Meet Orla, a new General Manager leading a business of 30 employees. Orla and I worked together one to one over 12 months to work through some of the greatest challenges leaders navigate. A tidal wide of resignation, long term performance issues from the frontline to the leadership team, a constant cycle of recruitment to grow the workforce, cashflow crises, and a persistent feeling of uncertainty about whether this role was the right one.

Learn about how we used one to one leadership coaching to support cultural transformation by leading from the front.

The term “people pleaser” has gathered more and more momentum over the last few years. But have you ever stopped to rethink what it really means?

This article was inspired by a conference room full of leaders identifying as a people pleaser and wanting to know how to be better at leadership. And open to rethink-ing whether being a people pleaser is a problem, or is it actually your superpower?

Imagine you worked in Bluey’s World.  Yes, the cartoon character.

Same job, same workplace, same colleagues.  

Different location full of different, playful possibilities.  

Watching Bluey with my son, I realised the strong parallels between the plot lines within episodes and the dynamics of modern workplaces. In each episode, Bluey navigates a situation that leads to a few different lessons.

Just like you – each situation you encounter at work can teach you different lessons.  

Join me as we review 5 episodes of Bluey through a leadership lens.  

The following case study is based on a real leadership team so some of the details have been slightly altered and deliberately vague to preserve client confidentiality.

A few years ago, I was asked to work with a leadership team at a State government agency. C-suite executives had launched a capacity building initiative to be rolled out across the State. The model involved delivering 12 monthly sessions of group coaching to improve the capacity of the leadership team to support their staff with the roll out. But I quickly realised the situation was a complex case of broken trust and damaged relationships that went far deeper than I initially thought.

Have you ever managed conflict between two colleagues? The tension and friction can be perplexing, and its consequences can ripple through the entire workplace. The truth is many people find themselves uncertain about the best way to respond when confronted with conflict. Even managers, who bear the responsibility of addressing and resolving conflicts between team members, often grapple with their own doubts and uncertainties.

This is the second of a two-part Insight discussing the implications for organisations when values don’t align and how respond to a misalignment.

Have you noticed there is a growing trend for organisations to share their core values? You may see values such as family, collaboration, or integrity feature on organisation’s websites and marketing material. This growing trend is one I support. However, when the values of an employee do not align with the organisational values, this can be problematic.

In this two-part Insight, I will first explore why it is important for organisations to identify core values and how organisations are sometimes missing the mark. In part two, I outline how to respond from an organisational and individual perspective when values don’t align.

Do you find it difficult to track down quality professional development that meets your needs? Sometimes I have hit the mark and continue to reap the benefits of investing in quality professional development and other times I am left feeling disappointed at best.

Have you heard about “The Five Love Languages”? Well, you can thank Gary Chapman’s bestselling book of the same title, which hit the market in 1992. This idea was based on years of collecting qualitative data (ideas not numbers) by observing couples seeking relationship counselling.