Writer
Ideas, books and blogs
Finding your leadership voice
If you are underthinking, read.
If you are overthinking, write.
“The best way to gauge the quality of someone’s ideas isn’t to listen to them talking. It’s to read their writing.
Compelling speakers can mask weak logic with strong charisma. Putting key points on a page exposes flawed reasoning.
Compelling writing requires clear thinking.”
Adam Grant
Writer
Ideas, books and blogs
Stay Connected
Please subscribe to our “In the Arena” email.
From time to time to time we will email you with some leadership insights, as well as links to cool stuff that we’ve come across.
We will treat your information with respect and not take this privilege for granted.
More to the game
What leaders can learn from football?
Organisations often turn to the professional sporting codes, particularly football, when seeking to understand the key concepts of team, particularly the role of leadership in terms of establishing a winning culture and executing a game plan.
In my book, I seek to find some of the answers, the transferable principles and their applications.
The alignment of purpose and performance, the mechanics and dynamics of high-performance environments, and they can be taught.
The game does not give up its rewards easily.
More to the game
What leaders can learn from football?
Organisations often turn to the professional sporting codes, particularly football, when seeking to understand the key concepts of team, particularly the role of leadership in terms of establishing a winning culture and executing a game plan.
In my book, I seek to find some of the answers, the transferable principles and their applications.
The alignment of purpose and performance, the mechanics and dynamics of high-performance environments, and they can be taught.
The game does not give up its rewards easily.
Why I write
To make meaning, to make sense, to make progress, to find my voice.
‘Borrow freely, apply uniquely’ is the mantra of my writing practice. I have taken the ideas and thoughts of many wise people, some of whom I got to know at the level that can only happen when you try and do something very difficult together, whilst others I will never get to meet. I am forever grateful to the former, and I share many of these learnings.
The latter are those people who have generously and courageously shared their thinking, ‘shipped their work’ as Seth Godin describes it, understanding and encouraging others to find meaning in their words, even when it is different from their intent.
Those people have ‘borrowed’ their work, but it is in the unique ‘application’ where the meaning is made, and if leaders are nothing else, they are makers of meaning.
As a CEO, it was the requirement to make meaning, as well as make sense, from those times when the challenge of the role was beyond my capacity to deal with it.
The role was giving me feedback, which I could ignore at my own and the club’s peril, which I wasn’t prepared to do. I needed to build a system that was equal to the challenge.
At the heart of this was the need to find my leadership voice, a voice I could trust when it seemed that no one else could.
Unless you find this voice, you cannot lead.
To be an open and curious learner, not a knower, understanding and committing to a process where it is more important to get it right than to be right.
In my experience, this requires leaders to embed a practice of reflection, best described as focused introspection. You must be prepared to ‘do the reps’, the compounding interest of thinking and growth.
And remember, ‘thinking’ only starts when pen is hitting paper, or fingers are on a keyboard, and now ‘growth’ is given a chance.
More to the Game
Moments of the Match
Watching the seasons unfold with the moments that matter.
I have set myself to capture an image from each week, and then put some words to it.
The game is measured in moments - when games are won and lost, when players must demonstrate the special something the situation demands.
Leadership is also measured in these moments - the crucible of challenge where our leadership identity is forged.
It is what the role expects of us.
