” Development?
There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the difference between “leader” and “leadership” development. The former focuses on the individual leader and has been criticised by Gemmill and Oakley (1992) as an “alienating social myth” that creates a learned “helplessness” in those known as “followers”. The latter therefore takes into consideration the entire…
I’m the Boss! Why Should I Care If You Like Me? – Bloomberg
Many people assume that it’s possible for a person to be an effective leader without being likable. That is technically true, but you may not like the odds. In a study of 51,836 leaders, we found just 27 who were rated at the bottom quartile in terms of likability but in the top quartile in…
7 Tips on Leading Your Former Peers
It has been said that up to 90% of mid-level executives have been promoted in the past to lead their peers. Many new leaders struggle with getting comfortable in the new role which requires them to lead their former peers. Here are some lessons i’ve learnt from my own journey in leading my former peers….
Put Off Till Tomorrow What You Cannot Do Today
Thomas Jefferson once said “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today”. That is a great principle to keep to in general. But once a a while i find myself getting better results when i put off till tomorrow what i cannot do today. Here are three reasons why i put off some…
10 Powerful Coaching Questions
I’ve found that the right questions asked at the right time brings about breakthrough that no answers could bring. Questions introduce new perspectives, shifts paradigms, explores the unknown and somehow empowers the individual. Here are some of my favorite ones: 1. What is the reality here? 2. What is the one regret you do not…
What Losing My Job Taught Me About Leading – Douglas R. Conant – Harvard Business Review
It was the spring of 1984. I remember the day as if it were yesterday. It was a beautiful morning on Boston’s North Shore and I could smell the sea air as I drove to my job as the Director of Marketing for The Parker Brothers Toy and Game Company. When I arrived, I was…
Everyone A Leader 