Leadership Inspiration

By Graham Wilson, Author of Leadership Laid Bare!

It’s a lovely sunny day and life is great. I was up early for a meditative run around the beautiful hills where I live. A chance to think and energise my body at the same time, a chance to watch the sun rise and take stock of the important things in my life. At 53 and running a leadership development company, I strongly believe that maintaining a good level of health and vitality is essential for every element of life.

After a healthy breakfast...

How many times have you been in a dreadful meeting? It has been estimated we spend 6 years (yes years) of our working life in meetings that add no value.

I'm on a mission to change that by giving you the tools and techniques to run meetings that rock. Here are 7 simple ideas taken from my Meetings That Rock! toolkit, or as I like to call them meeting truths that dramatically improve your meetings.

Meeting Truth 1: Ask yourself what is the purpose and goals of the meeting and if having a...

I get asked many times about the differences between management and leadership. I always start the answer with the implications of an over managed organisation and then link that to the individual and then explain my view of the differences.

Here's how it all starts with a crisis of being over managed and under led....

Stage 1: Some combination of visionary entrepreneurship and/or luck creates and implements a successful business strategy.

Stage 2: A fairly dominant position (and thus lack of...

One night a group of nomads were preparing to retire for the evening when suddenly they were surrounded by a great light. They knew then, that they were in the presence of a celestial being. With great anticipation, they awaited a heavenly message of great importance that they knew must be especially for them.

Finally, the voice spoke, "Gather as many pebbles as you can. Put them in your saddle bags. Travel a day's journey and tomorrow night will find you are glad and also find you are sad."

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You've been promoted and as the excitement wears off you suddenly realise you need to achieve your results through other people! Make sure you don't make the same mistake many managers make by watching this short video. You'll be glad you did...

Jack Welch once said, " before you become a leader it is about growing yourself, when you become a leader it is all about growing others." I really believe this and have spent the last 31 years developing leaders. One area that is often missed in business is the ability of a leader to consciously build the confidence of the team around them. A common pattern I see is that where there is a good leader there is always a strong team around them.

In many organisations which are over managed and...

In my book Leadership Laid Bare I talk about the importance of the energy a leader transmits. Your vitality is an important aspect of that. It links to how resilient you can be and ultimately your results.

HERE ARE SIX WAYS TO ENHANCE YOUR LEADERSHIP SIX PACK AND CREATE MORE VITALITY

Being connected to your purpose, having the correct diet for you and regular exercise are the cornerstones of vitality. To take your vitality to a higher level, follow these six tips:

1. Get outside and enjoy...

We live in a context of fantastic opportunities; and leadership is the vital component that creates an agile high performance culture where we make the most of them!

Our times also lead to foggy situations. One of the challenges we face is that the rules for leadership have be rewritten and it has become unclear how to lead effectively in our opportunistic and foggy times. My answer to this in Leadership Laid Bare: the naked truth of great leadership, is to outline for the first time a...