Black start or another reason why leadership is hard

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I recently remembered a conversation with a good friend of mine. More specifically, her use of a rather arcane electrical engineering term, ‘black start capability’ to refer to a set of attributes that made some leaders stand out from the rest. In her opinion, very few leaders actually have a ‘black start capability’ and this … Read more

Practice often to become a confident speaker

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This Monday I delivered a technical speech to secure help to implement a data project for the organisation I lead. Technically, the speech was good, my objective was clear and so was the central idea at its core. However, a couple of things didn’t go as planned and I ended up learning valuable lessons from … Read more

How to introduce a speaker with aplomb

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The way a speaker is introduced can help establish the speaker’s credibility and get the audience engaged even before the speaker begins his or her speech. However, introducing a speaker with aplomb is another speaking skill in itself and one that a lot of people get wrong. Let’s learn how you too can introduce a … Read more

Top tips for running an online meeting

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Over the past few months, I’ve increasingly started using Zoom for conference calls and online meetings in my senior leadership role for Toastmasters International. Yesterday, I facilitated an online meeting followed by a series of virtual workshops. Online meetings are a powerful tool to add to your leadership and communication arsenal. Here are some of … Read more

Complacency, the gatekeeper of poor leadership

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There is one sentence that’s always guaranteed to annoy me in the context of leadership it is “We’ve always been good!”. This sentence encapsulates poor leadership in so many different ways. It can also be condensed into a single word … complacency. Complacency in all its forms is often the gatekeeper of poor leadership. What … Read more