Are you the kind of person who recoils at the thought of having to do a presentation to your C-Suite Colleagues?

When CEOs refer their CTOs to me, one of their big reasons is that they feel the CTO isn’t stepping up in the role.

What to do when you feel like you are in over your head in your new role? 57 days in, and you are not feeling this role.

I was recording some videos recently for my impact Accelerator Programme and the subject of feedback loomed in the air.

When it comes to being a leader, we know our main purpose is to create a productive team that works towards a common goal.

This week we're looking at the 3 C’s of Business Influence Maybe you’ve seen all those posts about inspirational leaders or great communicators, and how, as leaders we should aspire to be like them.

This week we're looking at what you bring to the party. Or, how you need to show the ROI of you in their business

This week, we're looking at 'Texperts' No, I didn’t spell it incorrectly, it’s a real thing!

One of the most common complaints I hear from my clients is, “Why won’t my team step up and just do the stuff that I would do if I was that was me?”

Whether it be resistance to your programme, your idea, or way of doing something, or it be a full conflict between people in your team (or even with you), then you have a problem.

Clever, knowledgeable, and full of ideas on how to move the technology of a business forward? But sometimes it just doesn’t seem to work?

You know that feeling - you have a new role, and you are really excited and looking forward to it.

Making changes is hard, isn’t it? It’s bad enough if it’s a personal change like deciding not to have sugar in your team anymore.

As a CTO, and especially if this is a new appointment for you, you need to be the agent of change for your company. You are the one who predicts the future and makes the company future proof.

Have you ever sat there, at a family Christmas, birthday, or some other gathering, where everyone’s chatting, getting along, and then that one uncle commandeers the floor?

You see, there is a difference between being nice and ‘too nice’, and he was definitely the latter.

This week we're talking about something that I get asked all the time: How should we be using behavioural assessments with my team?

If you have kids (or if you ever were one 😉) you will remember that age old phrase that comes out of their mouths at frustratingly regular intervals - “Why?”

Picture the scene, Bob tells you he is going to get you out running because you could do with getting fit.

In many industries people put up with bullying, and working long hours, staying on at the drop of a hat.

I love my mates! They laugh with me, like similar things and we feel comfortable with each other.

If you put your head in the sand because it is in the “too difficult” box then you are guaranteed to have more pain, more conflict and worse results than ever before.

Recently I was talking to an amazing CEO of a number of businesses. I asked him what he thought was the most important thing that his CTOs needed to work on.

Maybe you started a business which became successful, and you’ve had to take people on.

That good old phrase – “I’m not a people person” is banded around so often that I am almost believing it myself. But it’s just not true.

As a leader, there is a sure-fire way to burnout, frustration, lack of results and total overwhelm.

Often what happens, is that we start opening the floodgates of ALL the information we have to give, which is making them even less likely to hear what you have to say.

You may have had a time when you thought you had got your point across, and you thought everyone had understood. But actually, they hadn’t got it. And you were at a loss to know why.

It doesn’t matter how much detail you give someone, if they don’t see the need to listen to the subject in the first place, then you are on a losing streak.

I felt the need to get on my soap box over something I am very passionate about – and that is that leadership is not a label, or a qualification.

Getting things wrong is an inevitable part of life and business, and in many situations getting something wrong can be a positive and lead to a better outcome.

If you are a leader and you want your team to be confident, capable in the business and take (calculated) risks, read on! So, where are you now?

At Think Be Do Leadership the belief is that Leadership is not just a qualification! It is a product of the behaviours we display that either help or hinder our teams to help us achieve our goals.

What do you do when your team is really NOT a team? If you have a group of people who are supposed to be clever, capable and on point, but they just don’t seem to get on, then it’s a NOT team!

So maybe you prefer computers to people? Or maybe you are a busy, busy person who hasn’t got the time for the niceties of a chat around the water cooler/zoom room.

When it comes to being a valuable asset to your company, leaders often make one very big mistake: That is that they think that being good at what they do is enough to keep them in their job.

We’ve all heard the moans and groans about meetings! A comment we often hear is that they are boring. Maybe there are times when we should rename Board Meetings as 'bored meetings'.

Do you ever find yourself incredibly annoyed or at least irritated by the characteristics of your colleagues?

Every company gets them – rogue employees. These are the people who seem to do their own thing, despite that not being the way everyone else does things.

When it comes to business performance, your team is the one thing that means everything! If they perform, you do, and the business does too.

In the age of working from home and Zoom meetings, it is easy to forget that there are actual people behind LinkedIn profiles and online meetings.

When it comes to leadership, you can’t do everything, nor should you be expected to.

If people don't believe in what you believe in, they won't do it the way you want them to, if at all.

Most people want to be liked. It’s an indomitable human trait, which keeps us safe as part of a group, a team, or a family.

It’s that Monday morning feeling again ☹. That drained, “I’ll do it later” feeling. That general “ugh” feeling.

Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things, they never thought they could.

Imagine if every time you went to work, you had someone over your shoulder, watching, telling you what to do at every turn. I don’t know about you but that sounds way to claustrophobic!

No not in the way you’re thinking – that WOULD be news! No, I mean engagement in terms of being engaged – at work. Mostly with your team.

Have you been on a plane recently? You know when they are going through all the safety notices and they come to the one about oxygen masks? What is the instruction there?

Change! It’s a scary thought for most people. And that’s perfectly natural. Your body and Psyche is pre programmed to avoid change. Think about it...

There has been a bit of a theme going on this year for us. A lot of the Business Owners and Senior Managers we have worked with have found 2018 hard...

Do YOU Wear A Bikini When Ski-ing? No, me neither, but it’s not a silly question. Or rather it IS, until you put it in context. So what do I mean?

So often, we say we are going to do things and we then don’t seem to even get off the starting blocks. Lose weight, do exercise etc, etc, blah, blah, blah… But have you ever wondered why that is?

When you were a kid, do you remember playing tag, hot potato, It, Bulldog etc in the playground? Great fun! But I can also remember a bunch of other playground games that weren’t quite so much fun...

This morning I was sitting in my office, contemplating my next move. I have a pretty big list of things that I need to do and some of them can be a bit overwhelming, if I am honest.

Have you ever had to spend endless days with someone that you just cannot stand?

I meet a lot of leaders in my line of work (leadership training lol). And many of them either had no plans to become a leader – it just kind of took them unawares...

Have you fallen out of love with your team? Or worse still, out of love with your business? As the boss, sometimes it can be hard to feel the love for the people who work for us.

What really is the number one issue for leaders. I popped a question on a LinkedIn post and surprise, surprise the biggest issue coming up so far is…

One thing I constantly hear when consulting with business owners and business leaders, is that they are having problems with their staff...

This week I have been delivering 2 days of leadership training to a fabulous group of firearms police officers and 2 leadership sessions to a group of conservators.

Last night we spent an amazing 90 minutes working with a group of leaders who were there to grow their impact, get more out of their teams and to get more time for themselves.

Oh my – someone just reminded me it was Thursday and I immediately thought – where has the week gone?

When it comes to being a new manager or leader, and especially in a very technical environment, one of the most common things I am asked to help with is people who suffer with Imposter Syndrome.

I have been avoiding this – but why? It started the other day when a good friend of mine saw a post I put up on LinkedIn and text me to say she had been wondering what had been happening to me...

I really wanted to get to the bottom of what it means to be resilient and what helps you to keep going in the face of adversity and, sometimes, overwhelm and overwork. It boiled down to 4 things...

Have you got a ‘catastrophe’ friend? Or work colleague? You know the sort – everything is always a drama. Nothing goes smoothly for them and they always have a story to tell...

Teams who collaborate well, generally ‘go faster’. Everything seems to be so easy and just flows. It’s the difference between a great experience in a restaurant and a poor one...

Are you looking to grow your business? If the answer to that is ‘yes’ but it isn’t happening, then the next question is – ’are YOU holding your business back?’

When you are trying to keep your team productive, happy and busy, it is important not to give them too much to do. Too much work is vastly demotivating and will lead to LESS being achieved...

With this skill, you will be able to positively affect your team’s performance and also their morale. You will be able to speed up their development in their role or...

It can be intimidating to a new leader who might be naturally more introverted. But the truth is that in today’s workplaces, people are much less likely to respond to being ‘told what to do’.

There is a certain stereotype which comes to mind when talking about the leadership required to run your own business. And it is a stereotype that holds people back. And it shouldn’t.

One of the most common complaints I hear from my clients is, “Why won’t my team step up and just do the stuff that I would do if I was that was me?”

Here’s a question a frustrated manager recently asked me, “How come delegation never works?”. It’s a question that I have heard many times over the years.

This week I thought I would share with you an interview I did this week with the lovely Ellen Dorian.

Do you ever find yourself incredibly annoyed or at least irritated by the characteristics of your colleagues?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Delegation’s What You Need!

Everyone has a decision to make when they walk into the office (or join the team zoom call) in the morning. How are you going to show up?

How has your 2020 gone? Who knew that we would face the situation we have, with a global pandemic and the on again off again tier levels and associated restrictions.

Which comes first the chicken or the egg? In terms of the age-old context, I’m not sure anyone can say for sure. But in terms of leadership – the answer is sometimes the chicken and sometimes the egg.

One of the key things that is going to make you stand out from the crowd, and at the same time have a happier and more successful working life as manager / leader, is to have a high performing team.

There are a number of critical skills for a leader to have to be successful in their role. And all of them are important, but there is one that is arguably the most important.

So many people I work with are suffering from one of the following because they can’t ’Say No’. Do any apply to you too? • Too much to do. • Feel guilty. • Don’t want to let people down.

If there was ever a time you need your team to be performing at their best, it is now. Coming out of the Pandemic many businesses need to be ’hitting the ground running’ and ’making up for lost time.’

Have you ever done a D.i.S.C. profile, or heard of it? It’s a personality profiling tool, which is useful in recruitment or development processes.

This is what I am passionate about – this is what I work with business leaders on every day of my working life. I work with leaders on staying focused on being the leader and not doing the do.

Who Do You Think You Are....to own a business?

Something I keep coming across with my new clients is the common theme of – never being able to take a holiday or even a day off. They fear that if they are not there everything will fall apart.

Being in a rhythm means life is easier. Things happen when they are supposed to. And they happen how they are supposed to. Life can move forward in a purposeful direction.

So many people tell me how they hate meetings as they see them as a waste of time, something to be endured and not enjoyed. And the reason they hate them is that nothing productive actually happens...

The job of a leader is to get better results out of people than they could do by themselves. To step up into leadership, you need a new bunch of skills, that are different to those of a technician...

At some point in your working life, you will work with a narcissist. You might be managing them, they might be managing you or it may be a colleague at your level...

Leadership Is All About Listening The Most Important People to Listen to Are Your Team

In business, your team is just like a band. Unless everyone comes together, works together, then you will always struggle to produce anything of value.

Everyone has their own style. How we choose to dress is a conscious decision, whether we go for fitting or oversized, for the bright patterns or the muted tones. And work is no different.

Behaviour breeds behaviour. So if your team is not performing the first thing we need to look at as leaders, is ourselves.

Have you ever sat there, at a family gathering, where everyone’s chatting, getting along, and then that one uncle commandeers the floor? We all know what happens next...

As a leader it is easy to feel like, as everything your team does ultimately falls back on you, it is best done yourself, isn’t it?

There is a tendency – when facing something we don’t want to deal with – to figuratively stick our head in the ground, like an ostrich and not deal with whatever that is.

Just as I am talking to you now, we are constantly communicating every day. Of course, some people more than others! But the importance of communication, in business as in life cannot be overlooked!

I work with a lot of businesses turning over £1 - £5 million pounds who are trying to grow and finding it a struggle. Maybe you might also be experiencing the same - your business can’t grow!

As leaders, we are constantly making decisions and so always looking for the ‘what’s wrong with your team, your business, your clients’ is a sure-fire way to hold yourself back.

Is Your Team On Fire? You better hope they are – because it is the only way you can succeed at growing your business.

Being a Manager is hard! You are always getting in your own way. You see, being a business owner who wants to grow means being not only a manager but also a leader.

Now, work is often viewed as a necessary evil, something to endure rather than enjoy, but this doesn’t always have to be the case.