Building Better Leaders

In this bonus episode of Building Better Leaders Season 3 we speak to Suzanne Hayes Jones ,  from the Laid Bare Company - an organisation focused on helping leaders have more impactful, purposeful conversations.     Suzanne has extensive experience in coaching, coach development, and organisational culture transformation. She also contributes to the leadership programmes at Henley Business School....

In this bonus episode of Building Better Leaders Season 3 we speak to Jennifer Garvey Berger, CEO of Cultivating Leadership – a B Corp that supports leaders, teams, and whole organisations to rise to the challenge and opportunity in a complex, changing world. Jennifer has a masters and doctorate from the University of Harvard, where she was the student of professor Bob Keegan whose work on adult d...

In the fourth episode of Building Better Leaders Season 3 we look at how peak performance works at work. John and Rachael explore the concept of peak performance in a business context, discussing its cultivation, application, and sustainability within organisations.   The conversation starts by examining the psychological aspects of performance, including the Yerkes-Dobson law and the relationship...

In the third episode of Building Better Leaders Season 3 we take a look at the often elusive subject of motivation. Why does our motivation wax and wane? What can we do to increase it? Starting with a discussion on the continuum of motivation we explore what we can learn by identifying the various stages of motivation to help you connect your behaviour and thoughts to create greater self direction...

John and Rachael share their approach to improving teamwork and interpersonal tolerance, by offering insights into how to enhance self-awareness and understand personality differences.   We discuss both popular working preference tools: Myers Briggs Personality Types, and 16 Personalities offering insight, working examples and answer the following questions:  I - Introversion E - Extroversion - Ho...

Inspired by Gretchen Rubin's "The Four Tendencies" we take a deeper look into Tendency Types. Gretchen's work looks into how you respond to expectations. Whilst not absolute, people tend to fall into one of the following tendency types: Upholders want to know what should be done (6:46) Questioners want justifications (17:25) Obligers need accountability (26:30)  Rebels need the freedom to do somet...

In this month’s episode of the podcast, we are joined by serial entrepreneur Lorri Haines. Lorri and his fiancé Fearne McCann (Public figure and star of ITVBe’s My Family and Me) are co-founders of mental health and wellbeing app Shoorah. In this conversation we continue our theme of mental wellness and how mental health, and personal wellbeing can either improve or reduce the productivity of team...

Melissa Sookia, founder of Live, discusses menopause, its impact on women in leadership roles, and the need for affordable treatment. Menopause symptoms vary and can affect productivity at work. Perimenopause starts with subtle changes like irregular periods and mood swings. Awareness is key in supporting women experiencing symptoms. Menopause can last for a 15-year period, with some women sailing...

What does wellbeing in the workplace mean to you? There’s a lot of talk about mental health, and mental wellbeing, yet when it comes to understanding the full breadth and depth of our wellness this nowhere near the full story. Are your people happy, healthy and comfortable? In this episode Rachael & John are in conversation with Claire Burns Health and Wellbeing Consultant - Mental Health Firs...

In this podcast Rach & John talk to Former Counter Terrorism Covert Operations Leader and HUMINT specialist turned Entrepreneur and Solo Ocean Rower – Mike Bates.  Born and raised in Doncaster, Mike carved out a career that most boys would dream of. Spending years undercover as a human intelligence specialist, covert counter-terrorism operations leader and commando in the Royal Marines. Mike w...

Everyone keeps talking about where they want to work, how they'd prefer to work, yet employers often have a different view; the media have dubbed it "The Great Return," so for those of you with Zoom fatigue, or perhaps people who are reluctant to be in the workplace John & Rachael thought it was worth talking about. With more questions and answers they look at the dilemma from both employer an...

In the second podcast on 2023 we chat with David Harper, Career Coach. David is an ex CIO for a major UK insurance company with extensive experience of leading people in a £4bn business. In 2015 David was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, initiating his own career move into coaching. David’s true purpose is helping people achieve. We talk to him about how he enjoys helping younger people start their...

In the first episode of 2023 John & Rachael are joined by Business Coach and entrepreneurJonathan Mills. Jonathan started this career as a footballer for Cambridge Untied but at age 18 fell into a franchise business model that would pave the way for him to own and lead not one but four businesses. Jonathan shares his habits on effective time management, task privatisation and journalling to in...

In this weeks episode John & Rachael are joined by Executive Coach, Sue Baker. Sue has been working as a coach working with leaders at board level in large corporations since the 1990's. Sue talks about how coaching has changed over the last couple of decades and how organisation and leaders requirements of coaching are changing as the challenges they face are change. Most importantly we talk...

In this episode Rach & John visit the subject of Difficult Conversations, a topic which they cover in depth on their Building Better Leaders Programme. “Good intentions don’t always result in good impact.” Often with the best of intentions things can go wrong, and the impact you intend is never the one you had in mind.  They tackle the subject from a “miscommunication” angle and take a look at...

In this weeks episode Rachael & John are joined by Lee Warren to understand how using the Alexander Technique can help us communicate and perform better when under stress? The way that you think affects the way you perform, and vice-versa; the way you perform affects the way you think Remembering that stress is very uncreative, Lee take a little step back and asks us to think about focussing o...

In this weeks podcast Rachael & John cover four different leadership styles.  How do you like to be led? Is it always the same for every aspect of your role? When you're leading you team do you always use the same approach? They differentiate between Directing, Coaching, Supporting and Delegating leadership styles explaining when and where you can effectively use each and how you might adapt y...

On the podcast this week, in Leadership 101 a bitesized approach to: what leadership is and what it isn't how leadership differs from management where best to use a directive or non-directive style In the Coaching approach we ask which leader(s) have influenced you, what kind of leader are you? and what other leadership possibilities might be open to you?  Our bite-sized sessions are brought to yo...

In this weeks podcast we speak to Andrew Robshaw who after a life changing Parkinson’s diagnosis decided to pursue a question that had plagued him most of his working life.  What is the true meaning of value? And how can businesses better measure value in real time by looking beyond traditional accounting and economic processes we currently use. Some of the questions we cover: What is value really...

We celebrate this episode by summarising the past year, sharing a little of our personal histories and reviewing the year spent with our wonderful guests. We chat about our school age experiences and what shaped us as youngsters, and how & when our careers started. What did we see and hear at work, reflecting on the great leaders, and the not so great leaders? We discuss what led us to work to...

In this weeks episode we meet Gert Jan Hofstede Professor at Wageningen University and co-author of “Cultures & Organisations - Software of the Mind.” He is a speaker and trainer about cross-cultural issues, evolution of culture, organisational behaviour, trust and transparency, specialising in agent-based models of socio-technical systems. In understanding Cultures across the world, he make s...

In this weeks episode Rachael & John are joined by Andy Copsey Ex-Chief Operating Officer for Handelsbanken UK. Andy shares his early experiences of Leadership and how he contrasts the changes when moving to Handelsbanken in 2001.  He explains how they adopted a Devolved Leadership model from Jan Wallander and how its appeal intoxicated Andy, as he grew the start-up bank in the UK. Andy speaks...

In this weeks podcast John & Rachael are joined by CEO of Potential Squared, Colin Hunter. Colin is also the author of the new book: 'Be More Wrong.' In this episode we discuss with Colin how experiencing failure or not living up to his family ambitions allowed him to dance to his own tune, in his own life and rhythm. Colin discusses how he makes it his life work to help people use these 'scre...

In this weeks episode John & Rachael are joined by fellow coach Brian Bachand, founder of evolution, evolution.  We discover what stands behind his mantra: “When you stand in your truth, embrace what is in your heart, then you are free to evolve.” A former Roman Catholic Priest, Brian talks openly about what he learnt from working in the Vatican, how he uses that knowledge in his coaching to h...

In this weeks episode John & Rachael are joined by Group CEO of Pets at Home, Peter Pritchard. It has been an extraordinary last 18 months for so many of us, typified by more people than ever becoming pet owners, so we had so many questions for Peter. As a first time CEO listen to how Peter approached the challenge of wanting to be an exceptional good leader, helped by experienced CEO’s who we...