Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

A definition of resilience can be found in any dictionary, but for a living breathing definition of resilience, you will discover it etched in the faces of those that have faced difficulties head-on, and refused to be defeated.

You might see resilience looking back at you in the bathroom mirror, or in the face of your spouse as they prepare for another day of work, or in the dogged determination of a co-worker or employee. Resilience can be an in-built quality or a choice, but either way it is not revealed in calm waters but in tough times.

Resilience Definition – Bounce Back or Bounce Forward?

For humans the dictionary defines resilience as:

“the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness.”

For substances it is the ability to spring back into shape, elasticity.

The paradox, for me, is that with these definitions’ resilience is about recovery (getting back what you have lost) or springing back to an original shape, as if nothing had happened....

If you are a manager or leader, you will likely have faced the challenges of motivation.

• How do I motivate myself?
• How do I motivate my team?
• Why do different people require different motivations?

As an Executive Coach and Leadership Motivational speaker, I am versed in the theory and practice of motivation and extensively work with leaders to improve their results. In this post, I share my favorite theory and application using my own research.

Motivation for Leaders

Being human, we have a smart brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, which we use to imagine and predict the future. These imaginations and predictions create expectations. Expectancy Theory (Victor Vroom 1964), is a model about how expectations lead to motivation.

Vroom’s theory says that, if the future seems reasonably likely and attractive to us, we know how to get there, and we believe we will be appropriately rewarded, then we will be motivated to act. In other words, if people expect a positive and...

There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are people who have written on the topic. So, rather than complicate matters, I want to simplify this discussion on leadership to just 3-things, people, choices, and economics.

I believe that when we understand these things, we can better understand people’s thinking and behavior, and therefore be a better leader.

Self-Leadership and Economics

“Did you meet your numbers?

Governments want to know the numbers, and leaders want to meet or exceed their numbers, but economics isn’t really about numbers. You might not believe me when you see economists pouring over data, creating graphs, charts, and models, but the goal of real economics is:

“to uncover the unintended consequences of our choices.”

This perspective that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals is where economics (Austrian School) meets Self-leadership. In reality, economics is...

To succeed in any organization, you must understand 'office politics'. The first rule is to be visible, doing good work is not enough if you're not associated with it. You must learn to shine.

Let me tell you about Chris who's an experienced pharmaceutical Healthcare Executive. He delivered results as a sales head early in his career and had been moved to head office in Europe in an administrative role.

Chris made everything run smoothly. However, he did it in an under-the-radar manner, so when he wanted to step up to a country manager role he was not deemed ready.

Chris had not followed the first rule of office politics:  

BE VISIBLE!

The Visibility Rule

How could Chris have gained visibility instead of just quietly making things efficient?

1. He could have first alerted Senior Management to the cost of the inefficiencies
2. He could have let people know that he was going to resolve the issues
3. He could have socialized the benefits of the Improvement in addition
4. He could have been...

Executive Coaching is effective for leadership development because leaders require high levels of Self-awareness and behavioral flexibility.  

Executive Coaching comprises a series of confidential conversations focused on facilitating strategic self-awareness about what underlies behavior, actions, reactions, and interactions. Coaching facilitates the 'coachee' to gain insights into how they execute business strategies and manage change, conflict, and people.

Having a trusted confidant (Executive Coach), who can provide feedback and, through questions, clarify intentions, values, and objectives is invaluable to a leader.

Without coaching, many executives plateau in their development of critical interpersonal and leadership skills, because they have been promoted for behaviors that are no longer effective at the leadership level.

The #1 Problem for Leadership Development

Leadership development is often hampered, surprisingly, by too much winning. People are promoted for results...

Executive Coaching has come of age and is now viewed as an effective way of developing leaders. Smart companies are making executive coaching a core element of leadership development; whether that is when grooming a CEO successor or helping managers transition to leaders.

It is therefore not ‘news’ that a recent survey reports 86 percent of US companies hired Executive Coaches to sharpen the skills of individuals who have been identified as future organizational leaders. The numbers are similar in Europe whilst the uptake of executive coaching in Singapore and Asia has been slower but is catching up.

The demand for good Executive Coaches has been driven by organizations' demands for immediate results.  Executive Coaching provides feedback and guidance in real time, and lasting transformations can be observed after 3 to 6 months.

As individuals advance to the executive level, developmental feedback becomes increasingly important. Many executives plateau in critical...

What sets successful people apart, is not that they don’t have setbacks, or failures but how they handle their emotions during these tough times.

In this post, I’m going to share with you psychologically sound, Self-leadership strategies to develop your resilience & bounce back faster.

READ ON, OR WATCH THIS VIDEO

If you are reading this, it’s likely that you have experienced disappointment or heartache at some point in your life. Issues like; injury, illness, losing a job, financial problems, failed business, and the end of a relationship are life’s way of knocking us on our ‘arse’ and testing what we are made of.

Personally, I have been through a business disruption that took me from owning houses, and cars and living the life to being completely broke, with zero assets, living day-by-day in a backpackers hostel. After rebuilding my life and starting another business, I was again disrupted by a divorce that I didn’t want.

As an ...