No Bullsh!t Leadership

Episode #217 // In last week’s episode, we looked at high-impact decisions. They’re the ones that have potentially significant consequences, and strike fear into the hearts of most leaders when they have to make them. But the vast majority of our decisions just aren’t like that. These days, where we have cheap, instantaneous access to virtually limitless amounts of data, you’d think our decisions...

Episode #216 // Decision-making is a key part of leadership. The ability to make high-impact decisions quickly, under pressure, in a complex and uncertain environment is a core capability for senior leaders…  If you want to reach the height of your career aspirations, it’s something you need to develop as early as possible. We make decisions constantly: some big, some small… but all relativel...

Episode #215 // Adam Grant produces a huge volume of thoughtful, intelligent, insightful content on leadership and organizational behavior. And although his podcast, Work Life, isn’t on my high rotation list, I try to catch the odd episode now and then.   When I do, I often find myself thinking two things:  The first is: “ Wow, that is so good, but it would be so easy to misinterpret!” T...

Episode #214 // In the last four years, we’ve had over 1,000 leaders take our Leadership Beyond the Theory program.    We’ve been fortunate to see a really broad cross-section of global leaders, and we’ve learned a lot about what makes them tick, as we’ve answered their questions in the interactive weekly webinars.   These are leaders who grow , who are actively pursuing ways to imp...

Episode 213 // In a sea of potentially valuable career development options, it’s hard to work out which one is right for you. It’s even harder to make sure that the value from that training isn’t lost in the weeks, months, and years after you or your people undertake it.   During my own corporate career, I saw a frustratingly large amount of money squandered on training that returned little b...

Episode #212 // With so many opportunities for professional development, it’s really difficult to know which one to pursue. And the most valuable commodity you have is your own time , which is why you don’t want to waste it on learning that only delivers marginal returns .     This episode is designed to take some of the guesswork out of the professional development landscape, and make i...

Episode #211 // Most leaders understand the concept of delegation pretty well, but they struggle to execute. There are any number of ways that delegation can go wrong… and even if it doesn’t actually go spectacularly wrong, unless you learn to optimize your delegation approach, you’ll never get the most out of your people.   You’ll always struggle with the massive workload that poor delegatio...

Episode #210 // We still get a seemingly endless stream of questions from leaders who feel as though they’re heading towards burnout, and have very little idea about how to stop the decline.   This ultimately comes down to being able to manage your time and energy effectively. Often, burnout is a slow creep, and it just chips away at you over time until you realize you’re not functioning at t...

Episode #209 // New leaders : this is the framework you need to follow if you want to be successful in your first leadership roles.   Experienced leaders : the reason so many new leaders struggle is because they’re given little direction and, as much as I hate to say this, poor role models to learn from… this is your opportunity to acquire some practical tools that you can use to coach, nurtu...

Episode #208 // We get an incredible number of questions from our podcast community about career development. Working out how to progress in your career can be as daunting as it is mystifying. We often see other people getting promoted, and wonder how that’s even possible.   When you start to get up to the rarified air of the C-suite, it’s even harder: there’s more quality competition for few...

Episode #207 // Transparency in leadership is a huge topic! Virtually every leadership pundit on the planet will tell you what an important quality transparency is for a leader to possess. And they’d be right! But it isn’t black and white… there’s an incredible amount of nuance and judgment in this subject.   This episode looks at transparency from the macro level (companies and countries), r...

Episode #206 // The very first episode that we decided to lead out with on the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast was Respect Before Popularity ! We figured that, if we only ever released one episode, we wanted to expose leaders to this concept, above all others. And it turns out that it’s actually still our most popular episode.   So today, I want to revisit that very first episode, and give you...

Episode #205 // Every piece of content we produce focuses on the link between leadership and performance. Value creation is the name of the game, so knowing what value is in your context is a prerequisite to delivering it.   But, despite our laser-like focus, many of our podcast listeners work in organizations that have a very different view on performance. And many of those organizations rew...

Episode #204 // Adventurer and TV personality, Bear Grylls, (protagonist of the docuseries, Man Vs. Wild) said in an interview, “ You have to come alive in the big moments... When it's NOT a big moment, you don't need to be front and centre, but when it's a big moment--BE THERE! ”   That’s pretty powerful. Over the years, I’ve found it to be a defining characteristic of the best leaders I’ve...

Episode #203 // Episode #85 of the podcast addressed one of the most important (but often misunderstood) business fundamentals: “ Strategy isn’t hard: don’t overcomplicate it” . It demystified some of the core elements of competitive strategy and, hopefully, it served to make strategy a little more accessible.   I’m now shifting the focus to look at disruptive innovation. How do you defend ag...

Episode #202 // Despite the very vocal and public focus on Diversity & Inclusion in the last 10+ years, it still appears to be a huge struggle for most organizations. It seems that the inertia created by the entrenched structures, processes, and attitudes is way harder to overcome than anyone might have imagined.   When it comes to diversity, many countries, industries, and businesses hav...

Episode #201 // I recently came across two articles on the role that purpose plays in your career. The first, by Marcus Buckingham , proposed the idea that finding a career with purpose is actually a lie . The second, by Tom Rath , argued that without purpose, there will be negative consequences for your long-term prosperity, happiness, and wellbeing.   Which of these is true? Are both true t...

Episode #200 // When Em and I started the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast in September 2018, we spent a lot of time thinking about how we would ensure that our message would stand out in the never-ending tsunami of leadership content. We wanted our content to be clear, no bullsh!t and practical. This might sound easy if you say it fast enough, but creating content about the complexities of navigati...

Episode #199 // In the last 20 years, employee engagement has become the dominant method of understanding and measuring job satisfaction. There are a number of well-worn engagement surveys, which have global reach and lots of historical data that can be used for benchmarking and statistical analysis.   Many companies run an annual engagement survey, and pay close attention to the results, as...

Episode #198 // The great resignation is in full swing, and this is causing a shortage of people in the labor market…which in turn, is pushing up wages…which in turn, is increasing the cost of doing business.   From the other side, the squeeze is coming in the form of higher inflation…which leads to higher input costs…which leads to companies raising their prices…which leads to reduced demand...

Episode #197 // I first outlined one of my most important leadership philosophies in Ep.14: Friendly, But Not Friends . Since then, a few things have changed…    We’ve listened to over 1,000 leaders, who’ve taken our flagship program, Leadership Beyond the Theory ; societal standards have changed (yes, believe it or not, in only 3 or 4 years); Covid has come and (sort-of) gone; and I’ve...

Episode #196 // It may surprise you to learn that organizations across the globe spend over US $370 billion annually on leadership development programs. This doesn’t include the millions of other leadership resources that we tap into each day: books, podcasts, networking groups, websites, blogs, social media posts… the content is literally everywhere you turn.   But despite this, none of it s...

Episode #195 // Albert Einstein said, “ If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough ”.  Communication is an incredibly important element of leadership. How you talk to your team… how you deliver a presentation when you’re in a room full of important people… how well you connect one-on-one with your direct reports… these are just a few situations that can have a huge be...

Episode #194 // In last week’s Q&A episode with Em, I mentioned the revival of the entrepreneur in the context of the Great Resignation: there’s a growing trend for people exiting permanent jobs to start their own businesses. This episode dives below the surface to examine this phenomenon more deeply. Are entrepreneurs truly happier than wage-earning employees? If so, why? Are the longer hours...

Episode #193 // A lot of businesses are finding it extremely challenging to operate in the volatility of a hot labor market. Despite the hundreds of podcasts, blogs, and articles that are published daily about The Great Resignation, there doesn’t seem to be an oversupply of solutions (other than the vague notion that you need to focus on your people and keep them happy in order to retain them). &n...