Psychology@Work

Today’s podcast brings us a truly tremendous human, doing a whole range of positive work in the community both in the UK and in DRC in Central Africa, Christian Bless.

We discuss Chris's story: setting up Solola Bien, a TV show in DRC, the community group Boys 2 Men in London and most recently, Greaterself – a consultancy that aims to help African businesses bring transformation in workplaces through the recognition of strengths and self-awareness.

We also look at what more can be done, and by whom, as regards community work. What’s needed and how can people help, what can they do?

This is a genuinely inspiring podversation, giving us a personal journey around Chris's various community and business ventures. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

For more information on Chris’s community projects, please check out the following links:

https://www.sololabien.co/ 

https://www.youtube.com/c/SololaBien

https://www.instagram.com/sololabien_realtalk/

https://www.instagram.com/king_blessc/ 

I’m delighted to be having a conversation today with our Strengthscope intern, Abbigail Leeson. In her time with us, Abbigail has been focusing on building the Strengthscope practitioner community and has provided a lot of creative and research input to help us with that. Abbi is studying for her Psychology degree at Cardiff University and has been spending her placement year with us, in a slightly unusual set of circumstances because she’s actually met very very few of us in person thanks to the pandemic.

Read more:

https://www.strengthscope.com/gender-equality-feminism-and-strengths/

It’s important for leaders to be clear on the purpose of their team, of their department and their organisation and the function of each in the world.

This boils down to having a vision and sharing that vision of something beyond just a job or a project for each person working for you, but instead to help each employee feel part of something bigger which is making a positive difference in your context.

This podcast gives you 7 steps on how to develop and share your leadership vision.

Read more:

https://www.strengthscope.com/how-to-share-your-leadership-vision-in-7-steps/

In this podversation, I talk with Dr. Rebecca Newton, organisational psychologist and executive coach and author of Authentic Gravitas - Who Stands Out and Why.

Amongst other things we discuss 

• her strengths journey and how she got to where she is now.
• her recent activities in the world of gravitas and its importance in leadership development and how to get it
• authenticity and its role in self awareness well being
• How she dealt with strengths in overdrive
• female empowerment, and
• her recent collaborations with Brene Brown

You can find out more about Rebecca on her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rebecca-newton-b3b29220/

her website Coach Adviser: https://coachadviser.com/

And her book is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3x7FodO

In this podversation, I talk with Dr. Rebecca Newton, organisational psychologist and executive coach and author of Authentic Gravitas - Who Stands Out and Why.

We discuss

• her career journey and how she got to where she is now
• how she uses the strengths approach
• her recent activities in the world of gravitas, its importance in leadership development and how to get it
• the biggest challenges faced by people trying to develop gravitas
• authenticity and its role in self awareness well being
• How she dealt with strengths in overdrive
• female empowerment, and
• her recent collaborations with Brene Brown at LSE

You can find out more about Rebecca on her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rebecca-newton-b3b29220/

Her website, Coach Adviser: https://coachadviser.com/

Her book is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3x7FodO

In my coaching and development work with senior execs, there is one activity that I can guarantee will always form part of our conversations, almost certainly more than once. And that’s stakeholder engagement.

From forming a stakeholder engagement map to a stakeholder engagement plan or strategy, these discussions are almost always central to the success of our work together.

The reason? Everyone needs to know who their key stakeholders are, as well as the needs and expectations of those stakeholders, so that you can work out best how to work together so that you can each get your needs met. At leadership level, the stakes often get higher, and unmanaged or even unknown stakeholders can become a reason for projects to hit turbulence and for careers to get stalled. 

https://www.strengthscope.com/building-your-stakeholder-engagement-strategy/

Firstly, why build your leadership brand and is it worth doing?

The answer is an emphatic "yes". Like all great brands, having a strong leadership brand produces strong results in terms of improved demand, perceived value, reputation and results..

More specifically, a leadership brand helps

• To differentiate yourself in competitive internal and external marketplaces

• To increase your visibility in your organisation and make others aware of your value

• To ensure people have a clear sense of who you are and how to work with you

• To become more self-confident and self-motivated as you gain self-awareness and clarity about what you have to offer and how that marks you out as positively different.

This podcast looks at how YOU can shape your leadership brand through the leadership pyramid - an activity to help shape your communication of what’s important to you and how you can make a positive impact as a leader.

Today’s podcast is all about building your leadership brand.

Read more : https://www.strengthscope.com/how-to-build-your-personal-leadership-brand/

This week, Dr Paul Brewerton (aka The Strengths Guy) sits down with Derek Appau; founder of Limitless Personal Excellence, a certified coach, personal effectiveness trainer and facilitator.

They’ll be talking about the strengths approach and the use of psychometrics in the context of creating more inclusive, equitable, fair and diverse workplaces. Derek has some interesting experiences and views he'll share on the role of strengths and psychometrics to level the playing field for people from an ethnic minority background.

Read more:

https://www.strengthscope.com/using-strengths-to-drive-inclusion-and-equity-a-podversation-with-derek-appau/

From a business point of view, the pandemic has taught us many things. At a business leadership level, once of the most relevant is the importance of divergent thinking, of diverse, innovative perspectives in decision making,

Particularly when under pressure and in uncertain situations. During the pandemic, the dependence of organisations on the decisions of their leaders for survival has been greater than at any time that I can remember. And I’m quite old.

When you combine the pressure-cooker of economic uncertainty and groups of leaders who are too similar in their decision-making approach, you can get short-sighted, panicky decisions that won’t stand an organisation in the best stead.

So in today’s podcast, I want to talk about how to bring diversity of thought to leadership teams so that the decisions made at the top of organisations have been considered from multiple and diverse viewpoints.

Welcome to diversity of thought, the strengths way.

Read more:

https://www.strengthscope.com/diversity-of-thought-for-leadership-teams/