Leadership Beyond Borders

The decline of newspaper and print media over the last 20 years has been dramatic. In 2000, the print revenue of newspapers worldwide peaked and has declined ever since. The rise of the internet has changed how news is produced; it's now not only continuously updated, but it has also led to a massive explosion in bloggers and social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It h...

We often miss vital signals that can help us better prepare for life's surprises. We very often focus on the wrong things and do not see the things we should. But there is one thing that can help us see better, and that is trust. Trust presence cements relationships by allowing people to live and work together, feel safe, and belong to a group. Trust in a leader will enable organizations and commu...

In today's digital age, having a strong and effective online presence is crucial for small and medium-sized businesses. In this episode, we will explore how these businesses enhance their digital presence to reach their target audience in a competitive online space. We discuss the importance of having a mobile-friendly website, effective social media strategies, and search engine optimization tech...

Microsoft launches a new AI tool, and Google strikes back. AI bots on social media compete with each other, fighting for prevalent places in our lives. AI touches almost every aspect of our lives, but it is most prevalent in media. From content generation to digital advertising targeting, it learns from how we behave and then tries to influence how we, consumers, behave. It has not only changed th...

Many people influence us, and we influence many people, but what is influence, and how does it differ from power? Power is more your ability to impose your will or thoughts on others, while influence is the ability to affect behavior and benefits. In leadership, influence can get you much further than power; positive influence can significantly impact outcomes. This episode explores the positive i...

In 2018, an experiment was conducted by four female educators and psychologists that tested a group of adolescent girls in Zambia on their ability to negotiate. After the initial test, the educators put the girls through six two-hour after-school sessions, where the eighth-grade girls engaged in discussion, role-playing, storytelling, and gameplay to learn four negotiation principles from Zambia e...

The Monologue and Dialogue are two literary devices that involve speech. Monologue refers to a speech delivered by one person to express thoughts. In contrast, the Dialogue refers to a conversation between two or more persons, and very often, we think of these as literary devices because they are. So, the question we pose in this episode is, where do these literary devices belong in business, and...

Have you ever thought about why companies have difficulty promoting the right people? Is it that they do not know how to recognize talent and potential? Or are we looking for the wrong things? Our expectations are too high. Do we want leaders to be superheroes who are good at everything? And what about the people that get promoted? How can we better support them, so they succeed? In this episode,...

Thirty years ago, advertising was in newspapers, billboards, and telephone directories, and there was always effective word of mouth. Today we still have word of mouth but in a completely different form, social media. It is hard to imagine a world without social media because we all use it, regardless of age or where we live. And there is no generation gap; there are 87-year-olds on Facebook and I...

When we talk about leadership, most of the time, the focus is on the results, like share prices and profit, rather than on the elements that create them, and this distracts us from the aspects of good leadership. Today's challenge in this profit-focused world is encouraging good leadership practices and recognizing talent when we see it. Leadership expert Chris Pearse used an analogy in his Forbes...

A Forbes Leadership article encourages leaders to pick up a novel that will engage and stretch the right side of their brain—the creative, reflective, empathetic side—because the left side of your brain is busy so many hours a day while you work. They say by doing this it can help you be a better leader. But does this work with all fiction or just with certain novels? How can fiction be better tha...

In the face of changing customer demands and hybrid buying behaviors, the SMBs that are pivoting quickly and welcoming new technology are demonstrating higher adaptability and resilience than those SMBs who are slow to embrace change. In layman's words, the SMBs embracing change are maintaining and growing their customer base, while others need to catch up. The SMBs taking the digitalize to surviv...

When it comes to technology, the key for any organization is uptime. Every company has employees, whether a small business with one or two employees or a large enterprise with thousands. However, they all use technology, so it must be reliable and ensure the company has a strong network. But this is not easy to do. Technology is constantly changing, the needs of the business change, and customer e...

Negotiating is critical for women, and we know it leads to better outcomes: for example, when it comes to wages, women who ask for a raise are more than twice as likely to get one as women who don't. But the truth is that women face unique challenges when negotiating, beginning with the fact that they are often viewed as "unlikeable" or "aggressive" when negotiating. When it comes to family and ch...

Many people have ideas and want to start their own businesses, but how many of these ideas become successful businesses? Pursuing an idea and trying to start and run a business can be scary because you must give up a lot. You may need to give up a well-paying job, your home, your nest egg, and your security, And this is even before you know if you will succeed. Unfortunately, the statistics say th...

Mergers and acquisitions happen constantly, but being acquired can sometimes be tough for many companies because it comes with many challenges. Still, it can also be an excellent opportunity for many companies. It can be an opportunity to rethink strategies, consolidate markets and customers, set new goals and KPIs, and build a new culture. In this episode, we will look at a company in the Ad Tech...

When you google or ask an individual what the future office will look like, you usually get an answer like "hybrid, greener, home office, open spaces, modern, but these are things already happening today. They are also very "material oriented or space oriented". It is very seldom that someone will think outside the box and change the questions of what the future office will look like to how I, as...

Why do most businesses make their organizations so complex? According to a new study by The Economist Intelligence Unit, 55 percent of all surveyed organizations would call their operational structure very or extremely complicated. Only 1 percent – around three of the 331 executive respondents – believed their business was not complex at all. So why do we do this to ourselves, and is there an easi...

We, as leaders, are always starved for data. We want facts, analysis, and research and are given it, but even when surrounded by data, we often still need a clue. Why is that? Because even if we are starved for data, we drown in it. Sometimes we must find a way to differentiate between valuable data and data waste. As leaders, we often need to learn how to set up our organizations to ensure they f...

Leadership books are abundant online, in bookstores, and in libraries, numbering in the hundreds or even thousands. As leaders, we may seek out a few to broaden our perspectives, but there is another way to improve our leadership skills—looking to history. The best leaders learn from others by studying the successes and failures of past and present leaders and reflecting on what they can learn fro...

As a consumer, if a product or service does not meet our expectations, we usually consider whether we should complain or not. Half the time, we do not because complaining can be exhausting as a customer, and sometimes you do not get any results. But on the other hand, if something is wrong, we should inform the company. Companies can only improve if they hear from their customers, right? But many...

In this episode, we explore the impact of the global pandemic on the workplace, with a particular focus on remote workforces. While only 6% of people worked from home before the pandemic, this number rose to 35% in May 2020 and is now at around 38%. Despite this increase, 44% of companies still do not allow remote work. We examine the benefits and challenges of remote workforces and discuss strate...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a term coined by. emeritus Stanford Professor John McCarthy, in 1955, defined by him as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines," Now, over 60 years later, it has become part of our daily lives. It is used in various industries. AI does everything from saving lives to making our lives more efficient. But it is also used in marketing. From convers...

Being able to Influence and persuade are the two critical skills that successful leaders share. But they are not only skills needed in leadership; they also come in handy in everyday life. It does not matter if you are trying to convince your family to go mountains rather than the beach; these skills are handy. But no matter if it is in leadership or private life, we sometimes do not always pay at...

The famous management Guru Peter Drucker said, Culture eats strategy for breakfast." Intuitively we know this; we know a strong culture is needed for a company's overall health, competitiveness, and profitability, but sometimes culture takes a back seat to profits and strategy. And today, in 2023, culture is even more critical than before companies try to find talent; Today's employees seek out co...