Advanced Executive Leadership

Meet Robbie, a 50-something second-time CEO. He’s values led, competent and trustworthy. And he’s well-liked and respected by his people and his team. But Robbie knows the challenges in his business and industry isn't a one-person job. How does he get his Executive Team ready? Find out in this episode.

Unless you’ve been on holiday to Mars you won’t have missed that we in the UK had a catastrophic ‘mini budget’ that effectively crashed the markets and the Bank of England had to step in to save our pension funds. The people that you rely on to deliver your services are under an enormous amount of stress and pressure as they are squeezed financially from multiple places. With a fuel price and cost...

It’s usual for me to hear from a client or a potential client that the issues and challenges faced by their executive team are unique. Are they? My two guests, Chief People Officers in very different organisations believe there's one thing that's necessary and consistent in whatever organisation. That is, the centrality of the tone from the top.

You don’t need to be a chess GrandMaster to have heard about the hullabaloo that kicked off last week - at the Champions Chess Tour - between the world chess champion, Norwegian, Magnus Carlsen and 19-year-old Hans Niemann. I listened to another chess GrandMaster make sense of it. And in this episode I explore what this means for the way we make sense of other issues.

There's disruption and turbulence facing many companies and industries. But that disruption is probably most acute in the real estate sector. The dual challenge of the impact of online shopping on our high streets alongside what hybrid working means for office space in town and cities means that as an industry, it’s grappling with deep uncertainty. So I’m thrilled to be able to welcome Mark Allan...

All of the work that we do in Waldencroft is designed to help senior leaders become better resourced during disruptive and turbulent times. And really it seems like there’s little respite from the turmoil these days. It makes sense then that, as we develop leaders in organisations, especially those in senior roles who are grappling with a VUCA world, (that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambi...

Perspective-taking breaks a golden rule: to treat others as we’d like to be treated and turns it on its head… to treat others as they’d like to be treated. I wonder the impact on leadership if we were to do this more? That's what my guest, Sarah Freiesleben, and I explore in this episode. Sarah mentions Dave Snowden and his Cynefin framework for managing complexity. You can read Dave’s original HB...

What if we had the humility to accept that we don’t have all the answers; that the answers that we have might be wrong; and that those with insightful new perspectives might be located in the most unusual and humblest of places? We as leaders can take our leadership to a whole new level by cultivating the ability to take on and work productively with multiple perspectives. 

The accountancy/advisory giant EY have decided, in an effort to retain talent, to apply title inflation to all 679 Associate Partners, who from now on will all be known as Partners. Inflating titles is an example of what I call perfectly solving the wrong problem. It seems like a straightforward solution and it’s relatively easy to implement. The implementation can go well and for a short period o...

It’s widely accepted that in a successful executive team, the members must feel comfortable being vulnerable enough to admit mistakes, ask for help, share tasks and work together effectively. And when this trust is absent, it leads to negative team politics, protectionism, and friction. These issues not only make the work environment unpleasant — they can also prevent productive work from getting...

Is your role in the C-suite expanding? In this edition of the podcast, we hear from two CPOs whose role has increased to take on additional responsibilities that have a strategic overlap with their people agenda. We discuss with Cecilie Heuch how Telenor is adopting an approach to leading remotely across geographies using a ‘tight-loose-tight’ approach and with Dr Tracey Leghorn on the importance...

Leaders are usually keen to stress that they use data in their decision making. Whether it’s hard facts, statistics, or spreadsheets; data is raised on a pedestal of rationality. We’ve come to accept that a rational data-drive decision making style; characterised by research for, and logical evaluation of, data is the only decision-making style. But there's a source of data and insight that leader...

Today’s episode follows the long awaited publication of the Advanced Executive Fluency CEO report. To coincide with the report’s launch I hosted a webcast with a number of executives and development professionals to get their initial reactions to the research. If you want to access the report, you can download it at: https://waldencroft.com/download/4121/ If you’d like to hear more either about ou...

Join me on this weeks’ podcast to hear two brilliant Chief People Officers share their perspective of the challenges and joys of life inside an executive team. I was joined by San Johal - CPO of EDF Renewables UK & Ireland and Jayde Tipper - CPO of Temenos. We explore the ideal size for an executive team and the impact this has on decision making. And we look at the role of the ExCo in role modell...

As we get ready to launch our CEO research, Advanced Executive Fluency: Responding to New Leadership Challenges in a Complex World, we've been exploring these fluencies on the podcast and we'll continue to until we launch on 13th May. The second of the 4 Fluencies - that is the ways of thinking, acting and being that executive leaders must become fluent in if they are to lead well in our disrupted...

We've all been leading through a pandemic. But what about leading the first-line health response in one of Scotland's busiest and most impacted NHS Trusts? That's what Heather Knox, CEO of NHS Lanarkshire has been doing. And she talks about it in today's podcast.  It's a thoughtful reflection on what it has taken to lead in a crisis, wave after wave. And the challenge of balancing the immediacy of...

We've just completed our CEO research on Advanced Executive Fluency: Responding to New Leadership Challenges in a Complex World. It's outlines the ways of thinking, acting and being that executive leaders will be required to be fluent in as they lead in a world of hyper-disruption and complexity.  Stay tuned as over the next few weeks, until the publication date of 13th May, I've got some really i...

Responding to a blogpost on LinkedIn in which Matthew Syed advocated for conflict in teams as a way to coming to the best outcomes, I explore if we really do need more conflict in executive teams or whether it's something else entirely. And what that is.

Imagine being a CEO or senior leader and having the opportunity to step out of the business for 4 months to travel and recuperate. That's exactly what Matthieu Hue, CEO of EDF Renewables is currently doing. But just before he left, Matthieu took the time to sit down with me to talk to me for the latest edition of the podcast. In it, Matthieu explains what it's been like creating an exceptional exe...

Spurred on by many of our executive clients feeling burnt-out and stressed, this episode of Advanced Executive Leadership explores how to cultivate resilience in an executive team. It outlines some of the ways to develop resilience before an adverse event occurs, the ways to stay well resourced during, and how to make sense of a difficult period after it happened to help you move on unburdened by...

Ross Shuster, CEO of Howden, a global air and gas handling company, talks to Dr Jacqueline Conway about shifting his company's focus away from declining industries, and focusing sharply on growth areas. He and his executive team have been disrupting Howden with a vision towards enabling customers' vital processes which advance a more sustainable world.

If your executive team are currently not performing as a cohesive team, it could be that the team isn't a team at all. Dr Jacqueline Conway explains how the creation of a team purpose can act as a north star for your executive team's focus and structure.

Edinburgh Airport's CEO, Gordon Dewar is in conversation with Dr Jacqueline Conway about the impact of lockdown on the business. Gordon explains how he and his executive team have continued to use data to both understand and plan post-pandemic and the ways this will help Edinburgh Airport emerge stronger than before.

As a CEO or executive leader, how do you balance your functional tasks with your responsibility to help your organisation to survive and thrive in the longer term? Business disruptors are now so challenging, and so complex, that most executive leaders can no longer have day-to-day execution as their primary focus. This podcast is for any CEO, Chief People Officer, or executive team member, to help...