27Mar

Leaders – Have More Small Conversations To Avoid Difficult Ones

Leaders – don’t less physical isolation be the excuse for putting off a difficult conversation – they will be much harder down the road and take a much greater toll – on you and the person that is ‘drifting’. 
No one likes big, difficult conversations with team members or family. To avoid them, focus on the little conversations – the ones where you know behaviour has moved slightly away from the goal – and correct it quickly. Lots of little conversations – correcting those times when we can all ‘drift’, saves a lot of bigger, more difficult conversations down the road.

No one deals well in a ‘feedback vacuum’ and it can be easy to go off track – unless there are lots of little conversations bringing us all into alignment.
With so many other tasks taking priority right now, don’t forget to have the little conversations – you don’t need bigger, more difficult ones down the road because of inaction now.

20Mar

6 Tips for Leading Your Team Through Uncertainty

In leading your team uncertain times, business leaders, managers and bosses have an important role to play. Your people need you – and it will take something. While you are supporting them – who is supporting you?

One thing you can do for you is to reach out if you need it. No fee, no pitch, no sale – if leading through this taking its toll on you and you just need to vent (confidentially and away from your team) so you can keep calm and carry on – give me a call or DM. You don’t need to lead through this alone.

Business leaders and managers have a huge role to play in uncertain times ie. right now. Your people need you right now – there are 6 things you can do to make things a little easier for yourself, your business and your teammates – and they are all in your control. 

05Mar

Experiential Training Is Crucial For High-Performing Teams

Experiential training is crucial for high-performing teams – and doesn’t cost the Earth. High Performing Teams take time to learn and improve their skills. It doesn’t need to be complicated or cost thousands – this experiential activity completed after one of our high performing team workshops requires planning, good communication, an ability to adapt, learning from feedback from each other, a healthy dose of trial and error and a good leader or team member coordinating efforts. All good traits for a high performing team.


The advantage of experiential activities such as this:
– they put skills into practice, 
– they reinforce learning
– are easily remembered for months after training (whereas theories may not be)
– they use all of your senses and are fun
Want to try it with your team?
5, 7 or 9 people (needs to be an odd number) – each with a ball. The aim is to throw and catch the ball (everyone has to throw the ball at the same time) 20 times without dropping. You can’t throw it the person on the immediate left or right of you.The best is 20 throw/catch in 17 seconds.
How would you go?
Huge thanks to the team at 4Legs Pet Food Company for constantly seeking to challenge themselves and learn more as leaders and team members.
#leadershipdevelopment #highperformanceteams #leadership#highperformance #experientialtraining #coaching

04Mar

Leadership Assessment Tool Testimonial – Natalie Colbert – Velocity Leadership CheckPoint

Completing a leadership assessment tool is the first step to understanding your leadership strengths and development opportunities. Wednesday is all about gratitude – we are very grateful to Natalie Colbert for his very kind recommendation following completion of the Velocity Leadership CheckPoint and debrief.

‘I’ve been privileged to work with Michael for many years as I’ve grown my small business into a large company. Michael has been inspirational in supporting me through my management issues, my own confidence, and how to be a better leader. I’m also lucky to have been an initial client for the new Velocity Leadership Checkpoint tool – it’s a recent initiative and it’s really powerful and insightful. I’ll be spreading it across all my senior managers in the coming year – reflecting on the way I do things, and then understanding areas of strength (and opportunities for growth) – all just just so valuable.’

Natalie Colbert. CEO, CanPlay

When you are looking to understand your leadership behaviours and capabilities, the CheckPoint is the perfect place to start. Michael Peiniger and the team at Institute of Management & Leadership Development are highly skilled at provided clear, concise, practical and helpful insights to assist in your leadership development and taking the next step.
Thank you Natalie! It is a pleasure to work with passionate leaders such as yourself.

Check Out our other Recommendations and Testimonials Here

Would You Like To Gain Similar Insights to Natalie? The Velocity Leadership CheckPoint Is The Start

If you are unsure of your impact on your leader / team, perhaps you should complete the Velocity Leadership CheckPoint? 25 behavioural leadership traits, focussed in 5 distinct leadership capabilities – a ‘must know’ for any leader or team looking to drive high performance. If you haven’t completed the CheckPoint, get in touch with us today to arrange an appointment. Read through the comments and feedback from those that have – many say that it has had a profound effect on how they lead and perform within a team.

#leadership #coaching #gratitude #leadershipassessment

03Mar

Negative Culture = Negative Leadership

When you hear the phrase ‘they have a negative culture’ (or worse ‘they have a toxic culture’) you don’t have to look too far to see what is creating the environment. In almost all cases when we have worked with businesses (either doing the work or pitching for work), the negative culture is matched by negative leadership.

This negative leadership manifests itself in a variety of forms, but they are all very easy to see – particularly from the outside looking in. In many cases, the behaviour of the leadership group exhibiting negative traits has been accepted by the people around them as ‘that is just how it is around here’.

Some of the obvious negative leadership traits include:

  • making excuses for poor behaviour,
  • blaming others for mistakes that they have made,
  • ignoring the poor behaviour of themselves or people close to them,
  • favouring one group of people over the other,
  • publicly belittling staff,
  • using offensive or demeaning language to staff, and
  • using aggressive and intimidating behaviour.

Some of the more subtle, but equally negative and destructive traits to a culture include:

  • seeking training courses to ‘fix’ problem staff without wanting to do any training themselves,
  • a refusal to acknowledge their part in poor behaviour,
  • lack or personal adherence to the company values, and
  • passive aggressive responses (such as talking behind a colleagues back and not dealing with issues directly)
  • not sharing their own faults or areas of improvement (the superman/woman complex)

One fo the most difficult things to deal with as a leadership coach and cultural change facilitator is when it is obvious that the greatest problem of an organisation is with the behaviours of the senior person in the business – and they will not acknowledge it.

The Impact of Negative Leadership

Several years ago I was asked to work with a business and help address their ‘negative culture’. It didn’t take too much effort to see that the greatest problem was with the leader. The business was only small (less than 15 people), but had turned over 20 staff in less than 3 years! Harassment and bullying claims had been made, and the CEO was known for ‘flying off the handle’ when things didn’t go her way. With her team, she publicly stated that her default response to being challenged was aggression – yet she would not look at her own behaviour. Although she had a coach, it was clear that the coach could not (or would not) address the elephant in the room – the CEO’s behaviour and lack of adherence to her own company values.

As sad and frustrating as it was, we had to walk away. They say that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t lead certain people to acknowledge or address their negative behaviours, even when it is obvious it is having a vastly detrimental effect on their business.

When it comes to negative cultures, you don’t have to look too far to see the root cause of the problem, and it is most often with leadership.

02Mar

Keys to Drive Your Leadership – Purpose, Passion, Vision & Communication

Purpose, vision, passion and communication are the keys to drive leadership – and i needed reminding of that today. This day started with my head down and feeling a little defeated with all that needed to be done this week; realising it is all part of a larger plan than I am truly committed to helps drag you back up and tackle the elephant ‘one bite at a time’. A post from Anita Roddick to help drive the week! Vision, communication and passion – for me this is best described as purpose – the clear picture of what you want to achieve intertwined with the desire to achieve it. I hope you are ‘feeling it’ this week and your passion is driving you! If you aren’t, send me a DM – a quick call or chat can get you out of your funk and back on track (no sale pitch – its just good to have someone who can listen and set you back on track when you have drifted at the start of the week) #leadership #developingleaders #personalvalues #coach #leader