I lost my good friend of many years, Mick McIlveen, after an all too brief battle with cancer a couple of weeks ago. His friends and family paid a fitting tribute to him at an end-of-life celebration this week. The tributes, including my own, all revolved around one central theme: his extraordinary ability to connect … Read more
Patrick’s leadership team thought they were doing ‘alright’ for a small organisation. But Patrick had bigger ambitions—to expand their services and reach new territories. As part of a team-based coaching program, we explored each member’s individual views about the future. While they said they were doing alright, they realised they were settling for mediocrity. They … Read more
Back in 2004, the Google board threw Eric Schmidt a curveball by asking him to step aside as Chairman while staying on as CEO. Eric wasn’t thrilled—after all, he believed he had earned the trust of the founders and employees, and the company was thriving as it prepared to go public. Feeling a bit stung, … Read more
When Charles was promoted into a leadership role, he was not at all prepared for the ‘people’ challenges he faced. Every direction he turned – upwards to management, downwards with his team or sideways to his peers and suppliers, he needed to navigate personalities and people dynamics. This hadn’t been the case when he was … Read more
There’s an old saying: ‘It’s lonely at the top.’ I hear it all too often. We might feel isolated because it’s hard to know who to trust. We may not know who to confide in because there are so many conflicting, self-centred, agendas crashing into us. It’s common for many of us to have been burned … Read more