PinnedWe don’t get to choose our crisisLeaders are needed in times of crisis — supporting teams to navigate unforeseen challenges; helping organisations survive economic or reputational trauma; guiding nations through existential threats; aiding vulnerable people after natural disasters. A crisis may be ‘macro’ affecting issues which include politics, the military, the economy, climate-change, national security or…Crisis4 min readCrisis4 min read
Oct 19The power of exampleOn 11 February 1990 Nelson Mandela, an iconic leader in the African National Congress, walked out of prison but walked into a national crisis. South Africa was peering over the edge of an abyss. The country was moving towards a racial civil war. Mandela had been in jail for almost…Leadership5 min readLeadership5 min read
Sep 21Crisis leader or leadership crisisJacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, was due to attend a climate change meeting at a school on North Island on 15 March 2019 when her accompanying press secretary took a call at 1.50 p.m. to advise her of an ‘evolving incident’ involving a gunman. Details were scant but…Crisis6 min readCrisis6 min read
Aug 19208 seconds and 155 soulsTake-off from LaGuardia airport, New York City, was normal on the cold, crisp afternoon of 15 January 2009. The plane was ten years old, in great mechanical shape and making an ascent for the 16,300th time. New York was wrapped in snow and the pilots could not help remarking on…Crisis Management9 min readCrisis Management9 min read
Jul 18‘Houston, we’ve had a problem’Apollo 13 was widely seen as just another mission to the moon. It was yesterday’s news. It was the fifth in a series of missions to orbit or land on the moon, starting with Apollo 8. Apollo 11 had been the mission which placed astronauts on the lunar surface in…Apollo 137 min readApollo 137 min read
Jun 19Leadership wisdom from crisis — Shackleton‘Matthias Andersen was the station foreman at Stromness. He had never met Shackleton, but along with everyone else at South Georgia he knew that the Endurance had sailed from there in 1914… and had undoubtedly been lost with all hands in the Weddell Sea. Just then he heard an outcry…Leadership6 min readLeadership6 min read
May 20Trust — hard to define but you know when it’s missing in a teamLeading a team in which there is little trust is hard work. In fact, it is probably a waste of everyone’s time. Stephen Covey wrote that change happens at the speed of trust. So if trust is missing, you can be sure that there will be no meaningful change happening…Trust5 min readTrust5 min read
May 12Leaders create the conditions…..In #5 of 5 Infographics, I look at how the practice of leadership matures and changes as a high performance team emerges and stabilises.High Performance Team1 min readHigh Performance Team1 min read
May 5Reputation and high performance go hand in handReputation is #4 in my high performance teams model, based on meta-analysis of multiple high performance studies. This is what leaders of these teams actually do.Reputation1 min readReputation1 min read
Apr 26Adaptability-it’s a new-brainerTheme #3 in my high performance team model is Adaptability. My model is based on over 20 years of meta-research into what leaders of these teams actually do to create and sustain high performance.Adaptability1 min readAdaptability1 min read
