Not My President

Sunday, 13 November 2016 00:00
Published in Blog

#notmypresident – a hashtag that is trending at the moment.  No doubt you’ll have seen or heard news about the many protests in the USA, in response to Donald Trump becoming President-Elect.

Regardless of your opinion regarding the outcome, as a leader, how would you lead in this situation?  How would you support an unpopular outcome?  How would you maintain energy and positive mood for yourself and your associates?  

You may have seen footage of Hilary Clinton’s concession speech and/or President Barack Obama’s response to the outcome.  What would your advice be to those who do not support the result?  To those who do?  How would you call upon everyone to remain united?  What connections would you make with others?  Encourage others to make?

insium's newsletter on leadership: November, 2016

Written by Friday, 11 November 2016 00:00
Published in Newsletter

Raising the bat - 50 insium newsletters!

 

insium was formed in 2005 and in 2006 insium dispatched its first e-newsletter. Now in 2016 we've brought up our 50 - and have no intention of declaring our innings closed yet!

Our first newsletter covered the results of our annual client survey, as well as articles on the following topics:

  • Insights From Some Truly Inspirational People
  • Empower Your Direct Reports by Asking Better Questions
  • Making Business Change Sustainable

Many of our newsletters have focused on the topic of "Leadership", and we've often been asked for copies of previous newsletters on this topic that people would like to refer to.  With this in mind, we've decided to collate some of these and put them into e-book form.  If you'd like to obtain a copy, please get in touch with us.

Be Active!

Monday, 24 October 2016 00:00
Published in Blog

I'm a moderately active person.  I play netball once a week; I like to go for a run 2-3 times a week; and with Geoff, I walk the dogs every day.  Playing a number of different sports throughout my life, I've had my share of injuries which is not surprising.  But I never thought I'd get injured from sitting down for too long.

The importance of getting up from my desk and stretching regularly has been made very apparent to me.  I have scaled back work quite considerably over the past 4 weeks so that I can focus on my University Capstone project.  This has meant considerably more time sitting at my desk, which has resulted in an injury to my neck and shoulder with headaches where I could not think ... all because I was sitting for too long.  Headaches have gone, neck and shoulder on the mend with still limited movement, which has also meant no running and netball.

Learning resources on the internet

Monday, 10 October 2016 00:00
Published in Blog

There are some great short videos freely available for use in learning.  Some of my favourites are listed below, along with a few ideas for using these.  

Would love to hear of your favourites and also, how you might use these videos.  Enjoy!

Billy Joel & Friends at the Gershwin:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F4MYJIC1sU

  • To highlight characteristics of high performing teams
  • To celebrate diversity of strengths
  • To encourage empowering another while potentially taking a risk
  • To consider impact of contagion of emotion
  • To discuss slowing down and the impact of noticing … the video goes for approximately 6.5 minutes!

insium's newsletter on leadership: September, 2016

Written by Wednesday, 21 September 2016 00:00
Published in Newsletter

Organisational Courage

Courage is a pattern of constructive opposition, in which an individual stands against social forces in order to remedy duress in the organisation.

Monica Worline, 2012

The VIA strengths of courage are bravery, perseverance, honesty and zest; practising these strengths have resulted in the following organisational benefits:

  • Improved accountability and responsibility
  • More effective working relationships
  • Increased self-efficacy and self-confidence
  • Broadened perception of what is possible and improved resourcefulness
  • Increased goal achievement
  • Increased ability to learn from mistakes
  • Increased positive energy, positive mood, empathy and conscientiousness
  • Increased prosocial orientation
  • Inspired others to act courageously 

Adapted from the works of Haidt (2002); Herman (1971); Hitz & Driscol (1989), Huhnke (1984); McQuaid& Lawn (2014); Peterson & Seligman (2004); Ryan & Deci (2000); Shepela, Cook, Horlitz, Leal, Luciano & Lufty (1997)

How do you build courage in your organisation?  A few ideas for your consideration that can be easily implemented include: