Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

Nigel is sitting in his manager’s office for his annual performance review. It had been a tough year, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic had decimated his plans for Q1 and Q2, but Nigel had put in a superhuman effort and hit targets in Q3. Nigel was expecting nothing but praise for his efforts, so imagine his surprise when he heard the following,

“You have met your Q3 quota, Nigel, but I have some concerns about how you got there”.

All Nigel heard was, “But we have some concerns.”

The word, ‘but’ has the effect of negating everything that proceeds it.

Imagine you and I met, and I said, “I really like you but…”

You would be on the defensive for criticism, even though I prefaced it with, “I really like you.”

‘But’; is judgmental and is generally perceived as negative. For example, “I want to do this, but I can’t.”

‘But’ often creates the frame of limited choice. For example, “You can eat your cake, but you can’t keep it.”

Being human is a paradox, we are wired to be successful ...

I will always remember an inspiring speech by Darrell, a CEO that I was coaching. The occasion was a ‘town hall’ for employees just after it was announced that he would be moving on to new pastures.

“Make mistakes”, he said.

“Just don’t let your mistakes be bigger than mine”

It is not often we hear a leader encourage his team to make mistakes, but Darrell knew that making mistakes was part of the business and that you should limit the size of your mistakes. Darrell’s leadership had created a culture of creativity and customer service, and many people openly wept on his last day.

A critical test for any leader is how they effectively manage employee mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable but your response to them will determine whether you enhance productivity and employee engagement or destroy moral.

A simple maxim for mistakes would be –

“Be tough on standards, be tender on people.”

Before I discuss how to implement this mindset, it is worth noting that we each have a default orient...

When a team underperforms or experiences failure, who is to blame, the team or the manager?

In sports, sacking the manager is a public answer to this question, but what about in business? 

The question assumes full responsibility for failure on either the team or the manager, but what other factors should we consider?

You will have likely experienced working in a team or a group and being frustrated with either the team lead (manager) or fellow team members. I know I have. Recently I found myself being ‘triggered’ by the behaviors of a group I belong to. The group is a global collective of coaches and consultants contributing articles to an online magazine. The metrics are simple, provide relevant, well-written content by the 15^th of the month so that the magazine can be produced and released at the beginning of the following month. What could go wrong?

Last month, I received an email from the team lead thanking me for my article and letting me know that the publication date had be...

Your annual review or performance conversation can either be an opportunity to advance your career or, feel like a failed parole hearing, condemning you to another year of being stuck in situ.

This week, I was coaching a Senior Director in charge of Enterprise Strategic Planning. He has an upcoming quarterly performance review and asked me how to prepare. In my experience, coaching hundreds of executives to senior leadership and C-Suite roles, I have noticed that the ‘difference that makes the difference’ is proactivity.

Proactive Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance (PPPPP). Here is the 3-phase strategy I shared with my client so that you too can ace your next review or performance conversation.

Review your own Performance

Your boss is likely to start the conversation by asking,

“How do you think you have done?”

This opening invites you to show your self-awareness of your achievements, but so many people trip over themselves with this first question. Either they try to be hu...

Conventional wisdom suggests that for career success, you need to show your value by working above and beyond. But is this the full story?

In the opening scene of The Godfather (1972 Francis Ford Coppola. You can watch the clip above), Don Corleone is receiving requests for favors, on the day of his daughter’s wedding. The undertaker asks for revenge against two boys who beat his daughter when she refused their advances. Don Corleone grants the favor, but not before saying,

“Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding.”

The Godfather movie is a case study of the power of reciprocity for influence. If you are going to give value, know your value, and seek value in return.

Coaching Career Success

I am currently coaching a Senior Vice President, who has her eyes on a C-level promotion. She has made her aspirations known to her organization and is being offered a highly ...

In a Harvard Business Review study of 20,000 employees, 54% claimed that they don’t get respect from their leaders. Respect has been shown to improve employee trust and safety and effect a 92% increase in focus and priority. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is to instruct managers and leaders to be more respectful, but what if this conclusion is wrong?

If you are honest with yourself, do you respect someone who does not deserve respect? Are you able to respect someone who does not respect themselves?

Respect Definition

The verb respect means to admire someone (or something) because of their abilities, qualities, or achievements. It can also mean having due regard for their feelings, wishes, or rights.

In my work on self-leadership, and through over 20 years of coaching, I can share that most people struggle to respect their own abilities, feelings, or rights. And how can you expect respect if you do not respect yourself?

Coaching for Respect - A Case Study

Recently I was coachi...

How to be a Diversity and Inclusion Game Changer

I recently shared, on Social Media, that I would be the motivational keynote speaker at a large global event. Unfortunately, the best image that showcased 'yours truly' included two other white men. The optics were not great considering that I am an advocate for women's leadership and have signed a pledge to not appear on all-male panels.

There were some women and other ethnicities speaking at the conference and the panel was diverse, but not diverse enough. I called the organizer, a former mentee of mine, and he shared his frustration that he had asked many women, but they refused to speak.

I have faced this same issue before when I organized physical and virtual events. It can lead to weird conversations like,

"We are missing a Black Woman or an Asian man, and we have nobody representing LGBTQ".

In a Perfect World...

In a perfect world, we would have the best person for the job, regardless of ethnicity, gender, age, ableness,...

Before the Covid Pandemic, my schedule was packed with travel, speaking, and coaching in multiple countries (see video above). Now, there is no travel, but as a Virtual Leadership Speaker and Coach, I can still make a difference from my home office.

Virtual Leadership Speaker

I don't call myself a futurist, but I have been predicting disruption for the speaking industry for some time. With this in mind, I began to set up the means to deliver inspiration and information remotely from my computer and cloud-based software in 2017.  Now it's 2020 and I am glad I had the foresight and self-leadership to disrupt before being disrupted.

With a 2-PC setup,  I can broadcast leadership speeches, workshops, and coaching anywhere in the world. It's now not unusual for me to start my day coaching on the East Coast of the USA, facilitate a meeting in Silicon Valley, speak somewhere in Asia, and finish my day in India, Africa, or Europe.

All of this was possible before the 2020 Pandemic, but clie...

Leadership is challenging at the best of times, but during periods of uncertainty and rapid change, it requires a special mindset.

In this video, part of my Leadership Accelerator Program, I talk about the 'Stockdale Paradox'. This term was used by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great, after interviewing Admiral James Stockdale. Stockdale had been the highest-ranking military officer held and tortured in the 'Hanoi Hilton', a Vietnamese Prison. Admiral Stockdale was shot down during the war between America and Vietnam in 1965. He was held for 8-years with no certainty that he would survive, be released, or ever see his family again.

The Stockdale Paradox

The Paradox of Leading in Uncertainty is that you must face the brutal facts of your current reality AND never lose faith that you will prevail.

Leadership in Uncertainty and Rapid Change

If you find yourself in a leadership position during uncertainty and rapid change, it is essential that you communicate clearly, consistently...

What was I thinking?
20 years ago I kept my goal setting, ideas, drafts for speeches, notes from courses, and outlines for books in spiral-bound notebooks. During a recent tidy-up I reviewed these notebooks and was fascinated to see how the ideas have become part of me and the goals have been achieved.

One of those goals was to write a book on Self-leadership. This goal was completed in 2012 and in Chapter 7, I share the Goal Setting Worksheet that I used.

I’m sharing it again here in my leadership blog, as I believe it’s important to look beyond the current situation and plan your future. I know I’m going to.

Goal Setting Worksheet

Self-Leaders set goals for themselves and through Self-observation and Self-feedback regularly achieve them. When you have a clearly defined intention you gain a laser-like focus and act effectively. If you want to effectively and intentionally achieve a goal, the following process will put your goal into your physiology so that you will work on it un...