Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

I'm not sure whether night sentries really call out, "Who goes there - friend or foe?" but I'm certain that foes don't announce their intentions before making an attack. The same is true in our personal or professional network.

Here's a hard truth, most of the people you know are neither friends nor foes, they are neutral. They will smile in the corridor, will nod in a meeting, and may even like your occasional post, but when push comes to shove and you actually need support, they are nowhere to be seen.

A true friend or ally will come to your aid in times of duress, even at personal or reputational risk. Such friendship should be nurtured and treasured. In my opinion, they are like owning priceless art, you must look after them, appreciate them, and you can't have too many or your attention will be diluted.

A foe in your network is easier to spot, as they will actively sabotage you whenever there is an opportunity. Your loss is their win. Such people see the world in terms of...

Imagine being on a big waterslide at a theme park. Your descent to the bottom is inevitable, due to gravity, the flow of water, and the design of the slide. What is within your control is how you view the experience. Is it fun, or frightening? Are you learning and experimenting, or rigid and inflexible?

Now imagine your brain as a cascade of neurons firing rapidly. The pattern of connections is influenced by your genetics, your conditioning, and your physiology.

Just like the waterslide, in each moment of life, your brain is giving you an experience. This experience is yours to choose how to enjoy but ultimately governed by physics.

Self Awareness Matters

As you pay attention to your experience, your awareness increases, and with awareness comes ideas.

Ideas matter. Ideas are not just the result of experience, they become part of the cascade of neurological connections that generate your experience.  Ideas are what make us uniquely human, and without them, there is no...

Impostor Syndrome, doubting your skills and being fearful of being exposed, is much more prevalent than you might think.

I remember some years ago, speaking with a senior executive who would hide in his office and constantly check his phone to see if some imagined mistake had been discovered. 

This was an extreme case but I think we all question how good we are, and it feels great when we are validated for doing a good job. 

"BE CAREFUL that being validated doesn't turn into a NEED"

The Need for Validation

When we are born, we can do nothing useful but are loved by our parents for just being. Just being human in itself has value, and how much we appreciate that value is the measure of our Self-esteem. But, here's the rub, when we go out into the world, to school, to college, to work, we are not appreciated for just being, we are measured for our doing. 

We have been conditioned to perform. From the encouragement to take our first faltering steps, and successful...

You may already have broken your New Year's Resolutions, but don’t beat yourself up. Self-leadership is about living intentionally NOT perfectly. Each morning get up, and set a new intention to be a little better today; over time the results will astound you. 

Self-leadership intentions are the rules we set for ourselves. If you want some inspiration, here's a list:

7 Simple Rules for Living

1. Make peace with your past - so it won't disturb your present
2. What other people think of you is none of your business
3. Time heals almost anything - give it time
4. No one is in charge of your happiness. Except you.
5. Don't compare your life to others - and don't judge them, you have no idea what their journey is about.
6. Stop thinking so much. It's OK not to know all the answers. They will come to you when you least expect it.
7. Smile. You don't own all the problems in the world.

Self-leadership for Living

Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling, and...

A manned trip to Mars within our lifetimes is a high probability. Billionaire, Elon Musk has his heart set on it, and there’s a modern-day space race between nations to get there first.

Just as the race to the moon gave us more down-to-earth technological advancements, like sneakers, digital photography, and wireless headsets, preparation for the moon is revealing how teams will function remotely.

Before I share some recent findings from Long Mars Simulations, let’s review what a Mars shot has in common with leading a team.

Leading Teams

1. Vision: Going to Mars is a bold and ambitious goal that requires a clear and compelling vision. The same is valid for leading a team. A great leader has a clear and inspiring vision for their team and knows how to communicate this as a ‘Why’ that motivates and excites others.
2. Strategy: To go to Mars, a lot of planning, resources, and expertise are required. The same is true for leading a team. An effective leader has a...

Effective leaders have developed a variety of traits that contribute to their success. Strong self-awareness and the capacity to use it to lead by example are among the most crucial of these leadership traits. 

In addition to self-awareness, developing self-regulation and self-learning will greatly enhance your personal and professional life. When you do this, you are practicing self-leadership. 

With self-leadership, you take charge of your life and move toward your goals. Your self-esteem will increase and you will become better at decision-making and problem-solving. 

Furthermore, self-leadership builds resilience and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. This article explains the meaning of self-leadership and its significance.

Understanding Self-Leadership

 Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your own thinking, feeling, and action toward achieving personal and professional goals and objectives (Bryant & Kazan...

It’s the time of year for resolutions. A new year, a new start, a chance to begin anew and put the past behind us, or is it the same old B.S. and just another day?

By B.S. I am, of course, referring to a belief system that was succinctly summed up by Henry Ford when he famously said:

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't - you're right.”

If, after the challenging few years that we have all been through, you feel a bit jaded and cynical about such motivational messages and memes, I invite you to read on because this article is for you, and you might be surprised by the conclusion.

There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

There is no such thing as a free lunch" (TINSTAAFL) is an expression that describes the cost of decision-making and consumption. The expression conveys the idea that things appearing free always have some cost paid by somebody, and that nothing in life is truly free.

Henry Ford was not suggesting that just by changing your B.S. from...

"Oh No, Not another Leadership Seminar!"  is the punchline of a story I share when I speak at conferences or events.

The incident happened 20 years ago when I was on my way to conduct a 2-day leadership development program for an international client and I overheard two managers talking before it started.

As humbling as the experience was, it was also a wake-up call to make leadership education relevant and practical. Everyone you talk to will likely agree that effective leadership is essential but few will agree that they lack the skill.

Twenty years after that incident, I have coached hundreds of C-level leaders and facilitated countless leadership sessions. I am the author of two books on self-leadership as well as The New Leadership Playbook: Being Human Whilst Successfully Delivering Accelerated Results. My conclusion from this experience is:

"𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏"

 

The Leadership Accelerator

Leadership is a...

Many companies are, through policies, forcing a return to the workplace for full or part-time.

The often-stated rationale for mandatory attendance is the importance of in-person collaboration. Sounds logical - But not to a Wells Fargo IT executive who told me that he has been forced to return to work full-time in a cubical, on a floor with no other IT personnel, whilst his entire team is situated in different cities.

Apple employees are up-in-arms over a hybrid model of mandatory attendance on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Employees have written an open letter to the executive leadership team challenging the need for, and the possibility of, in-person collaboration within Apple’s siloed structure. This excerpt from the letter calls out the hypocrisy of the mandate from Tim Cook and his team.

“We tell all of our customers how great our products are for remote work, yet, we ourselves, cannot use them to work remotely? How can we expect our customers to take that...

In nearly twenty-five years of writing about, speaking about, coaching and facilitating leadership, clients often ask me, ‘What is the best leadership book?’ or ‘If I was to read one leadership book, what would it be?’

Best is subjective and depends on where a leader is on their journey. For me, leadership always starts with self-leadership or personal mastery. After all, how can you lead others if you can’t lead yourself?

Prior to writing, ‘Self Leadership – How to be a more successful, efficient, and effective leader from the inside out (McGraw Hill 2012’, I would have said the best self-leadership book would have been ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. 7 Habits is still a must-read for self and time management.

But what about the best leadership book? There are so many, and each covers different definitions of leadership; some are more strategic focus, whereas others are strictly about management. I would...