Leadership Beyond Borders

We live in an undeniable digital world where most of the global population are active web users, and the pandemic has been a contributing factor to the increasing inactivity. The internet is being used for communication, staying social, working from home, learning, entertainment, and shopping. When you consider these trends and consider that in the US and the EU, it is estimated that 15% of internet users have some disability that hinders their full use of a website, it is time to ask ourselves how we can make the web more accessible? When we see a handicapped parking place, a ramp or brail in an elevator, we do not think about it, but, when it comes to accessibility on the web, we forget about it. In this episode, we speak with the CEO of a platform that powers 1000's marketing agencies. One of their missions is to help every business understand how vital web accessibility is.

Earlier this year there was the announcement of a massive computer breach that allowed hackers to exploit numerous US government agencies left the US government and the world in shock. The hackers attached malware to a software update which gave them access to government networks and private company systems, putting infrastructures, data, operations and priority information at risk. But this is not the only attack we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic. Chris Versace estimates that in the first 100 days of the pandemic Covid-themed spam messages increased by 26%, and impersonation attacks jumped by 40%. This is worrying news as the world transitions into a virtual workforce, AI advances and healthcare systems and data are a priority. In this episode, we explore how and why we have become so vulnerable and how we can better protect ourselves.

We live in a global economy and a multi-cultural world and being culturally adaptable is becoming ever more critical. It does not matter if you call it cultural intelligence, adaptiveness, or sensitivity; you must have some attributes that make you culturally agile to be a successful professional. Being culturally agile can help professionals from different backgrounds interact more effectively and ultimately increase overall individual and company performance. But this is easier said than done. Many individuals and companies do not understand the attributes that make someone culturally agile. They are unsure what competencies and skills people need. This episode examines not only the importance of cultural agility but also the attributes that contribute to it.

As usual, brands must consider their target audience when developing their messages, and this expectation is intensifying as consumers place greater emphasis on brands' actions. People relate to positive messages around social issues such as the environment, coronavirus safety, and systemic racism; therefore, how a business or brand positions itself can impact consumer loyalty.

It essential for businesses and brands to recognize diverse cultures and different values. We all have unconscious biases and draw from our own experiences as our default, and this makes it hard for marketers to spot when a marketing campaign is not as inclusive as it could be.

Therefore, we must monitor diversity and inclusion in marketing, and there are different ways to do this. In this episode, we explore how we can do this and ensure we reach every possible consumer group and leave no-one out.

Truly successful individuals and leaders recognize that they cannot always have the answer themselves and that it is unrealistic for any one person to be the expert on everything. Truly great leaders, though, understand that they may not have to be the answer themselves. They merely need to be the catalyst for others to generate the answers, as well as to create a safe culture and environment for such energies to come forth. This quote from Dr Jeffrey Magee, author of The Managerial Leadership Bible: Learning the Strategic, Organizational, and Tactical Skills Everyone Needs Today, gives an insight into this episode. In this episode, we explore key leadership issues that can make or break a company from ensuring the company's mission statement cascades through the organization to how to foster change. Dr Magee gives us significant bits of advice about managing a company, an organization, and even managing ourselves.

On December 31, 1999, the world was in a panic related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for 2000. Even though we had years to prepare for this, we still waited until the last minute, and 21 years later, there is another panic.

Businesses are wondering what happened when Google changed to mobile-first indexing on March 31, 2021. They are also wondering what will happen when the core values for website ranking change in May and yesterday was the deadline. Businesses’ need to prepare themselves, but they have had other priorities over the last 12 month, adapting their business models because of the pandemic.

But some good has come out of the pandemic. Businesses have been propelled forward into the digital and mobile world. Google quickly jumped on these changes with a whole new suite of core values for website ranking. This episode looks at them and explains what you need to do to make your website visible.

Change is inevitable, it is sometimes in our control and is deliberate and predicted and sometimes it is out of our control. Sometimes there are slight changes and sometimes we face changes of magnitude like we all faced over the last 18 months. But as leaders how we deal with change will be reflected in how our employees will deal with it. Our approaches, reactions and attitudes and either lead people to change or have them resisting it. In this episode we talk about some of the levers we can use to best implement change while getting everyone on board the train. Our guest on this show is an expert in the area of change.

If you gathered some of the worlds top CEO's in one room, what would they say were the lessons they learned from the crisis we have been through over the last 18 months? What would they say about the future? In this episode, we speak with an executive coach/journalist who spoke with CEOs from all over the world to find out what they were thinking and, more importantly, what they were doing!. Interestingly, many of them identified the same challenges and opportunities that have emerged from the pandemic. From the book "Leaders in Lockdown: Inside stories of Covid-19 and the new world of business", we not only explore what these leaders say, we try to use their messages to pave the way for the future..

There used to be two forms of marketing; online marketing and offline marketing and then the explosion in digital happened and now there are now more than 41 different types of marketing happening on numerous platforms. Because of all these options, it becomes confusing for companies when they begin to build a marketing strategy. Developing an effective marketing strategy takes time and expertise and sometimes businesses just do not know how. But there are essential elements that need to be in a marketing strategy and this episode talks about the options available and how to make the best marketing channel choices for your business.

Today's business leaders face several challenges, and they all did not just start with the pandemic, but they are not alone. For hundreds of years, our military leaders have been facing challenges even more significant than those we face today. So the question we pose in this episode, what can we learn from our military leaders. In Part 3 of this three-part series, we look at history and one of the US's most important Civil War battles, Gettysburg. We use this battle to teach us some essential leadership lessons that can benefit you as a leader today.