Wednesday 30 October 2013

Authentic Leadership: An Underpinning Philosophy


The journey to Authentic Leadership is a very personal one, and it's a path which I believe ALL leaders should tread, whether they are those people in positions of authority, responsibility and power within an organisation whom we automatically think of as a leader, or whether they are consultants who are gently leading their clients by the hand and acting as role models of professionalism and compassion to achieve engagement and thereby subsequent improvements in bottom-line results.

For me, the quality of relationships underpins all successful business results and all successful organizations. Authentic Leadership enables us to develop authentic relationships; with ourselves and with others. I believe that it’s going to be THE most powerful leadership model of the future and is the only way that the world is going to survive this current recession to come out of it stronger at the other end.

What IS Cognitive Fitness? - How our thinking has changed ......

Fifteen years ago we said that being ‘cognitively fit’ meant
"Being flexible enough to apply different thinking strategies and think in a variety of ways so that you can take a multi-perspective and balanced approach to any situation or context"
We suggested then that because flexible thinking strategies are employed in this approach, subsequent behavioural flexibility is much easier to achieve. All of the above is still true! However, we've now simplified the definition of Cognitive Fitness to;
"Thinking in the right ways at the right times"
Much easier! And you'll notice the plural in there - I've deliberately said 'ways' as we constantly need to parallel process or even multiple process in order to be effective thinkers and achieve everything that we now need to do in a day. If you want to find out more about how to achieve
Flexibility, Agility and Strength
in your thinking in terms of your thinking strategies and becoming more cognitively fit, then have a look at the Resources page on the Cognitive Fitness website as that's where you will find a useful one-page pdf slide which encompasses it all!