Colin Gautrey

Do Influential Leaders Need to Be Visionary?

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No, I don't believe they do, but it definitely helps. Leadership books nearly all tell you that successful leaders are those with vision. They cite it as critical to being influential. Their argument is convincing. They say that you need to be visionary because…
  • You need to be able to create a compelling future.
  • Vision motivates people to go that extra mile.
  • Organisations need to innovate in order to compete and survive.
  • Shareholders and stakeholders require it.
  • Followers expect it in their leaders.
These books back it up with brilliant anecdotal stories of the likes of Read More

How to Be a Leader: Vital First Steps

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Hey, congratulations, you’ve made it. Now you are a leader, how does it feel? Exciting, a little daunting? Maybe you have been around a little while and are still feeling rather unprepared for the leadership task ahead. Then again, perhaps you have just landed a job with a new team and are still trying to decide how to lead them successfully. That’s okay, because as you learn how to lead there are always going to be times when you feel a little uncomfortable. And here I thought I would share a few ideas that may help you to make some Read More

Want to Be a Great Coach? Learn How to Be Patient

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As a manager and a leader, how do you find the time to be a coach? With so many demands on your time, finding the space to be a coach too is extremely difficult. Yes, I know you know that it makes sense. The more you invest in your people, the more they can do for you. Another trouble is the cross-over between your role as a leader and that of a coach. Many people regard leadership and certainly management as the remit to tell people what to do. But this is in conflict with coaching, isn’t it? You cannot tell people what they need to do and also Read More

If You Want to Be a Good Manager, Start with These Five Beliefs

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If you are a manager and want to learn how to be an even better manager, it pays to develop your own theory about what the job entails. This goes deeper than a simple job description. If you want to know how to manage people exceptionally well, try to distil it into the core beliefs. Beliefs shape your automatic behaviour. As a manager, you don't have time to think about everything you do, which is why it is important to build a robust base of beliefs before you get too set in your ways. Here are five which I think are vitally important when you are Read More

If You Want to Learn How to Lead

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...first learn what it means!

If you are new to leadership or have been a leader for a little while, you can improve your skills by investing some time in developing your own definition of leadership. Of course, there are lots of fine definitions brought to us by clever people, but it is only when you work on building your own definition that it really starts to sink in and make a difference. The difference, as well as the benefits, comes from learning what actions you can take which will be viewed as good leadership, and which behaviours may land you in trouble with your followers. Working on autopilot when Read More

Focusing Your Stakeholder Management

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Becoming more strategic at managing and influencing your stakeholders requires that you take a structured approach to your work. The first step of the Stakeholder Influence Process requires that you get very clear on exactly what you want to achieve.

Step 1 — Focus: Assess your priorities and focus your Influencing Goal

The starting point is working out what you want to achieve. Sure, you will have lots of goals, but you need to get focussed in order to gain maximum progress with the Stakeholder Influence Process.

Action

Pause and think of the most important goal you have right now.

I am sure you have lots of goals, but which one is most prominent in your mind right now? Settle on one to use over the next hour for Read More

How to Protect Your Integrity

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Integrity is about behaving consistently with a set of deeply held values and beliefs. Put another way, it means being true to yourself and usually involves a strong moral code relating to the way you interact with and treat other people (and yourself). Integrity differs from trust because it is inwardly focused rather than a judgement about someone else’s reliability. However, our own internal beliefs and values are the base on which we usually judge whether others have integrity. Do they act in Read More

Exercise: How to Define Agendas Influencing Your Work

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As you begin to identify the people who are most influential around your project, a vital consideration is their agenda. Figuring out what this is might at first sight appear easy; however, going beyond the professional agenda and into the realms of the personal can be a little tricky. Once you have had a go with this exercise yourself, make sure and Read More

Understanding Conflict between Personal and Professional Agendas

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When others don’t want to cooperate or are working against you, “conflicting agendas” are often cited as the cause. This seems to signal a barrier to success, an explanation of why you can’t get the things done – or is it an excuse? A more helpful thought is that it is simply a question of Read More

Exercise: What Does Trust Mean to You?

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Given the complexities of trust, especially when it comes to relationships, it is important to get a very clear fix on exactly what it is and what it means to you. This exercise will help to equip you to be able to build trust more effectively, and begin to understand the limitations of trust building. A key part of this personal development is becoming more trustable.

Think of someone whom you trust…

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