The thing about self awareness is that you have two choices. You can invite it in or ignore it. Either way, it’ll find its way to you in the end. When you invite it in, you prepare yourself to hear positive and negative things about yourself. You set yourself up to be...
Yesterday, Julian Stodd shared the idea of cultural strength being like fabric which is used and mended. This made me think about how I might describe self-awareness. It’s a bit like a scooter, with rear view mirrors. We’ve all heard that reflection is a good way to...
In my research questionnaire, I wanted people from all over the Welsh public service to identify their job level. I looked at organisational stratification literature which mainly came from the private sector and military. They offered weird and wonderful job levels...
When we seek to find out what people think, we often use questionnaires. In researching self awareness, lots of studies used questionnaires. Very few used interviews or diaries. It made me think about quantitative versus qualitative methods. I discovered there’s a big...
Today I was saddened to learn of the death of Sabine Schmitz. Everyone who likes cars and watched Top Gear will too, I’m sure, be feeling a little blue. Sabine was the Queen of the Nurburgring and the epitome of Girl Power. I first saw her on Top Gear racing a transit...
It’s been a whole year. 17th March 2020 was the last time I went to the office in the Before. Today is the 16th March 2021. Today I went to the office for my second vaccine. It’s a strange way to celebrate a new year. When we left the office in 2020, we thought it...
If you read the literature about leadership, you’ll notice that it’s weighted towards the idea that leadership sits with people in senior roles. A number of the journal articles that I looked at focussed on individuals either in senior positions or training to take on...
This week I’ve attended a conference and two workshops, and have been impressed by all three. Speakers have been engaging, backdrops have added value and the tech has been stable. I’ve talked about presentations before - about preparation, style of delivery and how...
Today I had the absolute privilege to join the Centre for Army Leadership's conference on Remote Leadership. Each presenter was absolutely excellent. Here are a few of my take home messages… To achieve effective remote leadership there needs to be a devolution of...
Sometimes you have to take back control. When things don’t go as planned and you’re buffeted off course, you have to take control. In my 20 years in the public sector, too often I’ve heard stories of colleague that were promised project opportunities, jobs and pay...