Many leadership courses include a values exercise.

Usually, you're given a long list of values and asked to choose the ones that seem most important to you. That can be a useful starting point, but it doesn't always tell you much about what those values mean or how they influence your life and leadership.

Your strongest values are often revealed through your experiences, emotional reactions and the people you admire.

In this episode, I share four questions that can help you uncover and understand your values more deeply.

• Why simply choosing words from a values list may not go far enough.
• How a proud moment can reveal a value that was being fulfilled.
• Why anger or frustration may signal that an important value was compromised.
• How periods when life was going well can reveal the conditions you value.
• What the people you admire can teach you about your own values.
• Why it can be useful to identify five to seven important values.
• How ongoing reflection helps you refine your understanding over time.
• Why values awareness can help you lead and live more confidently.

• The Useful Values Journal: A free digital journal that guides you through identifying, reflecting on and refining your personal values.
• Understand Your Values online course: A guided online course for exploring your values in greater depth (use the coupon code TLVALUES for a discount).
• Values list: A list of values can help you identify possible words after reflecting on your experiences.
• Related essay from Ben's other website: Who do you think you are?

Which of these four questions gives you the strongest response? Are there any other questions you use to understand your values?

Leave a comment on the show notes page below or join the discussion on Spotify.

Most leaders probably don't think of themselves as particularly self-interested.

However, self-interest doesn't only appear through obvious behaviours such as political manoeuvring, blaming others or trying to climb the career ladder at someone else's expense. It can also appear in small, everyday moments.

Checking a message while someone is talking. Repeatedly cancelling one-on-one meetings. Being consistently unavailable. Failing to take an interest in someone's career development. These actions may not come from bad intentions, but they can still make people feel unimportant.

In this episode, I explore small, medium and large examples of self-interest and consider how they affect trust, morale and leadership credibility.

• Why self-interest can derail otherwise capable leaders.
• How distraction and a lack of attention can make people feel unimportant.
• Why repeatedly cancelling one-on-ones damages relationships.
• How constant busyness can begin to look like self-interest.
• Why supporting career development is an important leadership responsibility.
• How blaming, avoiding accountability and political manoeuvring destroy trust.
• Why the perception of self-interest matters, even when it isn't your intention.
• How focusing on others can ultimately improve your own leadership results.

• Leadership coaching: Work with Ben.

What examples of self-interest have you seen from leaders? Do you sometimes notice any of these behaviours in yourself?

Leave a comment on the show notes page below or join the discussion on Spotify.

At some point in your leadership career, you may find yourself leading someone who has significantly more experience than you. They may be older than you, have spent decades in your industry or possess technical knowledge that you don't have.

This can feel intimidating, especially when you believe that being the leader means you should have all the answers. However, leadership isn't necessarily about being the most experienced person in the room.

In this episode, I share practical ideas for leading experienced people, benefiting from their expertise and maintaining your own leadership authority.

• Why leading more experienced people is becoming increasingly common.
• How asking for people's opinions can build trust and motivation.
• Why experienced people may react badly when their expertise is ignored.
• How experienced team members can help develop others.
• Why you shouldn't defer to experienced employees on every decision.
• How to clarify your decision-making process.
• Why leadership skills can be valuable even when you have less technical experience.
• How your access to senior leaders gives you organisational context that your team may not have.

• Coaching: Work with Ben.

Have you led someone who had significantly more experience than you? What helped you build trust and lead them effectively?

Leave a comment on the show notes page or join the discussion on Spotify.

Leading people from different cultural backgrounds can be incredibly rewarding, but it also brings unique challenges.

People's expectations about leadership, communication, teamwork and decision making are often influenced by the cultures they've grown up in.

In this episode, I explore Geert Hofstede's well-known cultural dimensions framework and discuss how leaders can use it as a guide to better understand their teams, while avoiding the trap of stereotyping individuals.

• Why culture can influence how people behave at work
• The six cultural dimensions identified by Geert Hofstede
• How power distance can affect communication with leaders
• Why individualistic and collectivist cultures approach teamwork differently
• How different cultures respond to uncertainty, achievement and long-term thinking
• Why cultural frameworks should be used as a guide, not a label

• Hofstede's Culture Factor Country Comparison Tool: https://www.theculturefactor.com/country-comparison-tool
• Leadership Coaching: Work with Ben.

Have you noticed the cultural differences in your team impacting the way you work together?

Leadership roles come with formal authority. You can make decisions, approve work, manage performance and influence the direction of your team.

But formal authority has a hidden downside. The more authority you have, the less likely people may be to challenge your ideas, raise concerns or give you honest feedback. Even approachable leaders can unknowingly create barriers that stop valuable conversations from happening.

In this episode, I explore some of the unintended consequences of formal authority and share practical ways to encourage greater participation and more open discussion.

• Why formal authority can discourage people from speaking up
• How leaders can become trapped in an echo chamber
• Why your feedback carries more weight than you might realise
• How to encourage more honest discussion and better ideas
• Why external perspectives, peers and coaches can provide valuable feedback
• Practical ways to reduce the barriers created by your leadership position

• Podcast: #178: So You Have an Open Door Policy… But Is It Working?
• Leadership coaching: Work with Ben.

Have you ever noticed your leadership position changing how people interact with you?

Professional sport is one of leadership's favourite sources of inspiration. Books about championship teams, legendary coaches and elite athletes are everywhere. But how much of that advice actually applies to your workplace?

In this episode, I explore why professional sporting teams and work teams are fundamentally different. While there are useful lessons about culture and teamwork, many leadership approaches taken from elite sport overlook the realities of leading people in organisations.

Understanding these differences can help you become a more effective and realistic leader.

• Why professional athletes operate in a very different environment from most employees
• How motivation differs between elite sport and the workplace
• Why measuring performance at work is much more difficult
• Why empathy matters more than high-performance sporting analogies suggest
• How leadership needs to adapt when your team has different priorities, abilities and motivations
• What useful lessons we can still borrow from elite sport, and which ones are best left on the field.

• Work with Ben: Leadership Coaching.

Do you think professional sporting teams provide useful leadership lessons for the workplace, or are the differences too great?

Many leaders approach people problems as if there must be a perfect technical solution.

In this episode, Ben explains why leadership is rarely that simple and why a scientist's mindset of testing, learning and adapting is often more effective than trying to engineer the perfect answer.

• People problems don't have perfect equations or technical solutions.
• Leadership requires experimentation, observation and learning.
• Creating better conditions for people is more useful than trying to fix them.

"We don't need to fix people, we need to create conditions where they're likely to do better work for us."

• Work with Ben: Leadership coaching.

The phrase "don't bring me problems, bring me solutions" is common leadership advice.

In this episode, Ben explains why this slogan can create barriers between leaders and their teams, reduce coaching opportunities and discourage people from raising important issues.

• People may stop raising issues if they don't already have a solution.
• Leaders miss opportunities to coach and develop capability.
• Team members often lack the broader context needed to create the best solution.

"Working with your people to develop the solutions is actually a way better way to improve capability and confidence in your team."

• Coaching approach episode – Why You Should Be Asking More, and Telling Less
• Ben's personal website – https://benbrearley.com/

Many leaders quickly dismiss leadership ideas by saying they won't work in their team or industry.

In this episode, Ben explores why this reaction happens, what may be sitting underneath it, and how leaders can become more intentional about evaluating new approaches.

• Dismissing ideas quickly may be a way of avoiding discomfort.
• Deeply held beliefs can prevent leaders from adopting useful approaches.
• Leadership models often need adaptation rather than outright rejection.

"Maybe the real answer is I'm not comfortable or confident in trying to do that in my team."

• Ben's personal website – https://benbrearley.com/

Difficult people are a reality of leadership. Whether it's a resistant team member, a challenging stakeholder or someone with a strong personality, there is rarely a simple solution.

In this episode, Ben shares five essential ingredients leaders need to navigate these situations more effectively.

• Patience is required because difficult behaviours often develop over time.
• Commitment helps you stay consistent when progress feels like it isn't happening.
• Empathy allows you to understand concerns, stay composed and respond more effectively.

"Empathy just means making an effort to think from that person's perspective."

• Coaching with Ben – Leadership Coaching