My little girl was leaving her school that day to start at a new one after the half term break, so when a stranger...
Leadership
Reflexivity and Emotional Intelligence
I should like to introduce you to two people. Both work with the public in healthcare, social work or the police. Both...
Remembering how we coped
If the Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated anything to me it is how horrifically incongruent and hypocritical human...
Respecting the team
“We had this great registrar once,” two consultants told me. “She was amazing. We would get in at 7.30 in the morning and all the patients were prepped for theatre and ready. We could leave each night at a reasonable time, knowing she would sort out the team – for six...
Reconsidering our role in others’ downfalls
“But we love you.” Four little words. Three that matter and one that negates the three, turns them on their head, makes a mockery of them. That little word ‘but’ makes a world of difference. Beware the word ‘but.’ Don’t be fooled by the phrase, “but we love you.” How...
Revolution: let’s make this count.
“And still we don’t get it.” A recent thread on twitter asked for a six word story of our Covid 19 experience and the words above shouted themselves into my brain. I wasn’t talking of the fact that in my family so far we seem to have been lucky in not getting...
Re-examining the evidence: Intuition
A young woman was attacked on the threshold of her flat. She lived on the second floor of a converted Victorian house and afterwards told the police that she knew something was wrong. After lengthy and detailed re tellings of the story she identified the clue to her...
Re-building our view of team work
A friend sent me this story the other day, from her Facebook feed. There was once a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about...
Recognising leaders
There’s only room for one sun in the room, I thought, watching as my colleague held forth yet again. Only happy when at the centre of a group, talking, less good at listening and desperate to do anything to avoid being alone. You would think that the sun, as the...
Reconfiguration: The Village
The village was facing unprecedented changes. An edict from the mayor demanded that people moved jobs. The baker had to stop making bread and start running the nursery school. The nursery teachers were asked to leave the small charges they had grown close to and take...
Recognising the Power Within
How would we cope if we were left to our own devices? No bosses, no managers, no underlings? Would there be a difference to the way we worked together depending on our educational level? Can team work be developed? These three questions have been swimming around in my...
Respectful leader
You are the best kind of leader there is. You work harder than any of us and inspire us to try to match that effort. You trust us to do the right thing at the right time and in the right way, and when we do you say thank you. If we don’t, you ask if there is a reason....