Celebrating 100 Episodes
Lessons for Leaders
Welcome to Lessons for Leaders. Can you believe it’s episode 100? The goal has always been to share lessons, learnings, tips and advice and even when things got tough with it, I’ve enjoyed it more and I’m proud to be able to say I got to 100. Many of my regular listeners will know that my girls are the reason I do what I do and my eldest girl is about to make me a Granny next month so it seems like a good time to pause the episodes for a while. This last one is a very special episode, with my other amazing girl joining me at the mic to ask some of the questions you, my listeners...
info_outline
How to Persuade Leaders to Invest in Wellbeing
Lessons for Leaders
This week I'm sharing top tips and conversations that I have frequently with people in organisations to help them know how to persuade leaders to invest in wellbeing. We're covering: What to do to persuade your leaders The 3 R’s that I like to go with organisations I work with. Why we need to look at revenue in different ways and I dive into specifics here to give you a head start. How to highlight the risks to an organisation Why it’s important to include reputation in this persuasive detail too. It’s easy to say wellbeing can help to reverse employee burnout and reduce stress,...
info_outline
Why a Good Leader Will Give Teams Autonomy
Lessons for Leaders
This week I'm joined by Gemma Woodward who is People & Culture Manager for Netsells in York. We are talking about leadership and autonomy. Listen in for: What are the benefits of allowing autonomy. How leaders can encourage autonomy in their teams. Where leaders get it wrong with a top down leadership and how it can affect their people and the organisation what's one key thing that people should remember about autonomy Key comments and take-aways A top down leadership can create a fear of coming forward and fear of making mistake, their ideas and decisions might...
info_outline
Why Leaders Need to Get Back to the Floor
Lessons for Leaders
What on earth is back to the floor? I start with that and why I'm covering the subject (it was inspired by my wonderful friend and leader Tina. So I'm also covering today: Why is it important to know first hand what’s happening on your shop floor Some real life examples and stories of how back to floor worked, and how it didn’t One really, really important question to ask yourself I share stories from my experience in corporate and Tina's feedback too to give real life examples - some are funny, some are lovely, one is a little shocking! Here's one of the key things .......
info_outline
Why it's Worth Investing in Stress Awareness
Lessons for Leaders
This week on the podcast I'm talking about Why it's Worth Investing in Stress Awareness. I wonder if you've ever had a time when you've ever felt stressed and known what would help ... but not bothered to do it???? This is just one of the reason why I'm sharing information that can help you make a decision on whether it's worth investing in stress awareness. I cover: What is causing Stress in the workplace? How Will Stress Awareness Help Your Organisation? How Does Stress Impact Productivity? Is it Worth Investing in Stress Awareness? Ways I can support you or help for you to do...
info_outline
Lockdown Lessons for Leaders
Lessons for Leaders
Two years since the UK locked down from the Covid 19 virus. In fact pretty much the world locked down. It changed so many things About how we live How we work Connections & communication Wellbeing – what were thankful for – fear / perspective Resilience Have you looked back at those pictures from cities that were empty and streets that were bare? I know I have. There were bits that I loved, bits I didn’t love. There was a significant difference in how people viewed the lockdown. Some loved it. Some hated it. For some it was...
info_outline
Supporting Female Leaders
Lessons for Leaders
In honour of International Women's Day, I’m here to give ideas of ways that you can support women in leadership roles. There can be a number of reasons why there are less women than men in leadership roles. Data from the House of Commons found that companies led by women outperform those led by men - but despite this, we're very far from achieving gender parity in the workplace I share information about Break the Bias Unconscious biases, opinions, beliefs are formed early in our childhood. We learn these from family, friends, people of authority that are social...
info_outline
Why Empathy is Crucial for Great Leaders
Lessons for Leaders
This week I'm talking to you about why empathy is crucial for great leaders. I cover : What is empathy Why does it matter in leadership Whether empathy can be learned How it can improve performance, create connections and What you can do to be more empathic. Why empathy is crucial for great leaders and what is empathy anyway? Empathy is the ability to experience and relate to the thoughts, emotions, or experience of others. So it's about truly feeling what the other person is feeling. You know I often talk about how we don't 'do' emotions. But empathy is about...
info_outline
Easy Ways to Say No
Lessons for Leaders
Do you find it difficult to say no to people? Perhaps it means you end up being busy, stressed, over-committed? Often when we struggle to say no to people it can leave us feeling used, put up-on, juggling too many things. Are you the one who ends up working late because you’ve said yes to others, yet you’re the one with more to do? This episode is for you where I talk about Say no and establish healthy boundaries How to handle the fear, stress, worry and guilt The surprising reason that saying no is good for you Key phrases that you can begin to use to get...
info_outline
De-stigmatizing Mental Health
Lessons for Leaders
This week I'm sharing tips and information about De-stigmatizing Mental Health. I share key points on: Why mental health is stigmatized How stigma brings shame and what that looks like How it will impact on your organisation Good news on the wider impact of investing in destigmatizing Key things that you can do and examples too When we prevent people talking openly and transparently we also prevent those who need it from having support. Stigma brings shame. Listen in for information about how people respond then feel ashamed and what the impact will be...
info_outlineThis week I'm talking about blame on the podcast. I'm covering why it happens, how we can handle it and how we can change it.
There’s such a society around us these days, with politicians, news, well, anyone really looking for “who is responsible”. But it isn’t just a recent thing. Often it can be as a result of experiences that go deeper than just society and circumstance right now.
Why do people blame?
Learned behaviour:
Sometimes we’ve learnt in our early lives that this is what we do when things get tough. It can be from parents, leaders, influential people in our childhood. If we don’t learn to take responsibility, and learn to look for who is at fault and who to blame, then that’s what we will do. Often without realising.
Feeling Out of Control:
Often if we feel so overwhelmed, or upset and the emotions are running high and we feel out of control, then we try and regain that control by blaming others. Ultimately, what’s going on behind that is fear. It might not look like fear, but you can bet it will be!
When the fear kicks in we can become defensive and feel that we’re under attack. How would you protect yourself from that attack? Of course, you fire back.
Avoidance:
What happens here is that someone is struggling with how they feel on the inside, but trying to control the outside circumstances or people. That’s never going to sort things out.
So when someone is avoiding looking at their own situation, refusing to accept responsibility, it might be about failure, confusion, getting things wrong, misunderstanding the list is endless, then they don’t want to look at the negatives in themselves, they project it outwards instead, so look for who to blame.
Elevated Status:
Sometimes you might see someone putting someone else down. I didn’t do that because they did or didn’t do this. They are blaming someone else for their situation, error or circumstance and by putting someone else down, they’re elevating their own status. Thing is that people see through it. It’s not attractive. They also don’t want to be on the receiving end either.
“When you blame and criticise others, you are avoiding some truths about yourself”
Deepak Chopra
So if you’re on the receiving end of someone who likes to blame what can you do?
Definitely don’t rise to the blame situation. It will only add fuel to their fire. The more you try to reason with a blamer, the more ammunition you give them to fire back at you. However pragmatic you think you’re being, they’re not on your wavelength, so don’t engage.
You might want to put some distance between you and them. That’s not always possible,, but it can help to ease the negative situation when blaming happens.
Later, when things have calmed down, have a conversation with them, obviously without doing any more blame! Tell them how you feel. Use lots of statements that include "I" statements.
When that happened I felt this / that.
I feel really upset when you blamed me for that missed deadline because I did work late / everything I could to help meet that target.
It’s not about any more blame or right or wrong, it’s about your opinion is that you felt xyz. It’s difficult to argue with an opinion.
Also see if you can look at the facts of the situation with them. See if there are any truths in what happened. You need to use careful, curious language, like the wording I mentioned in episode 44 about curiosity and also episode 42 about giving and receiving feedback.
If you have found yourself blaming
then beginning to recognise that you do this, is the first step. If that’s you, well done for knowing you do it.
Then begin to look for solutions:
- OK this happened, so now what?
- What can be done?
- What can be learned?
When you begin to pick up that responsibility for your own actions and feelings, then you’re really taking ownership of you. To accept you.
No-one is perfect. We all mess up.
Being aware of our actions and making steps towards change is always going to be better than blaming.
If this is valuable to you or to someone else, the please share this episode or book a call with me HERE to talk about how to make that change.