Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

A great speech is memorable, think Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream", or Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you?" but if you are not a King or a Kennedy, what can you do to make a great speech?

"Not everyone wants to be a professional speaker,
but everyone needs to speak professionally."

 The opportunity to speak and share with an audience is a great honor, regardless of whether you are paid or not, and in my opinion, should be approached with reverence.

Having been speaking on stages around the world for nearly 25 years and being the President of two professional speaking associations, Singapore, and Spain, let me share some insights from the client's perspective.

Being a Great Speaker from the Client's Perspective

Every speech has an audience, and most speeches have a client. The client varies depending on the context, it might be a senior executive who wants you to land a message, or it's the company that booked you, but if you are paid to speak,...

"But who are you?" 

This was not the question I was expecting as I was chatting with the CEO of a Speakers Bureau that I was interested in being represented by.

Typically, the conversation is about areas of expertise, experience, and audience outcomes, but this interview was going in a different direction and I was intrigued.

Being a Compelling Speaker

A compelling speaker connects to the audience with their own authenticity, storytelling, and humanity. The audience has to think and feel, "Yes, that's me too".

I was born in 1961 and so I shall shortly be version 6.2 of myself, as I thought about the CEO's question I realized that:

"I am more than the sum of my experiences, I am the sum of my reflections on those experiences, and the choices I have made as a result of those reflections."

I think I started researching, writing, and speaking about self-leadership because it was I who needed to develop my self-awareness, self-management, and self-learning.

It has been my...

It is not uncommon for personal and professional success to be elusive. People describe being stuck, being overwhelmed, or facing a block when trying to scale themselves and their teams.

When locked into a pattern, it is natural to blame everything from circumstances to other people. Blaming, complaining, and a victim mindset can exact a terrible toll, but then comes an epiphany,

"What if it's me?"

It is a truism that you can't effectively lead others unless you first lead yourself, which is one of the reasons that in 2012 I wrote, 'Self Leadership - How to Become a More Successful, Efficient and Effective Leader from the Inside Out". 

Healthy self-leadership is evidenced by results such as these,

"Self-leadership has produced results I had no idea were possible. I have grown enormously as an executive: my relations with my managers and staff are far more harmonious; I have been able to coach my team through significant personal development."   -  Grant...

Newton's first law of motion, also known as the law of inertia, states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force. This means that an object will continue to do what it is currently doing unless something else intervenes to change its course.

This law has significant implications for human success. In order to achieve success in any endeavor, individuals must apply force and momentum to move themselves or their circumstances in a desired direction. However, inertia can often be a formidable obstacle to this process, as it tends to keep things moving in their current direction.

Self-leadership and Success

To overcome the inertia from established systems and patterns, individuals must apply force through self-leadership.

"Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing their thinking, feelings, and 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, toward their objectives." (Bryant & Kazan 2012)

For example, if an individual wants to...

Dubai, the thriving cosmopolitan city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has become a top destination for hosting conferences and conventions. Boasting state-of-the-art infrastructure, a vibrant business environment, and a unique blend of culture and modernity, Dubai offers an ideal setting for event organizers and attendees alike.

Dubai's World-class Venues and Infrastructure

Dubai is home to a multitude of world-class venues designed to accommodate conferences and conventions of various sizes. The Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), for instance, is a prominent facility that offers over 1.3 million square feet of exhibition space and is equipped with the latest technology. Other notable venues include the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Atlantis Hotel, and the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, which provide state-of-the-art facilities and flexible event spaces. 

Dubai is served by the award-winning Dubai International Airport (DXB), which is the world's...

John joined the coaching call eager to share his success. He recounted how he had applied his learning from our previous sessions and utilized critical thinking to analyze how to influence key stakeholders to buy into a solution.

I celebrated John's success and helped him unpack each step he took in developing the influence capital to achieve his objective. This prompted John to ask the question,

"How do I repeat this?"

Making Critical Thinking a Habit

The Greek Philosopher Aristotle taught that we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, he espoused, is not an act but a habit. In this post, we will explore the importance of critical thinking for success and how to strive for excellence by making it a habit.

Critical thinking is a cognitive process that involves careful analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of information to make reasoned judgments and decisions. Critical thinking is a Power Skill that is essential for the future of work. By leveraging critical thinking, we can...

Resilience is an essential aspect of our ability to adapt and thrive in the face of challenge and adversity. Resiliency is built from psychological, social, and physiological foundations.

In the current environment resilience is a crucial competency for both leaders and employees alike. In this post, we will explore the various facets of resilience and look at three strategies to build and enhance it.

Definition of Resilience

A simple definition of resilience is:

"The capacity to bounce back from adverse experiences, maintain equilibrium during times of stress, and adapt positively to change"

This definition of resilience can be further refined with the three foundations of resiliency.

1. Psychological resilience: Psychological resiliency is the ability to cope with stress, trauma, or adversity in a way that avoids a toll on mental health but instead promotes personal growth. The psychologically resilient individual practices self-leadership, by using positive...

Leadership is essential to the success and sustainability of any organization, especially during times of rapid change. It is therefore worrying that a recent leadership forecast showed a 17% drop in the number of leaders who reported their company had high-quality leaders. At only 40%, this is the steepest decline in leadership quality in a decade. The last time it was this low was between 2007–2008, the height of the global financial crisis.
This begs the question:

"What's going wrong?"

A Crisis of Confidence

Surveys suggest less than half of people have faith in their immediate supervisor and less than a third trust their senior leaders, and CXOs.

Where has the trust gone?

The recent Global Health crisis with a shift in work practices coupled with digital transformation, the rise in AI, and a pending environmental catastrophe have exposed the weakness of the old leadership model that we could trust that our leaders knew what to do.

The old hierarchical model of...

According to PWC’s 2023 CEO Survey, 52% of CEOs see a lack of skills being a major challenge to their company’s profitability and Gartner’s 2023 reports that human resource assumptions in workforce planning (WFP) no longer hold in today’s environment.

Leader and manager effectiveness is essential to the future of work, and yet HR Leaders know that a new approach is required.

Soft Skills and Hard Skills

Traditionally job requirements had been divided into soft skills and hard skills.

Hard skills are technical or scientific knowledge that has been obtained through practical learning methods, such as memory or training. Hard skills are essential to certain roles, if you are a heart surgeon or a pilot, there are some very specific skills required to do your job without killing people.

Hard skills become obsolete over time. When was the last time you wrote in cursive, found information using a library card catalog, or navigated with a map and compass?

With AI and...