When leadership is done well!
by Nick Roud, Founder and CEO of Nick Roud Coaching
Over the years it continues to be apparent that leadership can be done exceptionally well. We have all tasted I am sure abhorrent leadership behaviour. Some now call it bullying, I just call it shit leadership and is normal a sign of insecurity of that individual. Truly great leadership doesn’t need to be done that way.
What also springs to mind as we head into the last few months of 2024 is that people within organisations desperately want to be led by leaders who don’t use their title to lead. Having the ability to genuinely connection isn’t something you can buy, you either have it or you don’t. Those who don’t triple down and work on it. They look at proven ways that work and over time transform thier leadership. .
Control command was a thing of the past, but it still lingers around like a bad smell. You know the type of leader who isn’t or cannot connect so uses his/her title to demonstrate thier authority on others. Having been bullied through my younger age I know just the enormous impact it can have on an individual. It has rather shaped who I am today and I can smell it a mile away!
Since 2016 I have written religiously sometimes daily on leadership and careers. We have around 25,000 subscribers to our blogs and articles, I never ask people to sign up but over the years people have enjoyed my written work. As a coach it doesn’t matter to me that you are or are not a client of mine, we may never work together or meet but there is something really special about sharing words, it allows me to get thoughts out of my head and onto a piece of paper, those of you who have followed me for years will know I also journal and this continues to be of service to myself. So as I like to say in my leadership and or career coaching work if it helps do it, if it doesn’t chuck it in the bin. (Note; I hope my articles and blogs continue to help you in your professional career).
In a coaching session a few weeks ago a Chief Financial Officer shared with me that he was an absolute arsehole of a leader! For context I had previously coached his Chief Executive Officer based in Australia over a 12 month engagement and she wanted me to coach her entire executive leadership team in a scaled down version over a 6 month period. Part of that individual 1:1 leadership coaching work was for each of the ELT to complete the Roud Leadership Assessment 360 (RLA360).
The CFO knew he was going to get an absolute blasting from his peers, his boss, his direct reports and kept putting of our face to face debrief session. I appreciate that feedback can be rare for a senior leader to get and have horror stories from clients who have had poor experiences with so called ‘professionals’ giving a 360 degree debrief. I hear from clients who have shared with me that they have had a terrible experience during a so called debrief. One senior leader shared with me that he was sent a 360 report via email and in the email it said “here is your 360 report”, regards …… HR Manager! When ever he tried to get a debrief of the report his meeting was either moved, cancelled or excuses made. Goes to show that if you are going to invest in coaching of any kind you must ensure you are working with professionals. Those certified to administer such tools and can 100% manage the process. We are after all dealing with people!
What I noticed first hand is leadership done well can put you in the driving seat to take on bigger, broader and at times geographically bigger role. Setting organisations up for success starts and stops with it’s executives. Across 2024 I have had the pleasure of coaching 4 Global CEOs – truly global and that means they have VPs, Country Managers/Regional Managers reporting directly to them. Global means they along with thier executive teams across the world can and do make a huge impact on the world. What I noticed from each of them was one thing. The natural ability to connect with another human in a unique way that had noting to do with his or her CEO title. Now that’s leadership! We can all look to improve and those 4 wonderful leaders should be very proud of the impact that they are making. Keep up the great work I look forward to connecting in with each of you very soon!
When leadership is done well the world truly is your oyster and the world notices. How are you navigating your career and what are you actually doing to put yourself on the world stage? It’s often a question that CEO’s and senior executives work with me on. We narrow our focus to really improve a couple of things, those 1%ers which will ensure you are making he biggest impact as a leader.
Work on’s could be;
*Communication, how to improve my communication up, across, down and outside my organsiaton?
*Decision Making, where should my focus actually be and what do I need to stop doing?
*Emotional Intelligence (aka EQ), how am I actually relating to others?
*Leading People
*Visionary
One thing I continue to remind my clients is not to over complicate leadership. There are so many many many things that are derailing leaders that they shouldn’t even be focusing on. Like in sports it’s the little things that will make the biggest impact and those are the gold nuggets that we actually work on.
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Leadership is all about how you bring together people, cultures together and deliver something very special.
If you would like to discuss or read more about what is involved and associated costs with Chief Executive Coaching | Senior Executive Coaching | Emerging Leaders Coaching for yourself and or someone in your organisation then reach out to Nick directly here +6421375630
Nick Roud Coaching, Global Award Winning Executive Leadership Coach
”where leaders belong”