The value of social connections to Positive Leaders

Born the youngest of 37 first cousins on my Irish-mother’s family alone, it was unsurprising that I would develop a deep fascination with people. I grew up in the cosmopolitan East End of London to immigrant parents, surrounded by people who had immigrated from all parts of the world and were single-minded to make better lives for themselves.

Over the last 18 months I’ve been working closely with a senior leadership team of a fast-growing organisation in the energy sector, as their management and leadership consultant and leadership coach. It has been an incredible journey to go on with the team, both in terms of my own learning and watching their personal growth and team growth.

I met an old friend in a coffee shop this week and her energy, sharp mind, and encouragement for a project I’m  working on jolted me to the realisation that I am not a passive bystander, I am an agent of change. And we all are. I need to make my own change happen.

As more and more of the nation start to physically return to work or virtually following lockdown and Furlough in different sectors, it is natural that a growing number of managers and leaders are considering how to best look after their staff.

“If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun”

My current coachee is a bit of a handful. And I love it. He’s one of the top staff in a major international organisation and he’s just become a key decision-maker and is ruffling feathers…

As a practicing applied psychologist who specialises in wellbeing, resilience and positive leadership it feels even more at times like these that I need to use my expertise to make a difference. Never has positive leadership and wellbeing been more critical to how we function as our best selves.

How do I show my emotions less? That was a question an incredibly talented female leader asked me recently. And it’s a question that in our roles as coaching psychologists we get asked a lot

You know exactly what you need and want to do, so why’s it hard to ‘just do it’? This might be what the Pope was recently reflecting on and it might also be a question on your mind today as we shuffle through January attempting to get in sync and in our stride.

How can we stay grounded and feeling in control when the world is whirring around us and all the people in it?

The Pope and the hand incident got me thinking. I recognise this might sound odd, but it reminded me that no matter where we’ve got to in life, we’re all just trying to do our best at the end of the day, no matter our position and level of leadership.