Leadership in Chaos

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Leadership in Chaos is back with an exciting new series – Confessions of a Guru. 

The “Guru” label is deliberately ironic as, in the age of the infinite digital platform, everyone, it seems, is a guru. By self-appointment. 😉

The format is to choose a story from my 30+ years of working with leaders globally, which, illustrates the best or the worst of some aspects of leadership. After telling the story, I then extrapolate the message application for you to consider in your life and work. I know you’re busy, so it will be always brief!

 This Episode – Part One

The first story is one that goes back to the very start of my career more than 30 years ago and tells about why I decided against undertaking a lucrative Change project with a client because they fell down on the Say-Do gap. I hope you enjoy….

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The Keynote Season Part 4: Inspire Commitment

“The more digital the world becomes, the more we must emphasise what makes us most human” – Jack Ma

This episode unveils the 4 Emotionally Intelligent “Cards” that – played right – help build connection and commitment: Humanity’s trump card in an increasingly digital deck. 

Insights include:

-Leadership is a contact sport

-Quality of Interaction = Quality of Commitment

-Why Trust is harder – and more critical – during Uncertainty

-The 4 Emotionally Intelligent Commitment Cards
 

Related Episodes

Episode 53, 54, 55 : Leadership in the New World (Dis)Order (Parts 1-3)

Episode 47 : Chaos is the New Normal

Episode 39 - 42 : Leading Teams in Chaos

Episode 26 : The Leadership Contribution

Episode 25 :  What is Leadership? (in Chaos)

Episode 8 : Building Trust

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The Keynote Season Part 3: Create Clarity

In times of ambiguity and uncertainty, people look intensely to their leaders.

As that leader, if you can be nothing else, be clear.

This episode explains why and how.

 Insights include:

-Why people don’t do what they’re supposed to…and what to do about it

-Why Ambiguity is Enemy No1 for High Performance

-Leadership’s 2 Clarity Traps

-How we judge Ourselves Vs How Others judge us

Related Episodes

Episode 57 – Keep Your Focus – Avoid Procrastination

Episode 32 – Planning and Prioritising in Chaos

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The Keynote Season Part 2: The Leadership Contribution

Leadership isn’t about position, title, or privilege – although many organizations operate as if it is.

Leadership is best seen as a form of contribution.

In this episode, we unpack exactly what makes up that contribution.

 Insights include:

-What is Leadership?

-Ask the Audience – we all know great leadership

-Organisations are awful at developing leadership

-Why the Peter Principle is alive and well in corporate life

Related Episodes

Episode 53, 54, 55 : Leadership in the New World (Dis)Order (Parts 1-3)

Episode 47 : Chaos is the New Normal

Episode 39 - 42 : Leading Teams in Chaos

Episode 26 : The Leadership Contribution

Episode 25 :  What is Leadership? (in Chaos)

Episode 8 : Building Trust

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The Keynote Season Part 1: Chaos? Always!

“Events, dear boy, events” was Harold Macmillan’s succinct reply when asked about the greatest challenge for a statesman.

 Well, so too with this humble Podcaster who – through force of “events” - has been absent from the podcast platform for exactly one year today.

 The absence, however, hasn’t been wasted and, on this the very anniversary of my previous episode, I am rebooting with an omnibus quadruple-decker edition entitled the Keynote Season.

 The title comes from the many Keynotes I’ve been invited to deliver during the past 12 months to address the overwhelming client desire to understand the updated principles of “How to Lead in an Age of Chaos and Disruption”.

We’re born without all the answers, we die without all the answers, yet we spend most of our lives looking for certainty.

The problem lies not with the stars …but with ourselves.

We spend this first episode of the Keynote series exploring why we crave certainty so much when the natural state is one of change, ambiguity, and Chaos.

Therein lies our collective discomfort.

Insights include:
-It’s not You Chaos, it’s Us
-It’s our expectations, stupid
-It’s OK not to feel OK
-Embrace the Discomfort & look for the Opportunity
-How Big corporations are capitalizing on the insight

Related Episodes
Episode 53, 54, 55: Leadership in the New World (Dis)Order (Parts 1-3)
Episode 47: Chaos is the New Normal
Episode 39 - 42: Leading Teams in Chaos
Episode 26: The Leadership Contribution
Episode 25:  What is Leadership? (in Chaos)
Episode 8: Building Trust

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“The most scarce resource in the world today is attention” – Yuval Noah Harari 

The only 2 industries that refer to customers as “users” are Big Tech and drug cartels.

We live in an increasingly technology-fuelled Garden of Eden – an attention economy where the most sophisticated dark forces are constantly, covertly intent at work to distract you.

If time is your most precious asset as a leader, then saving and spending it wisely becomes paramount.

Your old biological defences are hardly sea-worthy any longer and in this age of fierce clandestine competition for your attention, you’re gonna need a bigger boat (or at least a better way to navigate!) to stay afloat.

Insights include:

-What happens when ancient human biology collides with 21st century technology

-Living in a state of Continuous Partial Attention

-The recipe for Deep Work

-Navigating the Struggle phase towards a state of Flow

-Why Multi-Tasking is a myth

-The 2 Fundamentals to combat Distraction

Related Episodes

Episode 57 – Keep Your Focus – Avoid Procrastination

Episode 32 – Planning and Prioritising in Chaos

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“Imagination is more important than Knowledge – Albert Einstein”

What has Art got to do with Leadership? Throughout nearly 30 years of working with leaders and leadership, the very best leaders I’ve encountered all have had one thing in common irrespective of geography or industry: the sensibility of an artist. This was reinforced to me recently when attending a screening of a documentary produced by Maria Doyle Kennedy about the life and work of Irish artist Patrick Scott. After all, leadership is all about creating something novel and new from just your imagination combined with the resources at your disposal whilst inspiring others to join in its creation. So just what is that artistic sensibility that separates the best from the rest?

Insights include:

-The fallacy of the equation:  Good Leadership = Good Results

-The best leaders are committed to creating a thing of Beauty

-How the Physicist and the Artist are both opposites and the same

-The root of authenticity and charisma

-The 3 Primary Characteristics of Beauty – Radiance, Integrity, Consonance

-Sage advice for appointing the next new leader (or anyone!)

Related Episodes

Episode 52 - Zoom Out Often

Episode 45 – Finding Flow in Chaos

Episode 43 – Building Trust in Teams

Episode 40 – Leading Teams in Chaos – Part 2

Episode 34 – Finding Meaning in Chaos

Episode 26 – The Leadership Contribution

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Whilst not obligatory that you “love” your people at work - in the amorous sense! - people at least need to know you, as the leader, have got their best interests at heart.

On this Valentine’s Day, it is worth remembering that your connection to those that matter makes an enormous contribution to your leadership impact and results. 

Here’s one of my favourite episodes “From the Archive”: A timely reminder of why and how to …

In this episode I explain:

• What Star Wars has to do with building connection
• How we often think we’re building connection when in fact we’re not
• How our Tacit Wisdom is stronger than our intellectual knowledge
• What to focus on to deepen connection

…And ..our discomfort with silence

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I started the Flow(group) business exactly 25 years ago this month - in January 1998.

I can’t brag, because Google started up the same month. 

For context, it was the year Apple unveiled the iMac; the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky scandal; the FDA approved the Viagra pill (not related); and the NI Good Friday Agreement (definitely not related).

During the time, in addition to the quotidian demands for change, our clients and our business has had to navigate 3 major Global Economic disruptions – spaced roughly a decade apart (just to keep us on our toes!):

-Dotcom Bubble Implosion (2000)

-Global Financial Crash (2009-10)

-Covid Pandemic (2020+)

What’s made the quarter-century journey most worthwhile is the Learning about Leadership.

It’s been like attending a real-time, experiential Leadership Academy every day for 25 years where the case studies are playing out in the raw, moment by moment. Witnessing the best and the worst of leadership has led to insights you couldn’t possibly find in any one book.

The Manifesto is a consolidation - into 25 Principles - of the essence of How to Be as a leader in a world of unending Chaos. 

Related Episodes

Episode 59 – Leadership in Lay-offs - Twitter Vs Stripe

Episode 58 – Leadershipinchaos.gov.uk – How Liz Truss authored her own downfall

Episode 26 – The Leadership Contribution

Episode 5 – Clarity in Chaos

Episode 3 – Communicating in Chaos

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