Alison Craig offers a series of Cracking Christmas Quotes for this month’s Leadership Matters

As this year draws to a close, we are happy to gift to you a selection of our favourite quotes, relating to leadership and getting the best out of ourselves and others.

In no particular order…

💡 A leader…is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realising that all along they are being directed from behind (Nelson Mandela – ‘Long Walk to Freedom’)

• How do you empower your team to take the lead whilst providing appropriate support?

💡 I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel (Maya Angelou)

• How aware are you of your ‘leadership shadow’ and the impact you have on others?

💡 Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback (Johan Thorbecke)

• How would you rate the level of trust, in both directions, in all your key relationships? What do you actively do to build trust and maintain it?

💡 If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent the night with a mosquito (African proverb quoted by the Dalai Lama)

• How do you ensure every member of your team understands the difference they can make in their role and through their behaviours?

💡 When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute (Simon Sinek)

• What can you do to make sure your team and colleagues feel emotionally invested?

💡 There are four ingredients in true leadership: brains, soul, heart, and good nerves (Klaus Schwab – Founder & Exec Chair, World Economic Forum)

• How do you create a positive leadership impact through Soul and Heart?

💡 Your job as a manager and a leader is to help create the space for people to have learning moments (Michael Bungay Stanier)

• How confident are you to ‘let go’ and let people learn?

💡 Leadership & learning are indispensable to each other (John F Kennedy)

• How open are you to learning and showing vulnerability that you don’t ‘know it all’?

💡 It’s better to hit the target with a crooked arrow than to spend your whole day trying to straighten it out (Unknown)

• Where do you need to allow more of a ‘fail fast’ approach which is so successfully used by the tech industry?

💡 Potential – Interference = Performance (Tim Gallwey)

• Given that most people want to do a good job, what obstacles are blocking high performance for any of your team?

💡 Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime (Lao Tzu – Chinese philosopher)

• To what extent are you spoon feeding or rescuing individuals in your team, rather than allowing them to build their skills, capability, and confidence?

💡 A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you (Bob Proctor)

• Who is on your mini ‘board,’ to support you with your development? How do you get an external perspective which helps you achieve your full potential?

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For more leadership tips, read through our past Leadership Matters articles on Hampshire Biz News. And as always, if you would like to bounce any ideas or undertake coaching, mentoring, or training with our team of leadership and employee engagement experts, please get in touch.

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