I get my best ideas from listening to people. Fortunately, that’s my job.
I like to say that people are my library, and my daily writing practice is a way to discover what’s in it: new ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and a little whimsy for good measure. As your humble librarian I invite you to check out a new idea every day. No late fees ever.
As regular readers will know, I’m part of a community that is building to create and bring forth transformative leadership programmes under the theme of Beautiful Leadership, inspired by the writings and ideas of Alan Moore of Beautiful Business.
This week a group of three of us were working on shaping ideas collected so far into an early form of that programme. In addition to designing the modules and themes for the programme, we also looked at ideas for elements within the programme and modules.
One of these was coined as: Crucible Moments(more…)
As I write today’s post, I am up in Cambridgeshire once again working with a small group on further shaping the concept I wrote about as “Beautiful Leadership”
Two linked elements that we have agreed are at the core of this shaping are a) that we are seeking to create communities, and b) that it is important to begin with conscious curation to create and spark the growth of those communities. (more…)
If you search the term “slow down” on this site, you will find at least thirty articles.
In our high-paced world, often when I support leaders I am looking for them to slow down for, as you’d imagine with so many articles written around this, many different reasons.
However, some recent experiences have me thinking about when to think quite the opposite. (more…)
Microsoft just became the most valuable company in the world.
This made big headlines, though very few people know the name of their CEO and few of the articles truly got into why his radically different style of humble leadership has been at the heart of that transformation. Yes, humility in leadership at the heart of the most highly valued company in the world.
My homepage begins with the words:
“Command-and-control leadership is losing its grip. A new way of thinking is emerging: leadership that embraces change as constant, encourages individual thought, relies on intuition more than data, fluidity more than hierarchy, trust more than fear, and the common good more than profit.”
Naturally, I’ve then written about new ways of leading, new ways of valuing, new ways of measuring what matters. Today, then, I’ll tie together some thoughts from earlier articles.
how the CEO of Microsoft understands this
how Patagonia also “gets” this, and
how the broader corporate world doesn’t, and are still largely using dated metrics.
As I write this, today I was working with a CEO around where they plan to take their business in 2019. They have a big and bold transformative vision, and today it felt a little, well, too much for them to get from where they are to where they wish to go.
I put to them the question, “so, how can you simply be.. more?” (more…)
This is the latest in a sequence of posts on #BeautifulLeadership that all came from tweets and other news items I saw on the same day, November 29th. In the first post, “From Now On“, I noted that “at least four wonderful examples of Beautiful Leadership found their way to me”:
an NBA star and father empowering young women by walking the talk.
a brave woman CEO in the UK leading by example around income inequality, though with some sadly paradoxical behaviour in how I learned of her leadership.
an environmental activism movement masquerading as a large US corporation taking the Trump tax cut it received and giving it back to the planet.
a Hollywood movie star finding the power and passion of a moment irresistible and showing leadership which made real a project that has since touched millions.
That brave woman CEO is Sacha Romanovitch, who left her post at Grant Thornton on November 30th. Let me tell you the story of the tweet on November 29th, and the behaviour around it, giving my take on the broader story of her tenure as CEO. (more…)
Yesterday I wrote the first in a sequence of posts on Beautiful Leadership, noting: “On one day alone last week, at least four wonderful examples of Beautiful Leadership found their way to me”:
an NBA star and father empowering young women by walking the talk.
a brave woman CEO in the UK leading by example around income inequality, though with some sadly paradoxical behaviour in how I learned of her leadership.
an environmental activism movement masquerading as a large US corporation taking the Trump tax cut it received and giving it back to the planet.
a Hollywood movie star finding the power and passion of a moment irresistible and showing leadership which made real a project that has since touched millions. (see post “From Now On“)
Today’s post shares a story about a company thatstates clearly that they are “The Activitist Company”, and “the protection and preservation of the environment isn’t what we do after hours. It’s the reason we’re in business and every day’s work.”
I’ve worked a lot around Brands and Branding during my career. A simple thought is that your Brand is who you are, your Branding is how you represent this to the world. This company is absolutely clear on who they are.
Now, to their recent example of beautiful leadership around the Trump tax cut. (more…)
In the time I’ve been posting daily on this site, from time to time recurring themes have come to me, hence you can use the search option and find about forty once weekly posts of “Movies with Meaning”, and also a theme with many posts called “Writing I Love”.
Now another theme emerges, Beautiful Leadership. On one day alone last week, at least four wonderful examples of Beautiful Leadership found their way to me:
an NBA star and father empowering young women by walking the talk.
a brave woman CEO in the UK leading by example around income inequality, though with some sadly paradoxical behaviour in how I learned of her leadership.
an environmental activism movement masquerading as a large US corporation taking the Trump tax cut it received and giving it back to the planet.
a Hollywood movie star finding the power and passion of a moment irresistible and showing leadership which made real a project that has since touched millions.
For each of these, I Tweeted or posted on Linked In as I found them, and over the coming days will write a little more to share on them one by one.
This week I left home one day at 1pm for a truly intense day and a half of client work, yet when I got home late the next evening I felt great at all levels.
The secret? Yes, I make sure I look after myself physically (sleep, exercise, nutrition etc), I am a passionate and high energy person anyway, but the true inner rocket fuel that powered me through and always does? Purpose. I am clear on my purpose and choose purpose-led leaders and teams as clients that see me live that purpose through my work.
Passion, energy and drive ultimately can only be sustained and grown where Purpose is the inner rocket fuel. (more…)
I love cathedrals and other major centres of worship, such as Sagrada Familia, Hagia Sophia, Durham Cathedral and many others.
A key aspect of such buildings are that almost all of those who were part of their construction knew that they were contributing to something they would never see completed in their lifetime.
They were planting trees they would never see.
Today some musing on #OpenLeadership and planting trees you will never see. (more…)
Tom McCallum
