Well, it all depends on who you ask; it depends on your perspective. And our perspectives or worldviews are shaped by much – life experiences, values, assumptions, deeply head beliefs and more – all of which impact our leadership ability to interpret (new) information, and find meaningful solutions.

As Albert Einstein famously said “In order to understand ourselves, others, and the world around us, we need to be able to change and adapt our perspectives.” In my view there are 3 critical leadership capabilities to ‘see’ different perspectives & become successful … (1) the ability to suspend your agenda, (2) the ability to get deeply curious, and (3) the willingness to be influenced by others (i.e. build your wisdom).

When CEO I often had to remind myself AND my teams of this so that we could find meaning in our respective individual ‘stories’ by looking at the (1) Objective Facts AND … (2) our Individual Subjective Worldviews, to then develop … (3) a new Shared Reality – call it a group or normative truth.

How Do You Step Into The Power of Effortless Effort? … one of the tools I use to get myself into a peak performance mode is to take a minute to breathe in a photo taken by my son Ryan; a photo that for me slows down time, gives me a rush of pleasure (a dopamine hit), and brings me into the RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW – athletes call it ‘Being in the Zone’. It’s my way of pushing away all distractions (because distractions are a KILLER) so that I can step into a challenge slightly ahead of my capability and get ‘uncomfortably comfortable’.

Want a quick way to gauge a person’s or a company’s Values? Simply seek to understand where they spend their … TIME … MONEY … ENERGY.

Honouring our Values lies at the heart of all personal change.

And alignment (or a sufficient overlap) of Values with your business partner(s) or company is a critical component to success because Values are deep-seated (personal) behaviours that form the framework we use for making decisions. Values are the driving force behind our work and our passions.

wisdom from thousands of hours of executive coaching, and inspiration from Stephen Gribben …

1. Focus on positive self-talk … tame your Saboteurs & listen to the wisdom of your Sage Voices

2. Set yourself as the benchmark from which to improve and grow … do not compare yourself to others as there is ALWAYS someone doing ‘better’ than you

What’s YOUR Service Orientation? Is it more to Others or to Self? … and this perspective is more useful than framing it in the typical judgemental extremes of Selfless or Selfish.

Neither Service Orientation (Others or Self) is a complement or a criticism, they both have their pluses and minuses … and leadership success is often dependent on finding the courage to balance between the two, in a world where all too often leaders are ‘stuck’ in just one ‘Service Orientation’ … to Others or to Self.

A series of recent one-sided conversations has prompted me to share the image below. It is a key leadership capability, even an obvious one, and yet one where underperformance is high. And for the next 4 weeks I too am going to work harder by consciously asking myself WAIT? (see the asterisk in the image below)

MONKEY PUZZLE is a children’s book, and one of my favorite to share with business leaders. In a clever way and in a few short pages, Monkey Puzzle brings to light many critical leadership skills such as…

I recently watched Jonah Hill’s Netflix documentary STUTZ (which I highly recommend), along with reading the supporting book called, The Tools – which presents a solutions (vs problem) based approach to self-care and mental health. The documentary reminded me of an OLD SIOUX LEGEND that many years ago provided me with my starting point for my inner journey of self-care and mental fitness … and here it is …

Often my executive clients go straight into Action mode by asking ‘How …?’ questions without sufficient reflection on defining their inspirational Vision, and this is problematic.

To explain, ‘How …?’ questions operate in a different part of the brain, where all too often barriers emerge, and clients get ‘stuck’. To get unstuck, they first need to be crystal clear on where they’re going (i.e. Vision).