The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy emerged as an icon of Ukraine’s determination in its war against Russia. During the past few weeks, I spent many hours glued to the news, Twitter, looking for information about the war. Despite untold horrors, Mariupol, Kharkiv and Chernihiv suffering under bombs. Ukraine stands strong and its president remains in … Read more
History always fascinated me and I seriously considered becoming a historian after leaving school. Nowadays, I am astonished at the low level of historical knowledge amongst the general population. Within the organisation, I led. Basic knowledge of when the organisation arrived in the United Kingdom and the rather turbulent history which followed is poor. I … Read more
During the last few months, I spoke both in-person and virtually at hybrid meetings attracting a global audience. A few of these meetings were great, some were poor, and the vast majority were plain average. What made these few great meetings stand out? They were designed with a virtual first approach, an inclusive approach that aims … Read more
Recently, someone shared with me some comments that they had heard at the start of my leadership journey. According to these comments, severe concerns were raised about my suitability to become a senior leader in my organisation. In summary, I was too young, too inexperienced; and knew nothing about the journey on which I was … Read more
Looking back over the past few years, I likely attended over a thousand meetings in the organisations I belonged to and worked for. Some of these meetings were dull and unproductive, and most were simply average. However, I also attended and organised meetings that were engaging, impactful and received very good feedback. Let’s look at … Read more
Over the past few years, I became increasingly annoyed over the use of acronyms in my organisation. I am far from the only person out there which hates acronyms, and Elon Musk’s 2010 email regarding acronyms in SpaceX resonates very strongly with me. “Excessive use of made-up acronyms is a significant impediment to communication and … Read more
In the first article of this series, we looked at the strategic concepts of growing tall vs growing wide. Leaders can harness these concepts to grow and expand any organisation. Both concepts however require leaders to different decisions and to demonstrate different leadership behaviours. In particular, tall growth requires a constant focus on quality, reinventing oneself and anticipating … Read more
A couple of months ago I decided to start a new daily habit of spending at least one hour upskilling myself. Given my interest in strategy and data analysis, I decided to become an Excel superuser. Currently, I would classify myself as an advanced Excel user, with my biggest accomplishment so far being building data … Read more
I spent a lot of time during the last few months reflecting on my own leadership experience. One of my conclusions is that leading from the front helped me achieve success as a leader. Interestingly, the concept of leading from the front is coming back in fashion since the start of the pandemic. Here is why I … Read more
Less than a year after starting my journey as a speaker, I was offered the chance to become a “mystery speaker” in a Toastmasters club. As it would be my sixth Toastmasters speech, and the one which would enable me to enter the international speech competition. I said yes to this opportunity, thinking that I … Read more