Leadership Blog

Organisations that are anxious to avert disasters should give their people more responsibility instead of smothering them with rules.  Addressing a room filled with the great and good of the banking world last October (2013), Martin Wheatley explained that blindly following the rules was not enough to avert disaster.

It is reported that early last week, on Monday the 10^th March 2014, Euan Sutherland picked up his iPhone and started to draft an email to his chairman.  The CEO of the Co-operative Group had spent the previous 24 hours stewing over his future.

He had decided to quit.  The email would end a 10-month reign that had seen him save the Co-op’s banking arm from nationalisation, sever the group’s ties with the Labour party and move to shake up its lumbering structure.

The most effective leaders adapt their style of leadership depending on who or what they are dealing with.   Learning to use more than one or two different leadership styles on a regular basis, as a professional golfer would select different woods and irons over the course of a round of golf, takes a bit of practice.  Here are some suggestions to help you broaden your style by increasing your self-awareness.

We were interested to read the results of The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For 2014.  It was good to see one of our neighbours, Kainos, an IT Services company in Belfast, on the list.

The criteria used for the award places a heavy emphasis on leadership and what has been called the holy grail, employee engagement.  We know it is hard to define engagement and it is more than job satisfaction.  It is more about individual involvement and commitment to the job, to colleagues and to the company overall.