Effective leaders understand that goal-setting is necessary for team cohesion and defining measurable metrics. Goal setting gives direction, and direction improves collaboration. Goals enable you and your team to recognise when you are on track. The goals you choose can help inspire and motivate your team.

If there is one big thing that you want to achieve in the second half of this year to know that it was the best year yet, what would that big thing be?

1. Choose a relevant and challenging goal to achieve

Goals that are too complex or far-reaching may set your organisation and…

Men are strong, resilient and lack emotions. Women are overly-sensitive, fragile and talk too much.

Wrong.

If we want humanity to evolve and thrive, it’s time to drop these outdated gender stereotypes. Our relationships — both personal and in the workplace — can heal and flourish when we stand together, united for gender equality. ‘When they go low, we go high,’ Michelle Obama famously said at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. While the former first lady was addressing the cutthroat political arena, the same can be said about shattering global gender stereotypes. In a world where women are often viewed…

What is more important to you, to be liked or to be respected?

Humans, like to be liked and yet not all the decisions we make are popular with everyone? They simply cannot be. So, by default, some people who do not like our thinking may not like us very much either. Being a leader is a tough gig! We have an obligation to confront the status quo, situations, problems and, sometimes people, every day. Part of our development as a leader is to know that it’s not realistic to please everyone.

The dictionary definitions of both these words are…

“One of the secret benefits of using remote workers is that the work itself becomes the yardstick to judge someone’s performance.” — Jason Fried, Published Author of Office Not Required.

Flexible and remote working is fast becoming the new norm. Many organisations have already started allowing their employees to work remotely for a specific number of days. While not every leader may be ready to embrace this type of culture just yet, there’s no question that this is where things are headed.

Why haven’t all leaders and CEO’s committed to this modern way of working? For some, it comes down…

The modern notion of diversity envelopes not only, race, gender and religious backgrounds, but also socio-economic and cultural differences, age and personality differences, skill sets, education … because all these differences bring diversity of thought. Diversity within an organisation is about the promotion of individuality, it’s about recognising the value that each individual has to offer.

It is, therefore of paramount importance for both the survival and growth of an organisation to acquire a pool of talent with a richness of unique qualities, skills and strengths. Part of a leader’s role is to facilitate this open mindedness and advocate the…

The one thing that all highly-effective leaders share is a well-defined sense of purpose because this is what drives organisations — it’s like the fuel in the engine to propel everyone in the right direction. Without purpose how do we know where we are going? How do we build a compelling and sustainable business plan? How do we AND our people know what to do next? ‘Purpose’ feeds in to a company’s culture and ensures that team members feel as though they are contributing meaningful work to the end goal.

People are drawn to follow leaders who describe an unshakeable…

According to Forbes, ‘ego’ is one of the leading reasons why some leaders fall short. We all have an ego, however if we let ours rule us, as opposed to controlling it, ego can impede our own learning and the cultivation of other’s talent. A high ego can cause big blind spots leaving us functioning in our own bubble oblivious to our faults and over used strengths.

How does leadership ego surface?

Leaders with high egos seem to believe in old-fashioned, out dated, autocratic leadership techniques. In this command and control space, leaders can struggle to take on board the…

Creating the conditions for achieving goals, engagement, happiness and high spirits in our teams often calls for a highly evolved and thoughtful leader, one who embraces and is accepting of strength in diversity and actively seeks to bring on people who are not formed in their own likeness.

This calls for a level of mindfulness that many of us have to go through an evolution to attain. If you are interested in being a more mindful leader, cultivating a culture of trust which promotes productivity — here are some ways to begin and/or strengthen your personal journey:

• Listen to…