Leadership

Being a leader can be massively challenging. As you deal with internal and external pressures you’re also juggling the expectations and ambiguities of the business with the emotional and physical needs of your team.  We feel that there are two things a good leader needs – the resilience to bounce forward from adversity and the ability to develop a tough love culture to drive success!

Resilient Leaders

Sooner or later, even the best leader experiences a setback. Whether they make a mistake or are unable to handle an unexpected challenge, all leaders must learn to develop the resilience to overcome disappointments and failures. More importantly, they must learn from these situations to become more effective. By building personal resilience, leaders confront challenges with an agility that allows them to foster connections, improve performance, and promote innovation.

Whether it’s an organisational crisis, a shift in industry dynamics, or a major investment in the future, uncertainty comes in many forms. A leaders ability to effectively navigate risk, crisis, and disruption will determine the path forward for both business and personal success. A resilient leader will recover quickly from a difficult situation and view failure as a temporary setback. They maintain a positive attitude and optimistic outlook no matter what is happening and are always looking for a way to move forward. Find out more.

Tough Love Leadership

‘Tough Love’ leaders use a combination of strong goal and people orientation to create an accountable and high performance environment. It’s not about bullying behaviours or a toxic culture, it’s about being adult and giving other people the chance to be adult too. We’re often so worried about saying something that may upset someone or their feelings that we don’t tell them! So, we’re not actually treating them as adults. We’re trying to control them by not giving them the facts and not allowing them to make decisions for themselves.

Not treating people as adults and holding them accountable creates a culture of tolerance and non-performance. People who are seen as aggressive, who ask questions or could pose a threat are not seen as ‘team players’ Mediocrity is celebrated and non-performers thrive. Rewards are for ‘loyalty’ and ‘good behaviour’ rather than results or performance. Conflict and difference are not dealt with and difficult issues are not discussed or resolved conclusively.

In a ‘Tough Love’ culture, leaders push people but provide support when it’s needed. They speak their mind but ask questions and take on board the response. They raise the bar, deliver creative solutions and drive collaboration but recognise differences and deal with conflict fairly and effectively. Above all they give their team the ability to be adults themselves and to be accountable.

Our leadership options include:

Dealing with Challenging People and Situations
Emotional Intelligence
Leading in a Virtual World
Leadership and Management Modular Programme
Resilient Leadership
Resolving Team Conflict
Team Development and Facilitation
Tough Love Leadership

News, Views and Insights - The Blog

Our full blog archive is also available.


Listen to the Resilience Unravelled Podcast

“Russell’s podcast is eye-opening! ”

Dr Russell Thackeray has been building resilience in organizations for a number of years and knows that so many more people could benefit from what QED do.  That’s why he decided to collect stories from ‘real’ people about their lives, challenges and learning and turn them into podcasts.

With over 250 episodes, Russell shares thoughts and ideas about resilience with different specialists. He provides a bigger picture of how building resilience can make a real difference, to help people who may be facing similar challenges.

You can access the podcasts on iTunes and other platforms, or listen on the website here.

Make sure you subscribe to be alerted of the latest releases and don’t forget to follow Dr Russell Thackeray on LinkedIn too!