The Value Of “Engagement”
A Professional Service Approach To Disruptive Technologies

Paradigm shifts in the way we do business are usually linked with advances in technology (sometimes referred to as “disruptive technologies”) and the rise of social media is just one of the many “game changers”. By offering direct routes to audiences, and by reducing the degrees of separation between people, this communication channel has quickly been seen as the way to cut costs, create new channels to market and cement existing relationships. The way we think about business hasn’t changed, but our reach and network connectivity has. So at Riley Cameron we have been discussing what this means for executive search and the broader recruitment market?

Networking in the sense that we interact with the world around us has experienced a significant face lift with the likes of facebook, Linkedin, and twitter. With this new and unprecedented level of access between people and companies, executive search and recruitment firms have therefore needed to rethink their value proposition. If one considers that the previous most valuable asset within a recruitment firm (like most other professional services) was the intellectual property, in whatever manifestation it came, then social media has indeed cheapened the aforementioned access to information and degrees of separation. In days gone by the jewel in the crown was either the size of the database or the relationships; in either case, information was king. Today, of course, recruitment firms are no longer the gatekeepers to this hallowed information.

Social Networking As The Next Job Board
From creative crowd sourcing, to internal communications and everything in between – companies are seeking ways to use Social Media to make contact with people direct. Hence, the need for a middle man is less convincing.

Even though this channel is becoming imperative to the way that companies do business, does it mean social media will be the death knell of the recruitment and executive search space? Of course not. Look back to when job boards were first created (the headlines read “the recruitment industry won’t exist in 12 months’ time” and “recruitment fees to be slashed”) to understand that social media is just another disruptive technology and should be treated as such.

Nevertheless, as with any professional service firm, the aim is to provide a value add to the customer and so a successful strategy for recruitment firms is to use all channels to market (including social media) simply as a component in a more compelling offering. The something extra might be to offer depth of knowledge, accuracy, personalised service, total market access and speed of response.

The Future Of Executive Search & Recruitment

At Riley Cameron we believe the future of the industry must be built around providing targeted talent pools that offer genuine alternatives to clients when filling key positions. This idea of “succession planning” is not new. Organisations have had succession planning on the boardroom agenda (with varied degrees of success) for some time now. However, we would suggest that all succession planning should be outsourced to a trusted recruitment partner, because it is necessary to look outside (as well as inside) the company when considering the most suitable talent.

In this “total market succession plan” model, social media, when used well, offers us an opportunity to build an audience ahead of our clients’ needs to recruit or replace a member of their team. Our ongoing investment of time and energy coupled with a philanthropic approach to broadcasting advice and industry insight ensures that we develop a loyal audience of candidates, who are interested in what we have to say. This level of engagement and positive brand sentiment then allows us to proactively provide clients with a genuine talent pool of individuals who are specifically hand-picked for their superior, exclusive, or distinctive skills and experience. What’s more, the talent pool has already been identified and the investment of time into the relationship has already been spent. So the turn-around between a client’s need and the introduction being made is extremely short.

Under this model, the best way for a search firm to be truly effective for a client is when they spend their time and resources to ‘engage’ with potential employees on an ongoing basis. It’s not simply a case of posting jobs; it’s about creating an audience through a well-designed engagement strategy.

Thus, the recruitment firm of the future will be an ongoing business partner to their clients and the fee structure will reflect that commitment to each other. For example, Riley Cameron has a variety of pricing models; some that do away with placement fees altogether. We can do that because we offer a service that is built around a partnership framework. By working with an exclusive group of executive teams, we help strategically plan their workforce of the future and are able to devise ongoing strategies for the development and replacement of key roles within their companies.

Information & Engagement Is The New “Holy Grail”

If the challenge of businesses is no longer in gaining access to talent pools, the true value an executive search firm or recruitment company can offer is in understanding succession planning requirements for their clients, generating options tailored to the client, and engaging with appropriate talent pools in a permanent and ongoing manner so that those pivotal roles can be filled or replaced quickly, efficiently, and with minimum upheaval.

At the end of the day, it’s still about information, but it’s also about engagement. Understanding where the added value in the service lies is what will essentially mean the death knell for some recruitment firms and the stellar success of others. At Riley Cameron we welcome disruptive technologies because we believe that the continued focus on how we add value is essential. The good thing is that recruiters who don’t go the extra mile, recruiters who do not constantly evaluate and improve their service, will struggle. Merely having candidates on a database is not good enough anymore. At Riley Cameron we have embraced social media and treat it like the channel to market it is.

You Don’t Have To Be A Commodity On Social Media

Sometimes, social media makes it easy for recruiters to forget the human in “Human Capital.” When I look at the recruitment industry, I never cease to marvel at what a privileged position we occupy. We deal in the hopes and dreams of people who have often studied and worked for decades to get to where they are in their chosen careers.

Some of their achievements are truly mind-blowing and have had a positive effect on thousands of people. Many of our candidates are the sort of people who you would discuss with friends with envy and say “Wow, they are soaring in their career. How do they do it?”

So, how are we collectively (as an industry) starting to turn these highest of achievers of the business world into pieces of meat to be traded to the highest bidder? Social media has played a huge part in this, it has given us the tools for laziness, but we are the ones still choosing not to treat people in the way they deserve. However, instead of giving recruiters another telling off (they get enough of that on here as it is), I would like to offer a few suggestions to executives about lessening the risk of being commoditised by the less than scrupulous members of our profession.

There will always be a recruiter who has a three-minute chat with you to check your availability and theoretical interest in a role. They will check the minimum of requirements and then have the temerity to pronounce you a “good fit” for the role. They will send your CV off to the client, all well and good, but when the client comes back to them with a question about you, you can be sure that they won’t have a suitable answer.

Therefore, apart from working with the better recruitment firms that value building meaningful longterm relationships, there are a few things that you can do to make yourself stand out should a potential employer visit your LinkedIn profile. Believe me, they will assess it in detail, especially if they get minimal information from the recruiter.

Make it about the hiring company. Solve the problems of your future employer in your profile. So many profiles just talk about the executive and their past achievements. Very few focus on the problems they can solve in the future.

Write periodic blogs. Nothing is better to give someone a deeper understanding of who you are than writing a blog. The word limits in the LinkedIn sections are fairly restrictive, but a blog will allow you to expand on your ideas and communicate what makes you tick. Regular followers of your blog won’t see you as a commodity.

Get involved in the industry. If you position yourself as a thought leader within your online industry sector, this will automatically put you higher in their estimations. Post thoughtful and value-added comments on blogs, and make sure that you are connected with as many relevant people as possible. They will be able to view your common connections.

There is a lot of talk about building your personal brand online. In my view, this is nothing more than being active with the relevant crowd. If your knowledge and passion for your industry comes across, you will be far more than a commodity, no matter what the recruiters do.

Take your brand into your own hands and bring to life the human in you!

It’s Not You, It’s Them.

Rejection feels like a personal body blow. You’re not good enough to get that job. You’re not experienced enough to get that promotion. You’re not even convincing enough for people to listen to your ideas at that all important meeting.

We live in a hyper-competitive world, but at that moment of disappointment, it is easy just to focus on you and not being up to whatever task. You tend to forget that there may be others out there a little more qualified, a little more knowledgeable or simply being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes your best efforts will be in vain because there was someone “better”. This is perfectly normal, and the sooner you accept it, the easier life will be.

I am not advocating using this as an excuse. You should still strive to be the best version of yourself that you can be. Use your rivals as a yardstick, and as you get more accomplished, your benchmark should move ever higher. This is a great way of measuring yourself against the world (yes, let’s be realistic, we all do it), but you have to realise…. there will always be someone better. Those people who are happy with this concept are the ones who will grow the quickest. They will push themselves, learn from their defeats and be all the stronger for the next time. The phrase “battle hardened” is true to life…. If you don’t fight on a regular basis, you become weak – in body and mind.

You see, for all the battles you lose, you will win just as many, or maybe more. For many of the battles you win, you will be consigning someone else to lose. In this situation, you will be the “better” person, and others will be aspiring to follow in your footsteps.

Life is a journey, we grow all the time, but for some of us, it doesn’t seem enough. We forget the path we have taken to get to where we are and obsess about the challenges that lie ahead. That is a shame….

Be proud of where you have come from. There are lots of people out there that would love to have a similar path to you, believe me. Don’t expect to win all your battles. The nature of competition / life is that you win some, and you lose some. If you learn from your “losses”, then you will grow. So, next time you are rejected for that job (to bring this post back to my professional experience), be philosophical. There was simply someone better out there. Think about what skills you need to work on. Think about how you may have handled the interview better. Consider whether the job was the right fit for you in the first place. It just wasn’t your day.

When it is your day, when you do get that dream job, there will be countless others that are disappointed. In fact, I’m confident there will be people looking at your LinkedIn profile and thinking “wow, I wish I had that job.”

It works both ways. You have come a long way, and there is a long way to go. There will be victories and defeats, but you will win every time as long as you keep growing.

Whether you just won or lost, the winners should always inspire you to win for yourself.

Avoid These Four Words To Get Promoted.

Many would agree that deeds carry more weight than words. However, in a competitive race for promotion, your words can propel you along on the crest of the wave or drag you down to the depths. Sometimes deeds aren’t enough by themselves.

With your words, you share your philosophy on life. They reflect your attitude towards achieving outcomes, how you overcome the inevitable obstacles and how you bring people with you on your journey.

Two people might achieve identical goals in an organisation, but they can go about it in entirely different ways. They can take the positive “I’ll do whatever I can to make it happen” route, or they can take the “do the least possible but get the job done” option.

Their CVs will record the same achievement, but for their colleagues and their leadership team, there will only be one front-runner. In the tough world of business, where teams live and die together by their cohesion, optimism is the glue that holds them together.

You may think that there are many people you know who talk an “optimistic” talk, but then rarely deliver on their words. This type of misplaced optimism is easy to spot and they won’t be able to get away with it for long.

However, they are not the villains of the piece. The people who dodge the bullets and push people in front of trains to get ahead are the ones to be aware of. They too are easy to spot. My tell-tale four words will give you a solid clue….

So, what are those four words then? The ones that should be used with extreme caution…. The ones that will torpedo your chances of making it to the top:

Can’t. Won’t. Don’t. But.

These words allow people to shirk responsibility. They facilitate denying any involvement. They can help to place the burden onto others and build a wall of uncompromising unhelpfulness. Once you have heard them a few times from the same people, you won’t ask them the same questions again. That is exactly what they want. They want the easy road, a stress-free existence, and from an early age they have learnt that being negative quickly stops people from asking them to do things. They can get on achieving their objectives in their own way, but they will ensure that they add minimal extra value in doing so.

Since when was holding out the palm of your hand and saying “nope, I don’t have to do it, you can’t make me, so I won’t.” something that would be seen as firm and assertive? It is just plain unhelpful and destructive.

There will be a number of contributing factors in securing that all important promotion. The DNA of your language will play a key. So, next time you think about saying one of those four words, have a quick think…. Do you really need to, or is there another way If you hope to get promoted, you need to find that other way.

The Sherlock Holmes In Every Recruiter.

Lying is not an integral part of the recruitment process, but you will be surprised the amount of times that I have felt like Sherlock Holmes, unlocking a web of deceit. “The game has been afoot” more often than you would think.

Sometimes the indiscretions are so minor that they could be passed off as oversights, but sometimes they are so coldly calculated that Machiavelli would have been proud. In the extreme you may have unearthed a Fraudster.

Degrees of exaggeration are the order of the day.

Someone might get creative with their job titles in their older roles where it is unlikely that references will be requested. Some might massage the dates of their employment on LinkedIn, and the more astute will even ensure that they match with their CVs. Others might overstate their involvement in projects – a leader rather than one of the minions. There are too many examples, but you get the idea.

The experienced recruitment professional knows to investigate a candidate’s experience from various angles, and if there seems to be a disconnect between their “experience” and their knowledge, it is often possible to pick up. However, the nature of a recruiter’s role is that they tend to have 60 to 90 minutes to form as detailed a picture as possible of a particular candidate, so they can’t afford to be too doubtful. The recruiter has to give them the benefit of the doubt in certain circumstances, and if a candidate is clever enough, it is possible to slip through the net.

This is where you might be thinking “well, if a recruiter can’t guarantee a truthful story from a candidate, then what is the point of involving them in the first place?”

Well, our detective powers are supplemented by an often overlooked part of the recruitment process – referencing candidates. However, often a company has “fallen in love” with a certain candidate to such an extent that the referencing procedure at the end is a formality. This, in my opinion, is a dangerous approach as it gives the candidate a false sense of security and actually allows them to embellish their story. Even if references are requested, often a referee is provided who is inevitably well-disposed towards the candidate. An x workmate who’s a “mate” is a common occurrence. The process doesn’t necessarily work that well.

Thinking out of the box and maybe controversially, it would be great if there were some independent place for companies to write real-time references about their employees, to be kept for all time, to be viewed by any future employer. This would make people accountable for their actions and also ensure that future employers get a true picture of what a potential new employee has previously accomplished. This could simply be an extension of any formal periodic appraisal of an employee for example. Controversial I know, but food for thought.

Many would agree there is always something slightly disingenuous about a candidate writing their own CV. How would their CV read if their previous managers were to write the content? Slightly different I would imagine.

It is human nature to want to give yourself the best possible chance of securing that dream job. However, for some, the temptation to paint a rosier picture is just too great.

Recruiters shouldn’t have to be detectives, but that is the reality. If the referencing system were a little more detailed and accurate, maybe we could be something akin to reporters or messengers. Just one little lie can ruin a candidate’s credibility. Don’t do it! Eventually you will get found out!

Invest In People. Then They Leave.

This is a fact of life for any manager.

Their key role is to build a cohesive team to achieve their objectives, however within this task lies an unpleasant truth…. That team will be constantly changing and actually a key skill of any successful people manager is to manage the attrition and churn that is a natural part of the process. People leave for so many reasons. – here are just a few:

On the negative side…. They may not have been up to the job. They may not have felt at home with the company culture. They may have had personal issues. They may have had personality clashes with particular individuals. They may have felt undervalued.

On the positive side…. They may have been promoted internally. They may have been poached by a competitor for a more senior role. They may have had the opportunity to work and live overseas. They may have decided to use their entrepreneurial flair and set up their own business.

If you see your managerial role as making the most of your investment in every employee, and realising that their time with you is often limited (knowing you can’t be certain as to how long you will have them), then you should consider pouring as much of your knowledge into them in the time you have. If you do this, for the time that they were with you (and often beyond), you may be pleasantly surprised what a positive contribution they did have in growing your team (including you), as they grew themselves.

Yes, it is a wrench when they leave, but if you take the same developmental attitude with every new starter, your team cannot help but hit new heights of engagement. This continuous improvement can only be achieved if you keep investing in your people – right up to their last day and right from their first day.

Every ounce of investment in them will have a direct impact on their performance, morale, level of enthusiasm and dedication in working with you. It doesn’t matter if you think that they will be with you for the short-term or the long-term, every marginal increase in their performance and attitude will have a ripple effect across your organisation and on the overall performance of your team. This is particularly true for the initial “probationary period” that many people have when they start a new role. Some managers might wish to wait and see how someone is performing before they start to think about their development. More often than not, this is merely a wasted opportunity. If you treat every passing month and year with an employee as a bonus, and if you maximise their chances for learning, irrespective of what that learning will deliver for you in the future, you will help them to flourish.

Whether you are an experienced manager or not, you will soon realise that there is one thing in common with poor managers and great managers. They both lose people. It’s how you lose people that’s important. A great manager would never see his or her team as a “finished product” in any case. They would always be investing energy and resources into developing their people, no matter whether they have been there for 6 months or 6 years.

So, invest in your people, help them to grow. Yes, they will leave at some point, but in return they will also help you and those around them to grow. When they do eventually leave, the greatest satisfaction as a successful people leader is knowing that you played your part in the professional and personal development of your staff. Their future success will undoubtedly fill you with pride!

Count Each Day As A Separate Life.

The people that I’ve worked with will know one of my favourite responses for when they are having a tough day is “Look! Over there, it’s behind you!”

Everything that you know is in the past. Look, there it is, it’s been and gone. Blink and you missed it, but unless you are a mad scientist with a DeLorean, there is no chance of changing it. These are such obvious things to say, so why do we spend so much time obsessing over what might have been? Many obsess about the past because they believe that it has an immediate effect on our future: “I wasn’t deemed leadership material at my old company, so why should I bother with my next one?” or “I have been rejected for the last five interviews, so what makes this one so different?”

The answer lies in a combination of mathematics, attitude and philosophy.

Let’s talk for a minute about probability. When you toss a coin, the probability of it landing tails on the first throw is 50%. The probability of heads is obviously the same. It may so have happened that the first five throws landed tails. If viewed as a separate event (and assuming a fair toss), would you lean towards calling tails for the sixth throw? Most people probably would, although the probability is still exactly 50/50. Separate throw = equal chances.

Just because you have failed five interviews in a row doesn’t necessarily mean that the sixth will be the same – not if you wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Your attitude is key. You have to believe that the future is yours to mould as you wish. The philosopher Seneca said: “Count each day as a separate life.” The title sums up what I want to say in this article pretty nicely, but I suppose I should write another 500 or so words to show that I have thought about it myself a little. Much of being able to put the past to one side is about the ability to focus.

If you know where you want to get to and what you need to do to get there, why should you worry about what has been before? There is no need to look in the rear view mirror to survey the trail of disappointment of your job search (for example) thus far. All you need to do is tighten your seatbelt, put yourself in the right gear and get ready for the next part of the journey. There will be obstacles, but they will be slightly different to yesterday’s obstacles. There will be mistakes, but they will be slightly different to yesterday. There will be decisions, but these too will be slightly different. Every “new” action takes you on a different road, and each road that you take has every chance of
leading you where you need to get to. Even if you take the wrong turn, you can take a shortcut crosscountry to get back onto the “right” one.

Each day is indeed a separate life, a separate journey. Each new day is an opportunity to refuel. With a “full tank” you will find the path to your destination.

How Is Your Leadership Kung Fu?

Outside of my professional career and since my early teens I’ve been involved in the world of martial arts. In particular, Chinese martial arts that are often referred to in the western world as Kung Fu. In its original Chinese meaning, Kung Fu did not refer to the practice of martial arts. Instead, it described the process of one’s training – the strengthening of the body and the mind, the learning and the perfection of one’s skills – rather than to what was being trained. It refers to excellence achieved through long practice. Someone with “bad Kung Fu” for example has not put enough time and effort into training, or seems to lack the motivation to do so.

With Kung Fu, there is no concept of perfection. In the martial art, achieving “black sash” status is often seen as the start of the journey rather than the end. With any skill, there is always scope for improvement, a journey of self-discovery that will never truly end. It is much the same with leadership.

There may be some people who are promoted in a business to the level of “Director” for example and think that they have “made it”. They have a large team reporting to them; they have control of a significant budget, and they get to go to the management meetings with the rest of the “elite”. They sit back and bask in the glory – they have finally made it – they are now a leader.

This mindset can be dangerous. Leadership is not a destination; it is a calling. It is a way of being. It’s not a medal that anyone can just pin onto their chest. Some people may view the black sash as the zenith in martial arts, others view it as the start of their journey having learned the basics. True leaders would see that their business card with the word “Director” being an enabler for growth – for them and for those around them.

Some may argue that to be a leader, you need to be in a position where you can influence the business and influence the hearts and minds of those around you. I would say that this doesn’t necessarily start when you get to the mythical job title within your organisation that you consider elite.

From the moment you walk into the office on your first day of work, you can start to work on your leadership Kung Fu. You might be working in the mail room, but you can influence people to optimise the processes. You might be an assistant, but you can interact with the others and seek to learn from them. Regardless of what stage of the leadership journey you are on, continuous improvement is the key.

Being a leader is something that you work on every day of your working life. People will “follow” you long before you are promoted to a particular job title or position. People will listen to you because they see that you have put the work in to understand. People will believe in your confidence and try to replicate your commitment. You will inspire them with the everyday things that you do, and they will grow just by standing next to you.

I remember my first ever Kung Fu Instructor saying something along the lines of “It’s not the colour of the sash that’s important; it’s consistently demonstrating that you have the determination and discipline to continuously work hard towards your goals. This is what will define you.” But how is your leadership Kung Fu? What is the answer to this question? Actually you will probably get a better idea if you don’t answer directly yourself. It’s those that you work with who should be answering.

What do you think they will say? Do you practice “good” leadership Kung Fu or not?

What Happens When Leaders Reach Their Peak?

Many people dedicate their lives to the pursuit of the unattainable, to a dream so ambitious that it seems that they will never make it. This gives them meaning, it fills them with passion, and although the goalposts may change, the constant momentum is what makes them get up in the morning. I certainly can relate….

Then, there are the rare few who smash all their personal and professional goals way before everyone else even gets near. They are “Masters Of The Universe” in their early 30’s. They have ticked off every item on their career bucket list, had their fill of personal glory and financial bounty, and met every stretch target that they have ever set themselves.

However, I have seen it happen more than once that their professional lives start to lose meaning at this point – they can easily become disillusioned and in the extreme even become a liability to their organisation. With this attitude, there is only one way to go – down….

For those leaders who only think about themselves, this is always a risk. For those who recognise the contributions of others on their way up, there is a whole new dimension of challenges. They can make the decision to make their careers not about themselves, but about others.

When I was much younger (and rather naive), I couldn’t understand the desire of the older business leaders to mentor the younger generation. I didn’t get what was in it for them – on face value it didn’t add to their success, it didn’t further their careers. They had already achieved a lot, why waste time with a load of kids just out of university? Only now can I fully understand this search for meaning, and with this, taking a vicarious pleasure in the achievements of others.

They don’t stop being go-getters, but their energies start to be focussed externally rather than internally. The leaders who are the most generous with their time and knowledge are those who stay at the top for the longest. If you are at the “top” and feel you have nowhere else to go, your contribution to the business can lessen. If you are helping others to develop, then your impact on the business is potentially higher than it ever has been. Great leaders achieve through others because they often feel they have finished achieving directly for themselves. This doesn’t mean that they have stopped achieving. It just means they now measure their achievements in another way.

It is true to say that leaders might often seek motivation in other areas of their life – leisure pursuits, charity work or other business interests. They are not the sort of people to get bored, and will always gravitate towards other challenges. However, once they have enjoyed the feeling of giving someone else the benefit of their knowledge, there is no looking back.

The best leaders reach their peak then act as Sherpas to guide others along the path to success.

Who Do You Know With “Leader’s Block”?

I’m not sure that such a diagnosis exists, but I’d like to explore it anyway! We all know the common expression “writer’s block”. The writer knows what they want to say, but, try as they might, they just can’t put it down into words. They go for a walk, have a cup of coffee,watch a movie but they still can’t gather their thoughts in how they need to craft that all important piece of writing. They hit a brick wall, and sometimes there is no way around it. Often this mental paralysis can last a lot longer than expected.

I believe that the same can apply to leaders in terms of their behaviour.

As a successful leader, it is easy to equate your behaviour with your success. You act and react in a certain way, which brings a certain result. Sometimes, there is indeed a close relationship between the two, but, more often than not, there are many external factors playing their part in influencing success.

This phenomenon means that there is a danger of certain leaders (or actually, anyone, not just leaders) becoming set in their ways, and insistent on their way of doing things because they deeply believe that it is the most effective.

Then something changes. Their success may have been down to a certain trend in the market for example, and when that trend changes everything changes! Their success disappears. They feel lost and confused. They are doing the same things that they always did – why aren’t these methods working anymore? Leadership lesson number one: always be ready to change and never assume that you are the master of your destiny. This simply isn’t the case in an ever-changing world.

Those leaders who are flexible can adapt to the circumstances, change their style and move on in the “new normal” no matter the changes in market conditions. Those leaders who thought that they were bulletproof find it harder to change. This is what I refer to as “Leader’s Block”.

They aren’t able to acknowledge it at first. Then it gradually dawns on them that they might need to change. They may engage a coach to talk it through. If the coach is proficient, they will help them to realise that their behaviour needs to adapt to the circumstances, because sometimes it just won’t work the other way around.

Then the experimenting phase starts. They don’t understand what might work because they have never tried anything different before. At this point, it is well worth taking their team on their “journey”, admitting that things need to change and making it a common goal. There are bound to be mistakes, dead ends and failures – if the team is on board however, changing everyone’s behaviour will be so much easier. Listening throughout the whole process is a vital skill as you would expect. When they have got over their block and are back to being a successful leader, that is not the end.

You should not only adapt your behaviours when the big events happen. You should be open to change at any time, and even the smallest of changes will be appreciated by your team. Get rid of “Leader’s Block”, or you may not be a leader for much longer.

Should You Work Through The Pain?

You know the feeling when you start getting ill? You aren’t firing on all cylinders, but you soldier on nevertheless, hoping that you miraculously might get better.

A few days later, things are heading downhill fast, so you decide to take some painkillers and tough it out. Life doesn’t stop for anything – no little illness is going to defeat you. Then, a week later you barely manage to crawl out of bed and decide to drag yourself along to the medical centre. If you had treated the original symptoms, you could of been better by now, as it is you have complications and as a result are confined to bed for a fortnight….

Foolish decisions lead to serious consequences.

There is often a similar process when it comes to ignoring the deteriorating health of a team. Managers first start to see little niggles starting in relationships. Deadlines may get missed and work doesn’t quite get done to specification. People gradually stop taking responsibility for their actions and everyone seems that little bit less interested. Managers choose to turn a blind eye; these things happen – work is stressful sometimes. So a few projects fall off the table, this is bound to happen at times, right?

A few months pass. The disagreements are more often, and the arguments are louder – the first person signs off work for stress and the first person decides to leave. Customers are calling and wondering why they are not being given what they were promised. Denial is everywhere, and anyone that is even remotely responsible will be swamped by the work of others. Other members of the business are starting to notice and ask what is going on. Managers spend more and more time hidden behind their desks and “out” on business to deny the reality of the situation. It is already beyond control, but they still do nothing.

Then, the inevitable day arrives of the collapse. All hell breaks loose, and there is nothing left for the manager to do except resign. They have totally lost control and have no authority left. Their team is left without a rudder and is governed by the laws of the jungle rather than any normal office etiquette….

Granted, this scenario doesn’t often happen in business. This could always be a possibility however, if a manager begins to neglect their team. If problems aren’t nipped in the bud, they don’t get better by themselves. Treat them with a dose of coaching, a few training pills, a bandage of discussions or a soothing drink of empathy. If you take care of your team, your team will take care of you. If you neglect them, as with your health, the situation tends to go downhill fast.

Don’t work through the pain. Treat it before it becomes unbearable.

How Do You Tell People About Your “Difference”?

No matter what sort of business you work in, I’ll bet it’s pretty competitive out there. No matter where you sit in the pecking order, I’ll bet you want to take that next step on the ladder. No matter how carefully you plan your career, I’ll bet that various spanners are thrown in the works that cause a rethink.

Sitting in a corner quietly getting on with things isn’t going to get you noticed in all that noise. Shouting from the rooftops about your amazing achievements is likely to result in people ignoring  you. In both cases, you won’t have an audience, and if you don’t have an audience at work, you don’t have any “fans.”

You will need “fans” in your business if you want to make friends and influence people. This is one fabled route to the top – becoming an influential voice within your business.

But if you shouldn’t be timid and it is a bad idea to be boastful, how do you convey to the world what difference you are making?

There are many strategies, and everyone has varying approaches. However, one school of thought says that if you want to demonstrate to someone that you are making a difference, your “difference” has to have an effect on their “difference”. What I mean to say is that you can only truly influence someone if what you are doing is personally meaningful for them.

To understand what is meaningful, you have to know the people you work with. You have to understand their goals, their ambitions and dreams. When you work out what they are shooting for, you can align your activities with theirs and when the two meet, you are influencing them. They notice your “difference” because it has a direct impact on their life.

Let me give you an example.

If you know that a colleague has a passion for design and takes art classes outside of work, why not get them on board for the creative part of your next project? They may not be a fit for the other parts of the project, but they would be thrilled to be able to use their outside interests at work. They would feel a part of the wider project and would immediately become your advocate. You are giving them a chance to shine, and you are demonstrating to them the value that you can add to the business. They notice because they are involved.

The more people that you can “involve” during your working day, the closer relationships you will forge, and the wider the message about your “difference” will spread. You don’t tell people about your “difference”, you involve them in it. That is how true influencing works.

Stop Being Mechanically Grateful.

Sometimes the feeling behind the words is more important…. Ever since you were a kid, you have been told that it is polite to say “please” when you are requesting something to be done for you and “thank you” after something has been done. For a well-brought-up child, these words are instinctive, but not every parent explains what true gratitude means. Unfortunately as sad as it sounds not every adult understands the concept.

For me, gratitude is not about mechanically saying “thank you” when the expected action has been performed. True gratitude comes from a place of understanding in knowing what it took for that person to perform that action, and then letting them know what difference that they have made to your life.

You acknowledge their effort and highlight how it mattered.

To give a work example, a staff member may have prepared that all important report for you. Instead of the mechanical “thank you” email or a pat on the back, would it be so difficult to mention that you appreciate that they had to miss their child’s bath/bed time to finish it? Maybe you noticed that they had to skip lunch to get it done. True gratitude comes from a place of caring and understanding. These people will feel that you know what it means for them when you ask them to do something. Next time you ask them to “please” do something, they will feel that you understand the extra effort they need to put in to complete the task and you are mindful of what it means to them. The request will have some emotional weight behind it, and they will be happier to do it because they know that you will be truly grateful.

Telling someone why you are grateful and understanding their particular effort is a virtuous circle…. Anything that makes someone feel good has a big impact on their lives. If you act this way with your colleagues and staff, they will likely start to act in the same way with people that they deal with. Being genuinely grateful takes time and effort, but when others feel the benefits, they will definitely consider acting in the same way when it’s their time to say “please” and “thank you.”

Now, here is the challenge….

In amongst the hundreds of emails that you receive every day, can you find time for the personal touch? The extra few sentences to show that you care will make a difference. Even better, popping around to someone’s desk to say “please” or “thank you” in person remains the ideal solution. The twinkle in your eye will let them know that you understand what if took for them to do it. Your smile will let them know that they have made a difference to you.

True gratitude impacts people’s lives – it gives them the motivation to keep achieving, and it’s the performance oil of successful corporate and social machines.

People can tell when you are being mechanically grateful. A thoughtless “thank you” is almost as bad as no “thank you” at all.

The Corporate Butterfly Effect.

Imagine a world where everything matters. Every action has a reaction, and every splash causes a ripple. Your impact has the potential to change the lives and destinies of total strangers all around that world. You can’t predict those changes however you can be sure that they will take place sooner or later.

We live in that world, you and me. At this precise moment, we are connected. I may be influencing you – in the smallest way possible, but every drop in the emotional ocean counts for something. I might for example randomly suggest that you go and check just how much of the Great Barrier Reef has disappeared this year…. You’re probably far too busy to do it now, but the thought will be filed away in your long-term memory only to be recovered at a suitable point. Some of the Brits reading this might be taken by the first letters of the three words Great Barrier Reef…. GBR. They might think about seeing those letters on their national sailing boat, connecting such thoughts about the pollution of our oceans and checking out a story about the state of the Olympic sailing venue in Brazil next year. In any case, some of you may be more likely to pick up some litter that washes up on the beach next time you visit.

You can’t predict the outcomes of your actions. They have potentially infinite ramifications, and one thing is for certain, each individual action will have its own impact. It is fair to suppose that the more positive actions might have (on balance) a more positive impact and the negative actions may have the opposite effect. This rule won’t always hold true, but let’s assume that good begets good more often than not.

How, therefore, might this play out in your work environment?

The first thing to mention is that your work environment is an enclosed world of its own. The consequences of your actions bounce around in a far smaller space than in the wider world, and they will affect people that you know far more often than not. It doesn’t matter if there are 100 or 1000 staff; the butterfly effect will be magnified more than you realise.

The second thing to consider is that the consequences of your actions are not always traceable back to you, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be responsible for them. Ignoring a colleague when they asked for help could bring down a project like a house of cards. Refusing to attend a meeting could cost your company dearly without your crucial piece of insight. Deleting a cold email approach without reading it could be the difference between surviving an economic downturn and going under.

As always, there is a question of judgement. You can’t do everything for everyone, but if everyone were just that little more mindful of the consequences of their actions for those around them, the corporate butterfly effect would work in their favour.

I suppose that you could also call it karma – remember what goes around comes around.

Are You A Square Peg In A Square Hole?

Sometimes being good at what you do can be a curse.

In a larger organisation, the nature of many people’s work is very specific. The hiring process is geared towards filling certain roles with certain responsibilities, and recruitment is often seen as successful if you can find square pegs for the square holes and round pegs for the round holes. The scope of each role is becoming ever narrower as job descriptions become ever more prescriptive, and these same job descriptions often provide a convenient “label” for someone’s standing within a company.

However, just because someone is successful in a role that requires a certain skill set doesn’t mean that they don’t have other abilities, which might benefit the company even more. The inability to think laterally and give existing top performers an opportunity to broaden their impact on the organisation is one of the biggest missed opportunities for business today.

Companies work so hard at getting the right type of people. They work hard to ensure that they are the right personality fit for the culture and they come up with all sorts of innovative strategies about how to retain their top talent. Far too many companies see 100s of square pegs in 100s of square holes as a big tick in the people development box. Many would argue this is far from where a healthy organisation needs to be.

One of the most important metrics for any employee is to feel that they have an opportunity to grow within an organisation. This should not be limited to growth within their specific role or function. For example, there is only so much growth that a square peg Marketing Manager can experience in their role. Unless companies make an effort to explore their wider talents, their motivation will fall as they hit the limits of their square hole. No one wants to feel like they are standing still. It is when the tough times arrive that this inability to explore “hidden” talents can be brutally exposed.

You never know what someone can do until they have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills. Redundancies come, and because so many people are pigeon holed with their specific skill set, when decisions are made about which employees to keep (with increased scopes to their roles), their employers are in the dark as to the extent of their abilities. If people are not given the chance to branch out, their perception as a “one-trick pony” will stick. No one is a one-trick pony!

So, to end on a few snippets of advice:

Employees: You are not merely the sum of your current parts. You have potential, you have passions and you have ideas. Be ambitious and seek to take on projects, which stretch you. Don’t be scared to venture into new areas. You will learn as you go along and your confidence to push the boundaries of your abilities will grow. Once you have proved that you can deliver on something new, you will be trusted to do it again.

Employers: Don’t just look at the current skill set when you hire. Passion, potential and attitude are often far more important when you are looking for an individual to add true value to your business. Square pegs in square holes are fine, but people who can mould like plasticine into all sorts of holes are far more valuable.

Let’s stop thinking about “fit” as the ultimate people metric. Yes, they have to be able to do the basics, but actually “what else” they can do is a far more interesting question.

Should Leaders Give Into Temptation?

I write this as a half-eaten bar of chocolate stares at me from the living room table. My wife has probably set up a secret camera to test how long it takes me to crack. It has been a long day, and that sweet sugar rush seems so tempting. I was joking about the camera; no one will know, will they? Well, apart from you of course.

5 minutes later and the chocolate has mysteriously disappeared.

Thoughts of plausible deniability flit through my head. The dog ate it…. I gave it to the little girl from over the street… An army of ants transported it off into the distance…. No, as sure as night follows day, my wife will come home and give me that knowing smile. She won’t say anything, but I will be giving her yet another sign of my weakness. I was easily tempted. It won’t be the last time. I would like to think that my willpower in other areas of my life is a little stronger. I managed to build a successful business (with the help of many) and worked through the worst recession in living memory, so it can’t all be bad. However, I can’t help thinking that if my wife were an employee, what would she think about my giving in so easily. I can’t always control my temptation about chocolate, maybe one day that weakness will seep into another (more important) part of my life.

Once you give someone reason to doubt you that memory is almost impossible to eradicate. The load on today’s leaders is so high that it would be fully understandable for them to cut a few corners and bend the rules slightly, wouldn’t it? The temptation to take an unplanned day working from home…. The temptation to watch the rugby on their smartphone during the conference…. The temptation to cancel a supplier meeting because they weren’t feeling well….

I’m sure that you can think up many other temptations that would make them seem like a less than perfect leader, but I can tell you one thing – they are only human.

Very few of us have iron willpower, and unless a certain act is materially detrimental to the business or the people around them, why shouldn’t leaders be allowed moments of weakness every now and again? Better to be open about it than hide them and pretend that they are perfect. No one would believe that anyway. Part of being an authentic leader is admitting that you want to bring your child into the office every now and again, or letting people know that you will be watching the sport and allowing them to do the same.

All humans give into temptation sometimes, and leaders are no different. If you choose your moments of weakness, you can also choose to use your willpower at times when it truly matters. So, yes, I ate that chocolate bar. I gave in. But, today I am going to go that extra mile for my company, for my team and for my customers…. I will never give in, for their sake.

Sometimes you need to be strong, and sometimes it’s ok to be weak. You can’t be a superhero all the time.

Maximise Your Leadership Magnetism.

The scientific rules of magnetism don’t apply in a leadership context. Physics states that opposites attract, but in relationships optimism attracts optimism.

Some people have this aura about them. They exude confidence, rise above the petty squabbles of the day, and breeze through life taking everyone around them along in their slipstream. Being with them is easy, enjoyable and actually quite addictive. The moment they leave the meeting room, you somehow sense a void in the dynamic, a void that others try to fill, but it isn’t quite the same. I bet that you know a few people like this. You admire them, you wonder how they manage it, and you secretly wish that you could be a little bit more like them. Do you really leave that “void” when you depart the meeting room? No offence intended, but for the most of us, I suspect not. Nope, leadership superstardom is unobtainable for most of us mere mortals, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot strive to be that little bit more “magnetic” in everything that we do. The more people we touch in our lives, the bigger impact we are having. Every optimistic word that reaches someone else’s ears will set off a chain reaction – it will make their world that little bit lighter and they may go on to do the same for someone else.

Optimism is addictive. It sets off the feel-good endorphins in your brain, and that is something that is ever more seldom felt in our busy and stressful lives. Just being around a magnetically optimistic leader makes us all feel a few centimetres taller for a little while. It sometimes seems to me that it doesn’t even matter if their optimism is grounded in reality. Just hearing the words “we can” or “let’s do it” or “it will be fine” often enough is sufficient to set down a mental recording in your brain. How often is your language peppered with these sorts of phrases? Do you prefer the more “realistic” alternatives of “maybe”, “probably not” or “who knows”?

You own outer magnetism is dependent on how you present yourself to others. That is always a choice. You choose your attitude, your body language, and your words. You can say the same thing in very different ways: “come on, let’s push through this” or “keep going, it will be over soon” – the former gives you a sense of acceleration, the latter a sense of painful deceleration. If you are positive in your body language, people will automatically feel like “mirroring” you and thus feeling better about themselves in the process. If your default setting to “jump!” is “how far?”, you will engender a positive attitude in all around you.

Of course, everyone is magnetic to some degree. Whether your magnetism is governed by principles of attraction or repulsion is entirely up to you.

Find Your Leadership “Neverland”.

There is a magical place, often dreamt about, but rarely visited, a place of eternal childhood, escapism and immortality. We each have our own unique version, a wonderful place without boundaries and where anything goes, an island inside our heads that many of us have simply forgotten.

The author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie called it Neverland, for him a place of fairies and pirates, lost boys and redskins. It is where his Peter found his eternal youth, a place of daring dreams and impossible feats.

All of us live in our own little Neverland during our childhoods, but as life starts to weigh us down, memories fade and the island becomes harder and harder to find. We do still have moments of unbridled and childlike joy, but they are fleeting – the stresses and strains of life soon bring us back down to earth. In the comfort of our own homes, snug in front of a roaring fire, it is still possible to visit every now and again. In the fast paced and aggressive office environment, opportunities for flights of fantasy are few and far between.

I would argue that actually the most inspirational leaders visit their own Neverlands all the time. Their find it easy to tap into their 5-year-old personality, and they transport their people on a journey of wonder and discovery. Every leader holds the key to their own Neverland – first they have to rediscover it and then they have to have the courage to invite other people. Neverland is no fun on your own….

When you take your team to that place of childlike wonder, you feel able to question everything. There are so many aspects of our life that we take for granted, but if we questioned the reasoning behind them, we might make entirely different decisions. Who came up with all these rules anyway? In the age of disruption, curiosity and a certain willingness to be different will go a long way. Allowing people the freedom to ask the most stupid of questions can often reveal some unexpected answers. Kids also tend to be grateful for the smallest of things. Their innocent gratitude warms the hearts of those around them and makes them think about all the good things that they have in their lives. Leaders that don’t take things (or people) for granted are setting the best possible example – they ensure a positive culture where results are always acknowledged, no matter how small.

There is a long list of other childlike attributes that leaders could seek to emulate, too long for this brief post, but the last one that I should mention is love. Kids love doing the simplest of things, they love to watch ice cream dripping down the cone, they love to roll down hills – they simply love life, in general, without expecting anything in return. While I am not suggesting that leaders indulge in the amorous type of love with their staff, a little more care and compassion would work wonders. People spend a large proportion of their lives at work – a little unquestioning love from their leaders would not go amiss.

So, leaders need curiosity, gratitude and love. In Neverland, there is an endless supply of that stuff.

The 7 Types Of Toxic Employee.

As experienced professional consultants, I’d like to think that we have developed a certain radar for identifying potential troublemakers. The cohesiveness of any team is certainly dependant on the proficiency of the leadership. Having said that, there are some character types that are easier to manage than others.

It is a reality of managing people that you will in all likelihood have to deal with all of these toxic types from time to time. The behaviours may not manifest themselves all the time, but the moment they crop up, every leader should have a suitable response. If others see that these behaviours are acceptable, chaos can quickly ensue.

So in our opinion, here’s a brief overview of seven types of the most common toxic employee: The Volcano. People learn to tread carefully around these explosive personalities. The moment that something is not in line with their thinking, they explode, expecting a swift correction after their outburst. They are unable to control their emotions, and, left unchecked, their disruptive interruptions can reverberate around the whole business.

The Narcissist. They are so interested in themselves that they cannot see beyond their own brilliance. Anything that doesn’t fit with their agenda is dismissed, and they view any business issue exclusively from their own perspective. They will quickly get the cold shoulder from the rest of the team, which merely serves to intensify their glorious isolation yet further.

The Ghost. You seek them here, you seek them there…. but they are nowhere to be found. The moment there is work to be delegated, or someone asks for volunteers, the Ghost floats away quietly. They do the minimum amount of work to remain in employment and you can be sure that the will not be in the office a minute after the official leaving time.

The Slacker. The Slacker doesn’t hide like the Ghost, but they simply don’t do their work to the standard that is required. They cut corners, they create extra work for others and they hide their mistakes under the carpet. When someone says that they will do something, you want to believe that it will be done. With a Slacker, there is a high chance that it won’t get done, and you never know to what extent they will avoid their responsibilities.

The Victim. “Why is it always me? I’m always getting picked on. Yes, go on, blame me, that will make a change.” The Victim’s sense of persecution borders on paranoia, but with them exaggerating the slightest bit of constructive criticism, everyone in the office will be walking on eggshells around them. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen – everyone makes mistakes and sometimes you have to take blame squarely on the chin – learn to deal with it.

The Simpleton. They. Have. Not. Got. A. Clue. Maybe calling these individuals toxic is a little unfair. They sadly haven’t got too much between the ears and everything that they do somehow conspires to go wrong. Even so, they are somehow unaware of their lack of intelligence and continue to cause havoc wherever they go. They sadly don’t last too long.

The Know-It-All. Some would say I’ve left the worst until last. The Know-It-All is the extreme kind of narcissist. They insist on the veracity of their opinion, and dismiss any other thoughts out of hand. If they are in any sort of position of influence, this can cause untold damage to the direction of the organisation and mute the truly useful contributions of those around them.

So how toxic is your environment? Understanding the level of toxicity in your organisation will be the key to your long-term sustainability.

The “Power Of New”.

There is something incredibly empowering about change, however many of us see change as this scary and intimidating beast, offering us a better future but at the same time threatening to wreak havoc with our lives in the process. We hear it day after day – no pain, no gain. While this is generally true for the big moments in life, there are lots of gains that you could make, which would barely make you wince. Professional sport has embraced the concept of “marginal gains” – that an accumulation of little improvements can make a big impact along the line. This is what I mean by the “Power Of New”.

How many of your work days blend into each other in a blur of “same old, same old” monotony? How many weekends are spent doing the usual things with the usual suspects. Yes, they might be your dearest family, but you are not necessarily doing yourself or them a favour by going for a walk in the same park every weekend.

When you do something new, even if it is the smallest deviation from your routine, your brain gets shaken out of its stupor. New neural pathways are created – you are literally “growing” a new experience in your life. The groove of your old routine will still be there, and, as the phrase goes, it will be easy to slip back into it, but the more new things that you do, the easier it will be to break free from the norm.

The same can be said for growing and developing in the workplace. Speaking to new people gives us a new perspective, acting in a different way in certain situations is certain to open new doors. Simply smiling at a certain person that you may not have acknowledged before might change their opinion of you, and, at a crucial moment, this could prove the difference between getting support in a meeting or being voted down.

If you remain the same, you can be sure that you future is as “set in stone” as it can be. That may be a good thing, but if you are not trying “new” things, you can be sure that you will not be fulfilling your potential. For me, that is the ultimate “Power Of New” – you push yourself in various directions, living by trial and error, understanding more about yourself and your abilities at every turn. Not everything will work out as you wish, but if you have the mentality of a seeker, your search will uncover more than enough revelations to make it worth it.

Not everyone understands the quest for something different. Lots of people find solace in routine and stability. In a competitive world of responsibility where every new day will bring new challenges, you can’t blame people for seeking to keep what they have.

However, if they were to “go with the flow” a little more and embrace whatever new experiences life brings their way, their futures might just be that little bit brighter.

The Four Natural Elements Of Leadership.

Leaders come in all different shapes and sizes. There is no blueprint, and there are no assembly instructions. One “leader’s” path may differ from a “follower” by one single seminal event that made all the difference. There are, of course, a number of character traits that leaders have in common, but no leader is the same as another. Leadership is individual and unique, a mix of art and science, and the force that drives the development of our modern world.

There have been many attempts to define a leader, and many of them will ring true. While contemplating this post, I remembered a particular camping trip in my youth. It struck me that the elements of the natural world correspond closely to some of these leadership definitions. Reminiscing about sitting on the soft ground by a campfire, with the light evening breeze playing with the flames and the sound of a bubbling stream in the background; I came to some conclusions about the four natural elements of leadership:

Earth. This kind of leader is always there for you. They are solid, dependable, and you know that they have “got your back.” They might not necessarily be the most inspirational of people, but they will ensure that things are done properly, and everyone knows what to expect from them. When things get too stressful, they sometimes have a tendency to lose their usual clarity, and their team should get used to the ensuing “muddy” repercussions.

Wind. This leader has the most changeable nature depending on what is required to get the work done. They can conjure up a warm breeze of encouragement to gently chivvy things along, or at the other extreme they might produce a storm capable of levelling whole cities if they are in the way. They motivate by “pushing” their team along in the required direction and at the required speed. Some members of the team will soar like birds on the air currents, others will get their hang-gliders out, but some will wait it out in the storm shelter until things die down.

Fire. Without fire, I’m not sure that our species would be here today. Since pre-history, fire has warmed us, it has frightened off our enemies, it has cooked our food, but there is no element that is more destructive. It is incredibly exciting (and secure) to follow in the wake of a fire leader as they scorch their path through the business environment, but the moment that those flames are turned on you, the resultant burns could scar you for life. They have “combustible” personalities – one moment they are sizzling along, the next minute they are a raging inferno. Watch out. Water. As long as water is moving, it carves its path through the environment and takes everything else along for the ride. It flows rapidly when the river is shallow or slowly when the river is wide and deep. The water leader immerses their team in their vision and motivates them to keep flowing in the same direction every step of the way. Unlike fire and wind, the water leader is however restricted to working within set boundaries, and if they come across a dam, their momentum can slow, which can be frustrating. The best water leaders encourage you to test your strength and swim against the flow when you feel that it is required.

I’m sure that you can recognise a few of these traits in your own leaders and colleagues alike. It would be interesting to hear what other elemental comparisons you might be able to suggest.

Some words live with us forever.

It might be a phrase uttered by your favourite grandparent when you were sitting on their knee, it might be the first time you got a rocket from the boss at work, or maybe it was the first few stumbling lines as you chatted up the person you were eventually going to marry.

In all of these cases, it is your personal circumstances in which you heard these words that made them memorable. You were at a period in your life when you really needed to hear them – they resonated and stuck in your memory, often to be remembered when inspiration is needed.

It is often the case that when we need to hear a certain thing, it comes into our life from the most unexpected of places. It might be a conversation that is overheard on a train; it might be one of your colleagues telling a story over lunch at work, or maybe a throwaway phrase from your manager’s morning meeting.

The words might not be aimed specifically at you, but it is exactly at these times that you will be most influenced. The most random of phrases can change your life if it comes at the right place and the right time.

Now, turning the idea around, you are equally influencing huge amounts of people with your words, never knowing precisely whom you have touched and what difference you have made. You will never quite understand the inner world of your colleagues, and you can bet that you influence them in imperceptible ways with everything you say.

The daunting thing is that this works both ways: if you exude positive vibes, people will mostly be influenced positively, but if you are negative, it is all too easy for people to be adversely influenced. Your soul is nourished (either way) when it sees a reflection in others – when you are feeling down, it is all too easy to find the negatives in what someone is saying.

So, if you never fully understand how your words might be influencing the inner words of others, why risk taking them to an even darker place by moaning, complaining and being negative? They might laugh at your jokes of being “the next to be fired” but inside they might be crumbling with fear. You words might haunt them at night, the last straw before they are ready to give up.

The ripple effect will continue long after the words have left your mouth.

On the other hand, the impact of positive words can often have the opposite effect. Yes, you may well make someone’s day that little bit better, but it is the supportive effect for those people who are not having a great time where the full difference is felt.

As the world is seemingly entering another phase of uncertainty, people need support like never before.

When you spread positivity, the ripples will make a difference. One day, it might even save someone’s life. You will probably never know.

Many of you would know from one of my earlier posts How Is Your Leadership Kung Fu? outside of my professional career and since my early teens I’ve been involved in the world of martial arts. In particular, Chinese martial arts that are often referred to in the western world as Kung Fu. A number of Kung Fu styles seek to imitate the movements and spirit of five particular animals: the dragon, tiger, crane, leopard and snake. Observing their nature lies at the very heart of the discipline – you invoke the tiger when you need a quick resolution, but if a more evasive approach is needed, then the crane would be able to block and counter-attack at the right time.

Much as a Kung Fu practitioner should be adaptable and choose the right approach at any given moment, so should a leader seek to vary their approach. As a passionate martial artist, I would like to explore the characteristics of each of these five animals and explore the commonalities between Kung Fu and leadership styles.

Dragon. The dragon is a mythical animal associated with courage and energy, with a flowing spirit not dissimilar to its fiery breath. The Dragon style utilises the waist, the bigger muscle in the human body. For example, when striking with the fist, the move originates in the waist, flows through your body and is delivered with a graceful power.

Dragon leaders could be seen as mesmeric influencers, their experience flowing through their every thought and action to achieve their goals. They have an inner drive that gives energy to all around them.

Tiger. The tiger does not need to defend, it is the ultimate predator. It leaps into the fray, seeking the swiftest possible resolution of the conflict. There is no strategic planning – simply direct and destructive power. The tiger aims for the throat with fists and feet, a simplistic target, to the exclusion of anything else, never blocking, but swatting away attacks with its arms and legs. Tiger leaders go in for the kill as soon as they sense weakness. They don’t care what people think of them, and they don’t care about collateral damage. They see the target and nothing else matters.

Crane. With its spindly body and slight frame, the crane is a master of evasion and balance. Its style is perfectly suited to counter-attacking – sidestepping any attack, cloaking itself in its wings to hide the direction of the attack, and then counter-attacking unexpectedly, from any angle except the front. It deflects and redirects blows at lightning speed, jabbing, hooking and poking at vital areas. It seeks to frustrate an opponent, letting them defeat themselves. The crane leader is a slippery type who is difficult to tie down, and always comes up with solutions from the most unexpected of places.

Leopard. Unlike the tiger, the leopard does not rely on brute force, rather counting on its speed and outsmarting its opponent. Leopards hit hard a couple of times, aiming to cause the maximum damage and then retreat to observe the results. They too do not believe in defence, rather seeking to bewilder their opponent and catch them unawares.

Leopard leaders are probably the most dangerous. They lurk in the shadows until the last moment, and before you know it, they have got what they wanted and are gone again.

Snake. Snakes accumulate energy (chi) and then practice highly accurate and lightening fast attacks. Precision, timing and targeting must all be spot on. There may be swaying movements intended as distractions, executed as a feint, but mostly snakes are direct and deadly. Just as a snake’s venom is what kills, in Kung Fu, it is the accumulated “chi” that will win the day.

The snake leader plots their course of action and weighs every option before striking at exactly the right place in exactly the right way. Time spent in preparation is directly proportionate to the effectiveness of the attacks.

So now reflect on your own leadership style and that of your managers and colleagues alike, what animal traits do you see?

Can your colleagues and direct reports predict the sort of reaction that they will get when they chat with you? Are you always consistent in your decision making? Are you level-headed in the face of failure and success alike? Do you treat others fairly and on merit, irrespective of your subjective feelings?

I would guess that not many of us can put our hands on our hearts and say that this is always the case.

There are many ingredients, which contribute to our consistency, and on our “off days” we all have the potential to react inappropriately or misjudge certain situations. When a certain mist descends, it is hard to see ourselves through the eyes of others, and we act without properly considering our impact on the world around us.

Much is written about being “present” with others, but effective influencing is equally about being aware of your own mental state, and how your environment and circumstances are affecting you at any given time.

The classic example is the early morning meeting after a stressful commute into work. The kids were late for school, the dog had deposited hairs all over the driver’s seat of the car, and you had a nervous wait to in a traffic jam to get to the nearest gas station as the needle dipped well below empty. Your head is ready to explode, and your colleagues subsequently feel your wrath. Hello, Mr. Hyde.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Recognising that Mr. Hyde is bubbling beneath the surface is the first step to shutting him out. When you are aware of what can trigger changes in your mood, you can automatically adopt a positive mindset to dealing with it. Yes, there is a traffic jam, but you always listen to your e-book in traffic jams – you won’t get to work any faster anyway. You know that you sometimes forget to put fuel in the car, so you make it part of your routine on a weekend to go to the gas station on the way to pick the kids up from swimming practice.

You need to manage your life rather than let life manage you.

This isn’t to say that you should always be in a good mood, no matter what the circumstances. When life serves you lemons, it is perfectly understandable that you will grimace a little – the most important thing is that you do not let your distaste affect anyone else. If you are having a bad day, count to ten before you say anything important, try to take your emotions out of the equation when you are making decisions, and you may even want to let people know that “Mr. Hyde” is not too far away from the surface. They will forgive you the odd indiscretion; we have all been there. Self-control is one of the hallmarks of adulthood. When did you last lose it?

Footnote: “The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was a short story published in 1886 by author Robert Louis Stevenson. Doctor Henry Jekyll was a pleasant man, who involuntarily turned into the sociopathic Edward Hyde at regular intervals. He fought the compulsion, but only death could put a stop to the carnage in his life.

When you make choices about your career, the “grass being greener” always carries questions of perspective. If your current grass is yellowing and faded, then most other pastures will look initially  appealing – you are being pushed into a move. If, however, a luscious meadow comes into sight that cannot be ignored, no amount of nurture will help your current lawn compete – you are being pulled into action.

When you are considering future options, it is important to be realistic about your current motivations and “why” you want to move.

If your current grass is yellowing and faded, it is vital to understand how it got that way. You are being pushed into a move to a place where the grass seems greener, but what is to say that the grass there may not turn yellow and fade in the near future? You feel that you are being pushed into a move, but is there really nothing that you can do to improve your current situation? All too often people come to recruitment professionals saying that they don’t like their job, but when asked it becomes clear that they have done little to improve their situation.

Are you moving because the new company is aligned with your values and ambitions, or are you moving because your old company couldn’t fulfill them? In the first instance, you will move with hope in your heart – you genuinely believe that amazing opportunities await. In the latter scenario, you will move jobs with a sense of trepidation – what happens if history repeats itself again?

Fear is never a good feeling to have on your first day.

It is also important to separate your job from your company. Your job role will never be constant – technology and disruptive influences are ensuring that people have to adapt their activity to stay one step ahead. You may move for a certain “job spec” but there is no guarantee that this won’t change as the company priorities change as early as six months to a year. What is important, however, is that you are aligned with the culture and values of your future employer. The changes here will be much more subtle, and this should be one of the key reasons to move. If you love what your employer stands for, you will be far more likely to succeed in whatever you will be doing for them. If you move for the job and not for the employer, that grass is likely to go yellow far sooner.

The promise of “better prospects” is the basic reason for anyone to change roles, but if you do not consider why they are better, and the possibility of the situation changing, then you are walking into the future with your eyes closed. Just a glimpse of “greener” grass is not enough – you have to look deeper into yourself and deeper into your new prospective employers.

Are you being pulled towards a place where your career could flourish, or are you being pushed towards an uncertain future of deja-vu decline?

Distraction is not the sole preserve of our manic modern world.

Nearly a hundred years ago, in 1918, Theron Q. Dumont shared some eternal wisdom about how to maintain your focus in his book “The Power of Concentration.” Many of the examples are fairly simplistic, but when we look back at our days and analyse how much we have achieved, we too often rue the hours that have slipped carelessly by.

Firstly, the book contended that if we need to focus our mind, we have to be in control of our body. Just as the sun focuses through a magnifying glass, a concentrated effort in a given direction has the potential to yield the most amazing results. Dumont suggested such exercises as sitting perfectly still for five minutes, learning to fix your gaze on an object, and opening and closing your fists. These simple actions allow you to train your attention to focus on the most mundane of activities. When you can do this, you are so much more aware of the world around you, and conversely are able to shut it out when required.

Attention is a rebellious mistress; Dumont suggests that you can tame her by first learning to focus on that which is near. Looking at the tip of one finger is nearly impossible to do for five minutes. Try it. You’ll see how distracting your surroundings really are. We give in to that normally, all the time. As Dumont said: “The person that can concentrate can gain full control over his body and mind and be the master of his inclinations; not their slave.”

Another area of focus that Dumont explored was the control over our desires. His approach was more about the need for “gentlemanly” self-control, but it is equally relevant for our smartphone obsessed age. How many of us can hear it buzz with a text alert and leave it on the table until we have finished the work that we are doing? Not many I would wager, but it often takes us far longer to regain our concentration after even the smallest distraction. As Dumont said: “Be ever on the lookout for opportunities for the practice of self-control. He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that ruleth a city.”

The last exercise that I wish to share with you is an interesting one, and a very valid one in our age of information overload. He suggested to read a page of a book and write a summary of the contents.

Then maybe read two sentences and copy them word for word from memory. If you do this enough, you will retain more of what you are reading, and your will get a tangible return on the time that you have invested reading it. How many Forbes articles have you read, only to forget about them the next day? In the age of the internet, we are surrounded by so much amazing information, but, because there is so much, we often fail to absorb as much as we could.

I tried my best to write this post without pausing “for thought” or seeking “inspiration” in other activities. That might help every now and again, but most of the time it is an excuse to look for a distraction.

I didn’t manage it, but I’ll try again next time.

Remember, focus tends to be the key ingredient in the secret recipe to success.

In any social environment, actions speak far louder than words. How you treat someone will be remembered, while what you say to them will be forgotten. How you make someone feel will touch them, while dictating to them will wash over them without making a mark. Putting yourself last will show them that you care; putting yourself first automatically proves that you don’t.

At a time when the most natural leaders “eat last”, those who truly want to influence others are realising the benefits of putting others first. The great thing about humility is that it has such a delicate nature that it can’t be faked. Too many people insist that they are so humble, but then go on to centre the conversation around their needs…. they just don’t get it.

Having said this, putting the needs of others first is far from easy.

In an attention-starved world, it takes a concerted effort for the truly humble to reap the rewards of their selflessness. Half-measures and occasional gestures won’t do it – their impact will be drowned out in the “me-me-me” noise, and their pseudo-humility will go unnoticed, soon never to be repeated. Being humble is a way of life, something that you have to believe in with no hope of a “payback horizon”. You can be sure that this day will come, but it will come when you least expect it. When you have finally made humility your “modus operandi”, humility will send many blessings your way.

Of course, the truly humble don’t act like that with a game plan; they believe that it is the right way to behave in an unforgiving and selfish world.

There is no personal agenda, and the humble leader can separate themselves from their achievements. They are not defined by them, good or bad. When their accomplishments attract praise, they are quick to acknowledge the input of others, eschewing basking in personal glory. On the flip side, while proud leaders are keen to hide their weaknesses, humble leaders are open about their shortcomings and always seek ways of improving themselves. Proud leaders seem to have all the “right” answers, humble leaders seem to have all the “right” questions – about themselves and others.

All these aspects mean that we want to be around humble people, we want to be led by them, and we want to be mentored by them. We wish that we were like them, and some of us even go so far as talking a good game…. talk is cheap. Humility is a choice, and it is an incredibly powerful and liberating choice. The difference between being humiliated and being humbled is whether the events were in someone else’s control or under your own control. The humble leader says “yes, this is me, I accept who I am.”

Then they act exactly the way that they speak.

I have met many humble leaders in my professional career. It is the most underrated leadership trait on the planet.

Have you ever seen someone so angry that you think that they might lose control completely? They start to rant incoherently, they gesticulate wildly and anyone that comes across their path feels their wrath. Rational thought is replaced by emotional overreaction, and you instinctively try to keep well out of the way.

However, what if you have to solve a pressing issue with this person? What if you are waiting for them to deliver on a deadline? What if they are your Manager and hold your future in their hands? Sometimes you have to engage with angry people, stepping into the frying pan and sometimes then into the fire. You can’t avoid angry people all the time, sometimes you have no choice, so what can you do to ensure that your engagement is as fruitful as possible?

Anger takes many forms – as well as outright aggression, there is the more insidious passive aggression that we all know so well. Much has been written about that, but I would like to focus on what to do when people genuinely “lose it”. How do you cope when someone is on the verge of screaming the place down? How do you ratchet down the tension and focus their mind on where it needs to be?

Here a couple of ideas for dealing with an angry boss:

Keep your emotions in check. The first thing to do is ensure that you are not going to “mirror” their behaviour. This is an entirely natural phenomenon, and when someone gets angry, we automatically feel our levels of anger rise. Take a few deep breaths and react to the facts of the matter rather than the way in which they are being presented. If you can keep a lid on things, you will minimise the risk of emotions escalating yet further.

Confide in a colleague. Gossip rarely leads to anything good, but if you feel like you are in an emotional hurricane, there will often be other people who are feeling the same thing. Sometimes sharing your coping strategies in confidence can work, although it is important that you are discreet with your discussions. That feeling that you are on your own as the target of someone’s anger can be very lonely – it may be easier to handle if you are “in it together”.

Remove yourself from the situation. It sometimes pays to walk away when you have a chance. This doesn’t mean standing up and leaving a meeting early, but it could simply be a walk around the block at lunchtime to regain that crucial sense of perspective. Once you have removed yourself from the situation it is often easier to grab a quick five minutes with the person concerned and maybe attempt to have a rational discussion about what is bothering them. Walking away doesn’t mean forgetting about it, it means choosing your battles.

Understand the triggers. Often, anger follows a certain pattern, and if you witness enough angry outbursts, it is possible to analyse what caused them. Everyone has their own particular buttons that cause them to lose control, so if you are mindful of these triggers, your world may be that bit calmer. I would never advocate treading on egg shells around someone – the anger is their problem, not yours, but if an unpleasant situation can be avoided without any consequences, then why not make your day a little easier?

Ultimately if your company culture is dominated by aggression, you may wish to ask yourself is this the right culture for you? You may not think it, but you do have a choice of where you work.

With over 20 years’ global expertise in Human Capital, Faz Fazal is the Managing Director of Riley Cameron. Riley Cameron is one of Australia’s leading specialist providers of Human Capital Advisory services. Visit our website at www.RileyCameron.com.au

The most successful companies have a production line of talent that squeezes every drop of potential from their people. However, unlike a factory production line, the people involved are far from passive agents. To get the most out of themselves and those around them, they have to push each other to be the best they can be – both upwards and downwards.

Managers need to be led by their leaders to stretch themselves, empowered to take risks and work out of their comfort zones. Equally, they need to be managed by their direct and indirect reports so that they understand situations, manage their teams efficiently and prioritise their efforts with the resources available to them.

When a manager is pushed and pulled from both directions, they can’t help but become more rounded.

When a subordinate is encouraged to manage their manager, they take one step closer to becoming a manager themselves.

In such a pressurised work environment it is easy to choose to concentrate your focus on yourself, but in actual fact, much of your growth is intrinsically linked to those around you. Plants don’t grow well without fertilizer, weed killer, regular watering and ample sunlight – people don’t thrive without the challenges of pushing others and being pulled by others. This does indeed take incremental effort, but the more you focus your efforts on others, the more benefits you will feel yourself.

Managing upwards and downwards can teach us so much about each other.

In my view, if you work hard to overcome a difficult relationship, the depths of that bond are then far greater than a superficial and easy going one. There will be disagreements, arguments, and discord, but if it comes from a place of “doing the right thing”, common sense will prevail in the end, and a mutual understanding will emerge.

Leading managers and managing leaders is always optional, but if you don’t take the option, your career will be all the poorer for it.

The key to giving your energies to others is the ability to relinquish your need to be right. Everyone has their own worldview and opinions on things, but when you attempt to view the world through someone else’s eyes, you immediately see that your way is not necessarily the only way. When you are seeking to build these bridges, it is sometimes useful to put aside your better judgment and go with the flow of others for a while. When you have built a strong relationship it’s much easier to influence, but when you are seeking to build a bridge, it is always best to build it from their side first.

When you are managing in both directions, try to make decisions through their eyes rather than through your eyes. The resultant bond will bring you both so much closer.

Everyone talks about “Emotional Intelligence” these days, but it is something that we understand in our own heads, while we generally find it hard to step into the heads of others. The problem is that we don’t talk about our feelings enough at work, and without this window on our souls, an understanding of the emotional intelligence of others is hard to come by.

Many of us feel awkward discussing the softer sides of management, but in actual fact, they can be learned, practiced and acquired just as easily as some of the more tangible skills. Understanding emotional wisdom starts with the simple questions… Why did you do that? How did it make you feel?

How did you know that? Why did you react like that?

Emotional intelligence first requires an initial awareness of your emotions and of the emotions of those around you. Explaining to someone else what you notice in certain situations and why you think that people behave in certain ways would give them a valuable insight into your thought processes, but this seems too “fluffy” to be covered in MBA courses or management textbooks. Learning emotional awareness from a close colleague or sympathetic boss is the best way to experience it in context.

Secondly, you need to be able to manage and regulate your emotions to achieve the desired outcomes. For many, this is the tricky part, and the place where we often need the most outside guidance. However, this sort of guidance isn’t about delving into the emotions of others; it is about giving them an insight into how we feel. Leaving ourselves vulnerable about our emotional shortcomings is incredibly difficult to do, but if there is someone that you trust and who knows you well, these sorts of conversations can be some of the most productive. “I can’t believe that I reacted in that way” is often the conversation starter to some revealing home truths. Without an external influence to shake us out of our routine, we will simply continue with our emotional inadequacies in blissful ignorance.

When we care about someone (at work or in a social setting), we want them to be able to handle everything that life throws at them. Sometimes it is obvious that they are not coping for whatever reason, and sometimes it is necessary to bring up these softer conversations. They are not easy conversations to have, but if you are compassionate with people and if you allow them to be compassionate with you, it is amazing what you can learn.

Maybe in the future there will be some wearable device that will give us unique insights into what emotions drive people to say and do certain things. We will be able to learn from them like a sporting playbook and our interactions will run far smoother (some might say robotically). However, for the moment, happily no such thing exists and we are forced to do one of two things…. guess or ask.

In emotional intelligence terms, the inquisitive will rule the world.

Clarity is something that is severely lacking in modern life.

In an era where disruption is revered, and the only certainty is change, we grow up to be comfortably uncomfortable with the fact that there will always be a decent percentage of the days and weeks ahead that will be shrouded in uncertainty. Things might turn out this way, or they might turn out that way. We’ll just have to be agile enough to deal with whatever comes along. Although this is normal for many of us, it is a highly stressful state to find ourselves in – sometimes you just need someone to shine a light on what’s on the horizon.

Taking their teams by the hand and painting a picture of how they see the future (at any particular moment in time) is the role of a visionary leader.

They are constantly risking being proved “wrong” but if they harness the wisdom of the crowd, they can often be the conduit for a collective wisdom that would not otherwise have appeared. The leader that shares their vision of the future without tapping into the knowledge of their people is likely to paint only a two dimensional picture, but the most enlightened leaders channel the views of their people and decide to share them rather than keep their cards close to their chest.

Sharing knowledge is the biggest gift that a leader can give their people.

Asking their people for their views and moulding it into a commonly held vision is something that only the most selfless of leaders can do. The future comes alive through their people, and they see a key part of their job as sharing it. Too many leaders are driven by ego to allow their personal vision of the future to be hijacked by the view of their team. These selfish leaders don’t share their views because they fear that someone might adopt them for themselves.

Facilitating a common vision of what tomorrow might bring and then sharing it – that is how leaders shine a light amongst the darkness.

A second aspect to this is that the communication must happen regularly. Small but frequent updates are easier to incorporate into the daily direction of work and are far less stressful that a quarterly strategy update that might bring all sorts of changes to direction. Leaders have to spend a considerable amount of time and effort updating their people and supporting them along the journey. If they do this, they will learn from the incremental feedback and the likelihood of keeping the ship on the right course will be far higher.

As an employee of a leader who is transparent about their vision of the future, you have that added sense of security that you are involved in what is to come. There is nothing worse than going to work and wondering what the next weeks and months will bring – a leader that communicates the common vision is a leader who has the trust and respect of their people.

Many people see a leader as someone who is always front and centre, comfortable with the glare of the spotlight and able to handle the accompanying expectation. They have to perform, they have to set an example, and they have to inspire people to follow them.

You can’t be inspired unless someone is leading from the front, can you?

Well, in my many years of recruiting leaders for various businesses, I can say that inspiring others isn’t always about leaders leading from the front. On reflection, many leaders are often nowhere near the front.

The key requirement of any leader is that they understand the nature of those around them.

If someone is “on stage” all the time, it isn’t so easy to quietly sit down with Joanne and talk through her challenges. If someone is used to every command being slavishly obeyed, it won’t be so easy to handle the occasional dissent from a more knowledgeable team member – backing down is a sign of weakness, surely? If someone is too used to the sound of their own voice, they tend to ignore the value of the voice in others.

Leading from the stage can make it harder to remain close to your people. Leading from the shadows (behind the scenes) may allow a leader to perhaps appreciate the subtlety of how their team operates. You can lose your sense of perspective when a bright light is shining on you – looking out from the shadows, things can often seem a little clearer.

This requires a decent dose of humility.

I have written before about the importance of being humble when you are entrusted with a position of leadership. Your mission should be centred around your team, and if you are able to forget about your personal agenda and embrace the individual agendas of others, you will create a far more cohesive and powerful unit than if you simply seek to get everyone to listen to your voice. Valuing the opinions of others over your own is a true test of a leader, but you can’t value someone’s opinion unless you know what it is.

You don’t get to know the opinions of others when you are constantly up on stage.

Leaders “pulling together” with their teams will always play an important part, but from my experience of recruiting leaders, the value comes not because the team sees that their leader is making the same effort as them. The true value comes from the leader understanding what it is to be a member of the team.

Working this out from the shadows is far easier than in the glare of the spotlight.

There is always a time and a place for a leader to step up and set an example. When times are tough, this is especially important. Having said that, possessing the ability to rein in their views to allow the team to provide solutions to their own problems will always be an important quality.

Knowing what you want to achieve, communicating it succinctly and telling people unambiguously what they need to do to help – those are the hallmarks of a great leader. They have the vision to see the path ahead, the belief in their path and the courage to tie their colours to the mast and say “follow me”.

Whether they are successful or otherwise, such people will attract devoted followers like a magnet. People will be prepared to win and lose by their side – in my opinion for one simple reason:

The task ahead is not shrouded in shades of grey.

If there is one thing that makes us that little bit more stressed in our already hectic lives, it is ambiguity. If you think that your boss might change their mind at any given moment, you will almost certainly hold back from giving your all. If your boss sits on the fence in an argument, it takes a decisive employee to put their flag firmly in the ground. If inactivity and hesitation reign from above, it is impossible to build any significant momentum from below. If a boss is selfish and keeps their options open until the “right” path has become clear, the growth and development of their employees will be stifled, and the missed opportunities will be seized upon by a more pro-active competitor.

Being a decisive leader means choosing not to hide behind those shades of grey.

I am not suggesting that every morning should start with a battle cry and a different daily target. Not every decision needs to be made at 9am in the morning. But, when the time for a decision has come (we all know when that is), the leader needs to step up to the plate, take the temperature of their team and suggest a way forward. How many meetings have adjourned with a “well, we don’t have enough information to decide just yet” or a “let’s leave it until next quarter”. You often do have enough information, and there will always be something else next quarter. Take the bull by the horns and make every decision that is sensible to make.

For me, momentum is the essence of motivation, and momentum only comes when you have a decisive direction for your efforts. A team that is performing above and beyond is rarely doing this standing still.

Stepping out from the shades of grey is a vulnerable place for any leader. They need to be supported by a team who don’t expect every decision to be perfect and who are happy to pursue a few blind avenues. If they feel insecure in their role, this is a difficult task, but the alternative is far worse. The leader who tries nothing new is a leader who is ripe for replacement. I know that I would rather be vulnerable and fail every now and again – we only live once, after all. The path to true success will always incorporate obstacles on the way including the odd failure here and there.

If you are a leader, ask yourself these questions: Does your team have a purpose in all that they do? Do you treat both failure and success as a learning experience? Do you welcome questions from your people? Are you happy making decisions without understanding the whole picture? Do you have the courage to lead when uncertainty plagues your mind?

If you can answer “yes” to these questions, it is likely that you are leading with a lantern rather than getting lost in the many shades of grey.

Don’t be a bad leader. Bad leaders hide behind shades of grey.

Most executives walk into the interview room prepped and ready to sell themselves. They have perfected their CVs for the desired impact, and every possible interview question has been painstakingly rehearsed in their heads many times. They want to tell you the story of all the amazing things that “they” have achieved, but if you instead focus on the detail of exactly how they went about achieving them, over the course of an hour or so a true picture of their ability will often appear.

When they talk about how they went about doing things, in my experience, the truly top performers will tend to share the following 5 ingredients to their success:

They always seek feedback. High performers readily acknowledge that they are a sum of the experience of others. They are not afraid to ask for feedback and actively seek out mentor-type relationships with a disparate group of individuals from different environments in order to broaden their perspective. In actual fact, they obsess about learning from everyone around them.

They are utterly self-motivated. Motivation is not the hardest trait to pick up at interview. If someone has set themselves consistently challenging objectives and moved forward on a regular basis, you can be sure that they have the correct mindset to overachieve even in the most challenging of environments. Motivation comes in many forms and is arguably the binding agent in a high performer’s recipe to extraordinary success.

Setbacks are welcomed, not dreaded. Very few careers will be without setbacks, and how an individual reacts to obstacles is a sign of their resilience and determination. When a high performer talks you through a tough time in their career, you will hear an extra frisson of excitement in their tone – yes it was hard, but they knew that they would get through it in the end. High performers embrace the experience of tackling setbacks knowing that these lessons have only made them stronger.

Saying no is the door to saying yes. High performers know that they only have so much bandwidth to achieve the impossible, and this is only achievable if they say no to a good amount of non-essential activity. This may annoy certain colleagues, but in the long run they will ensure that they are as productive as possible for the organisation as a whole. Prioritisation is the key; you can’t take on a critical task if you are swamped with the non-essentials.

But they also know their worth. When it comes to the sharp end of negotiations, employers shouldn’t expect to be in a position of strength in the negotiations. High performers are very clear about the value that they provide and they understandably expect to be remunerated accordingly. Often, the interest goes beyond financial considerations and the real top performers are more looking at the cultural fit and scope of the role on offer. Often they need to feel that they are simply making a difference.

An interview can only provide a brief window into the potential of any individual. Having said that, you will know a high performer when you meet one. Their words and body language will be aligned, and their quiet confidence will assure you that they can back up what they say.

We all know people who drone on and on about the same stuff all the time.

This is a problem if you don’t agree with it the first time, but if the utterances are of value, there is much sense in repeating them at opportune times. When our brains hear something over and over again, a neural groove in our memory is created and deepened. If someone is always repeating rubbish, our dislike to anything that they say in the future will strengthen. However, if someone repeats the good stuff, over and over again, that particular groove will become like a drug – we won’t be able to get enough of it.

I suppose that this is a big part of what makes a great leader likeable. They back up their words with actions, and we, therefore, believe in what they say. When they repeat themselves over and over again, these phrases act as a soothing medicine to our brains – we associate them with good feelings and good results. When they repeat those common catchphrases, it is like a shot of “feel good hormone” in our brains.

I am sure that you know the sorts of phrases that I am talking about.

We have all had great bosses in the past who wheel out certain clichés in meetings, presentations, and various events. We know their repertoire so well that we could almost play “catchphrase bingo”, but somehow the phrases are incredibly comforting. They are part of what makes our leader great, they are expected, and they give us confidence in the consistency of our leader.

Doing (and saying) what it says on the tin counts for a lot in our disruptive times.

Of course, there is a lot to say for originality in leadership, and I’m not suggesting that these phrases should sit at the core of their message. Any message needs to be sincere. I believe that when our brains recognise one of those familiar phrases, we smile inside and prick up our ideas for what is coming next. A leader that has control of these anchor phrases can lead his or her audience in a far more effective way than someone who does not have a way of attracting their audience’s attention. No matter how much you want to listen to someone, sometimes your brain needs a kick and these well-known phrases are a great way to get it to pay attention.

Leading a team is about creating a common bond, something that everyone can experience and that everyone feels (roughly) the same way about. When you see a room of smiling faces after one of your trademark remarks, you know that the room is with you.

The power of repetition is amazing (only if you are repeating the good stuff of course).

If I had the time, I would watch every speech from every great speaker, and I reckon that repetition would play a huge part in their craft. If we are aware and deliberate about the way that we speak to people, we too can harness this powerful tool.

Try it and see how people respond to you.

In terms of individual behaviours, good and bad are often different sides of the same coin. A leader might be patient while another is impatient. A colleague might be careless while another is precise. An associate might be friendly while another is aloof. It is possible to turn bad to good – you just need some perspective and determination. We can all be a little more patient, precise and friendly.

There is, however, a category of behaviour that sits all on its own.

The ugly.

I’m sure we have all either witnessed or been subjected to utterly shocking experiences at the hands of others. You may be surprised that almost all of us do have the capacity to behave like this ourselves. With the right combination of stress and circumstances, anyone can turn into a predator.

The problem is that these ugly behaviours have no flip side. There is no degree to which a bullying psychopath might reform themselves. You are either a bully or you are not a bully – even if you bully occasionally, this can have terrible consequences for those around you. Ugly behaviours simply have to be stopped, but the problem is that it is often those in power who are the culprits – the checks and balances of life weigh less heavily on their shoulders and they can literally get away with anything.

Usually ugly employees are fired, and fired fast. Ugly leaders on the other hand just tend to become uglier.

The challenge with ugly leadership is that employees can do very little about it. You can attempt to manage their organisational skills or decision making, but you can do very little to influence a raging ego or calm selfrighteousanger. The saddest part is that employees have to suffer the ugly sides of leadership.

Luckily, most authentic leaders are able to recognise when their behaviour gets ugly and they are able to pull themselves back from the brink. It isn’t a case of modifying what they are doing; they simply have to stop it altogether. We’ve all been there and an apology should ideally follow swiftly afterwards. It is then important to assess what has caused this ugly behaviour and attempt to avoid such occasions in the future. Ugly behaviour can only harm relationships and sometimes the harm is irreversible.

The number one reason why people leave their jobs is a bad relationship with their boss. There will always be two sides to the story of any employee’s departure; having said that you will be amazed how often ugly leadership is at the core of these broken relationships.

One of the biggest challenges for any company is retaining their best people. Some would argue too much time is spent on promoting good behaviours. What if the same amount of time was invested in preventing the ugly behaviours? Ugly leadership is a challenging issue to address as no business wants to readily admit they have a such a deep rooted problem – It is almost like people want to sweep it under the carpet “ah well, we’re all like that sometimes” – but it can be prevented if people care enough.

When passions are running high, the ability to check your behaviour and refrain from it getting ugly is the hallmark of the best leaders. Are you able to do it?

They say that opposites attract. In the school science lab, with couple of magnets and a pile of iron filings, it is easy to observe, but in the real world (social and corporate) there are no hard and fast laws to govern why we are drawn to certain people.

In the workplace, few of us are afforded the luxury of choosing our colleagues and we certainly rarely have a choice as to our managers. Why, therefore, is magnetism such an important dynamic in a corporate setting? Work is about turning up and doing a job – that is perfectly possible to do without being enamoured with your boss. Do many of us even like our boss?

Yet, magnetic leaders do exist, and they are immediately noticeable.

An expectant hush descends of the meeting when they start to speak. Their influence extends far beyond their department, and they always seem to know someone who can help make something happen. They are cc’d in more emails than most, and not because of formality – people actually want to solicit their opinions. Direct reports would walk on hot coals for them, and members of other teams wish they were doing it themselves.

They have that desirable ability to make friends and influence people.

I find that most relationships are fine with a bit of hard work and trust, but I wouldn’t necessarily call myself magnetic. I think that most of us would think the same about ourselves, although I’m sure that we would all love to be one of those people who seem to be at the hub of anything that is worthwhile.

Management magnetism is often seen as a mystery.

Just as magnetism defies description by science students at school, the mystery of magnetic interpersonal skills is equally as elusive. The chemistry of relationships is naturally complicated, but I would like to highlight just one shared trait of magnetic leaders the world over:

They give far more than they take.
You put yourself in someone’s orbit in the knowledge that they will do all they can to help you. You listen to them because you know that they have listened to many more people themselves. You don’t think twice about doing a task for them – they will have thought about your best interest before they asked. They make time for anyone and everyone, yet they still make you feel like your individual needs come first.

Creating something out of nothing lies at the heart of many a mystery. Magnetic leaders choose to give, give, give and in turn they attract a wide range of people from all sorts of backgrounds. It even gets to the point where a crowd mentality kicks in, and there is that indescribable “feel good factor” about being around them. Who are the magnetic people in your business? Is “giving” to others an important part of who they are? Maybe that is at least one small part of the mystery.