If you are lonely at the top, you are doing it wrong

Let's do.

Thank you, Mick. I'm delighted to be on your podcast.

Well, I think I will give away a little bit of my age and and background. I spent more than thirty years in leadership before I went full on into my own business. And I worked in different countries, in different sectors, public, private, and charity voluntary sector organizations. So I have a lot of experience in this field. And for a long time I wanted to start my own business. Which can help people to make leadership better and easier, regardless of the sector or industry they are working in. And so everything that I did it was just way of preparing for this step, moving to my own consultancy, and LM Plus stands for leadership and management plus, a lot of other interesting things, and Those things are change management, project management, well-being programs in the workplace, in addition to leadership and management development.

Well, there are several actually and it's difficult to pick up one. I think the one that is harmful and I come across of it is that leadership is lonely business, a lonely business, that it is very lonely on the top, and people say it with a degree of pride. And exclusivity on the top and nobody comes closer sometimes. But the reality is if you are lonely on the top, it means that you are doing something wrong actually. You are not capitalizing on your network of peer leaders, you are not engaged well with your followers, you don't have a sounding board of coaches or mentors, which means that you're missing out as a leader. So this is the one that is a big one. And probably the next one for me is that people often underestimate how important it is to understand themselves and other people and how brains operate in themselves and other people to be a very effective, very successful leader.

Well, it's not just in public sector, Mick, it's in other sectors as well. You know, everyone has a brain, allegedly. it doesn't come with an instruction and we don't always know how it operates, what does it mean for our everyday life and work, and as a result we underestimate what in our behavior and reactions is our conscious will. And decision and what is neurobiological reaction or unconscious reaction. And this applies not just to change management, it applies to everything actually. Wherever we have people, wherever people collaborate, cooperate, do things together, we we have this impact of our brains and understanding. what is happening and why helps to move us from the threat state to the state of reward where we operate and perform at our best.

I didn't write books on neuroscience of leadership at all. None. really. I think it is a misconception. I did publish a few things, but they were not about neuroscience of leadership, although I'm working on a book right now. I published a few articles in the magazine which is called the Maverick Paradox magazine, which looks at different sides of leadership. And it looks at brain hacking.

Or using particular methodologies, science-based, not sort of voodoo type of stuff, but science-based, applied neuroscience, behavior science, and they give very practical strategies about how to become better negotiators, how to build better relationships in the workplace and beyond, how to improve your memory, how to deal with your habits. And there is a plenty of those. So if somebody is interested, they can look at my LinkedIn profile, and there is a list of my publications with links to online articles. I also published a couple of articles in the Brains magazine, which is an online platform dedicated to sort leadership in the field of business, leadership, lifestyle, etcetera. And again there were articles which refer to neuroscience and some other disciplines which are relevant, but they are not books yet. So watch this space.

It's okay. yes, Brains magazine runs two awards and one of them is a Korea Awards and another Global Five Hundred. And the independent committee selects number of companies and individuals who are successful in their fields, who contribute to develop sort leadership, who help others. And so every year they celebrate a number of those companies and individuals. And I had the privilege of being selected twice, once for their career award and second time for their one five hundred global award. so yeah, it's a big it's a big honor for me. if you will look at the Brain's website at look at the lists of Henries for every year, it's quite a constellation of character. It's a big honor and a privilege to be amongst those people.

Well, it is about leaving leading and succeeding with the brain in mind. Because you you can't remove leadership from life and life from leadership. We lead in different ways, in different parts of our life, even if we are not aware of it. So it's Which will provide some useful practical insights for people who would like to do better in different areas of their life. Book for people who are curious, who want to understand themselves and others, so that they can perform better than they did before this knowledge.

different organizations have different challenges and different intentions when they start designing their change programs. Sometimes not understanding what change entails, organizational change, I mean, can lead to using different wrong methodologies or tools which are not suitable for particular organization or their context. But one thing that comes across everywhere is people often don't understand what's happening in human brain in the workplace when organizational change takes place. They don't understand how easy it is to create a state of constant threat for staff who May be involved directly into organizational change and go through change themselves as employees, but also sometimes change happens in per in one or two departments in large organizations. And how does it feel for others outside the change programs to observe what is happening? Because you know, we we are compassionate emotional creatures, and for us. We don't have to be under state of threat ourselves if we see that somebody else is going through change. We are going into state of threat ourselves because we we are afraid deep inside the we could be next. It could happen to to us sometime in the future, and so our level of stress is going up, which impacts on our well-being, on our productivity. relationship with others and so forth. So underestimating what is happening with people and how what is happening in people's brain leads to particular expressions in terms of what people say and what people do. And change managers refer to it as a resistance to change. And they say, people are bloody-minded, that is why they resist change. They don't want good things to happen, they don't understand it. The reality is that yes, there may be lack of understanding, but also there is also some neurobiology happening and it's quite normal reaction to any change that we didn't initiate ourselves. And leaders and managers who deal with organizational change programs, they need to understand it and know how To move people from the normal state of threat into a state of reward where people become supporters of change initiatives.

No.

Hmm. Well, I think I'm very well qualified to talk about it. I'm technophobic, very sort of self-confessed one. It takes me some time to to get used to new technology, although I am dapping into AI myself nowadays to explore it. The problem is that sometimes, and I saw it in my client organizations, leaders become overexcited. about the impact of AI, about the promised benefits of AI in their organizations. And they can rush in with tools and platforms which are not necessarily very well suited. They rush in without understanding that You can't apply everything everywhere at the same time. You probably need to adapt and adjust and educate your stuff so that people see it not as a burden. I have to learn and use one more tool, which is complex, which goes over my head completely. But see it as something that can save time, that can Save effort that can automate some basic boring stuff to give people more space and time and head for creativity. And this requires understanding of other humans, humans' perceptions. It requires understanding of AI and how it could be used in a particular organization in different roles and desire to bring people. Not by just order, you will use it from tomorrow, but from developing joint understanding and appreciation of AI. And speaking about the future, I think we are here with AI, we are not going to escape, we are not going to create completely isolated islands of professions or occupations where there is no space for AI. Because potential is great. It's about mindful and very human approach to adoption of AI. So it brings benefits rather than harm to people who are to use it.

Well, you must re remember what leading is and who you are leading. If you are running in front of the crowd and then look back and see that people are way behind, confused, scared, etc., you're not leading. You are running in front of them. It's about understanding that you need to engage with people from the very, very beginning. So that people have a chance to contribute into development of change programs or projects in their own organizations that affect them and their colleagues. When they develop this ownership and understanding, then change is not done to them, which creates state of threat, but they are co-designing change, co-developing change. They develop sense of control and understanding, which immediately comes down. the amygdala helps it to be well controlled, regulated, and then it helps to create state of phenomenon of collective intelligence. When people work together and create better solutions, produce better ideas, then a lot of geniuses can do independently. And every organization wants to harness this state, state of flow during the change program implementation, and also collective intelligence when people create better future together for themselves, for organizations, for their customers. for wider society.

Well, LinkedIn, also my website, which is lmplus consulting.com. you can Google, you can Google my name, you will come you will come to my site. And the people can come come to me and we have a conversation, no obligation, free of charge conversation. And if I if I can't help for whatever reason, I have a good network of professionals. who are also very well qualified, who are specialising in different specific aspects, like ethical leadership, for example, or sustainability leadership, or other stuff. And I will be able to refer people so that potential clients can make a good choice who is the best fit for them.

You're very welcome and thank you for inviting me. It's absolute pleasure.