Escape the Perpetual Grind
Who doesn’t love a bit of work-life balance? Or even a lot of it!
What do you really need to do to escape the perpetual grind?
The Delicate Dance
For many, it’s the final frontier. The line they dare not cross.
Every other difficult conversation they will get to at some point, sometime. But not this one.
How good are you at managing upwards?
The Concertina Effect
The feeling of being completely overwhelmed grows as the days go by and, slowly but surely, the concertina squeezes together.
It is a potent combination and you are in the middle of it
Exposed! The stadium is looking at you.
Every senior leader has experienced it. You get the job, prepare to start, get in the building and then…those eyes.
People look at you differently when you are senior. It is a whole new level of scrutiny.
Here are four ‘how tos’ for dealing with the stadium looking at you.
Terrifying Unpredictability
Events can come thick and fast in senior leadership. They arrive from nowhere, take over your working life and throw your best laid plans out of the window.
When so much is suddenly at risk what can you do?
Here’s four ‘how tos’ for dealing with terrifying unpredictability.
Delegation: How to do it
When you work 12+ hours a day every day with no or little break, and when you already feel like you have delegated all you can then you need another message.
Here’s four ‘how tos’ for delegation.
Delegation: Why it matters
Why does delegation matter? It is a simple question but it is not asked often enough. Most of the time your list of things to do though it is yours to oversee, and within that lies a myriad of decisions large and small.
Swamped & Undersupported: Hidden Struggles
Every senior leader has their hidden struggles.
Many are very good at keeping it that way. Yet hiding them does not make them go away.
How does ‘swamped and undersupported’ become the norm and what can be done about it?
Why settle for a good 2024 when it could be EXTRAORDINARY?
January is the time to think BIG. If you ever want to plan your own mini revolution for your professional life the time is now.
Avoid looking at where you are now and adding a few bells and whistles.
Planning the odd adjustment is not enough at the start of a calendar year.
Your best thoughts can come at Christmas
The Christmas break is often reached at the point of exhaustion. When that initial period fades opportunities will arise for your very best thinking.
How to find your best thoughts over the break?
Maximise your written reports
Writing reports can take MANY HOURS of a senior leader’s time.
This blog focuses on those which go to trustees, boards of directors and other forms of governance, often on a quarterly basis.
This blog covers five key points about how you can make the most of all your work in report writing.
Assessing with precision
When you cannot see the wood for the trees it can be very difficult to know what you need to improve as a senior leader.
With that in mind I put something together - a five minute assessment tool.
Stakeholders in every corner
Before their promotion they were happily running their own show. Their own team, own area, own budget, own set of activities. Separate from the rest, happily existing in its own ecosystem.
Occasionally they might have walked past a senior team meeting. There they are, coffee in hand, biscuits within reach having a chat. About something. How hard can it be?
Accountability is an opportunity
Accountability is an inevitable part of the job. The more senior you go the more stakeholders get involved in this process, including those who you may only see rarely.
Each meeting of this type, and report to go with it, is wasted if only used once. It can be used in multiple ways with multiple audiences, including for ways which make your life as a senior leader easier.
The perpetual time crunch
Some public sector senior leader job descriptions are INSANE.
The perpetual time crunch is a very common issue.
Three key challenges are described here.