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I think its safe to say 2020 hasn't been the year any of us planned, but it has given us many learning opportunities and there will be wins and things we can be proud of. So, since this is the last episode of The Curious Choice Leader Podcast for 2020, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get curious about reviewing the year, about how we can celebrate our achievements, capture our lessons and make choices about how we apply them to our working worlds going forward. 

We all doubt our abilities from time to time, and when it goes too far it can become an episode of Imposter Complex.  With the amount of change we have all been experiencing recently, it's been especially prevalent.What if I was to tell you that experiencing Imposter Complex is a good thing and that it can make you a better leader?In this episode, I explain why that is and how you can make friends with your Imposter Complex so it helps you become a better leader

Being a coach and using coaching skills are not the same thing - almost all of us can benefit from using coaching skills as part of our role and as leaders, we can use them to unlock the performance of our teams.As we develop our skills to deliver work through and with others using the skills of coaching will, for example, allow you to understand other people's perspectives, open up other people's thinking so you come up with better solutions and support the decision-making process - something all teams benefit from whatever they do.In this episode, I look at how using coaching fits with the other things leaders have to do and how leaders need to be able to apply different styles of coaching at different times.

The week this episode is published in the week the UK, like much of Europe, enters a second national lockdown and the week of the US Elections.  Not for the first time this year, it feels like everything around us is changing.As leaders what are the first things we should do when we are in this situation?  How can we best help ourselves and our teams to deal with everything.In this episode it's time to get curious about what our first priorities should be as leaders and make some choices about what we are going to do.

 With so much change going on around us both at work and in the world, in general, it's not surprising that more people are looking for answers and are looking for help with their work, their leadership and their business. And there is no shortage of people offering to help them, advisors, consultants and coaches. Some days it feels like everyone you meet or see in your inbox, on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and anywhere else you look is calling themselves a coach. In this episode, I share 7 questions you should ask yourself before you start looking for a coach and then discuss the different styles of coaches and how you can use that information to pick the right coach for you right now.

Working environments with a high level of trust between people makes everything else is easier, so naturally, as leaders, we want to cultivate more of it. Trust is a living organic thing that grows between people, and despite what I commonly see talked about you can't manufacture it and you can't force someone else to trust you. Instead, we need to show we are trustworthy and that's based on four foundational cores - integrity, intent, capability and results. In this episode, I explore how we as leaders can demonstrate those four foundational cores to the people around us.

Trust - we know teams and businesses where trust is high do better than those where trust is low, so it's no wonder that we hear a lot of people talking about creating or manufacturing trust.And I have a problem with that.In this episode, I explain why and what it is that bothers me about some of the conversations and advice about trust.

If you find yourself rolling your eyes at letting out an involuntary groan when someone suggests something new, or you spot your team doing it when you talk about a change you all need to make, the chances are change fatigue is setting in.There is no doubt that too much change in too short a period of change is exhausting, but what can you do to combat change fatigue and keep your team productive?In this episode Bekka shares some things you can do to manage the change fatigue in your team.

Working from home - do you love it or hate it?  With the latest UK government guidelines reverting to telling people to work from home where possible and that we should expect that advice to last for at least six months we are facing more changes in how our teams and the teams we interact with, work.  How people react to even small changes can surprise us and in this episode, I talk about managing and leading these changes and being ready to be surprised. I also talk about managing the one thing that underpins all the changes we expect our team to make - the team energy level.  How we feel about working from home is often linked to how we get our energy and I share a fun way of understanding this and talking about it as a team.

In all my years leading change and working with leaders leading change I've never seen a leader get it 100% right 100% of the time - some have come close, and yet despite the very best intentions, many haven't.  In this episode, I pull together the 9 most common leadership traps I see leaders of change falling into when they are leading change.So, are you ready to get curious about the things that leaders often get wrong when they are leading change and make some choices about how to avoid those mistakes yourself? Check out thecuriouschoiceleader.com for a full transcript and links to any resources mentioned

 Being a leader is hard! Even when things are going well and there is not much changing around us there is a lot to do. Add with all the changes that are happening around our businesses, how we are working, where we are working, where our business focus needs to be, our leadership workload goes up, but we still have to keep everything else going too. We need to be doing more to lead and reassure our teams, we have more activities and team outputs to manage, quite possibly with less people and we know we need to be developing our teams too if we want to perform well now and in the future. It's something that tends to come up in most leaders careers, at least once and it's certainly magnified when we are leading change.So how can we balance getting our work done, with leading and developing our teams? It's time to get curious and make some choices about how we do that for ourselves in our roles. 

If it ever happens at all it is very rare that in business we are only dealing with one change at a time. Our jobs as managers and leaders are to continually improve performance, even when we are not in the middle of change projects or a rapidly changing operating environment. So what are the implications for us as leaders of dealing with lots of different changes all at once? In this episode, we are going to dig into that and I'm going to share two ways to check you are doing the right things on the right projects without being totally overwhelmed as you take your team and your business through multiple overlapping waves of change. So are you ready? It's time to get curious and make some choices about how you can lead your team and your business through multiples changes at the same time. 

 With unemployment rising and more and more companies making people redundant, I’m having a lot of conversations with people about the merits of becoming a freelancer or a contractor. According to IPSE, the Association of Independent Professionals and Self Employed, approximately 6% of the UK workforce are freelancers and since typically when we see high redundancy levels we see an increase in the number of people freelancing they are expecting that percentage to go up. In this episode, I share the things you should consider before deciding if you should join them and become a freelancer.

No one wants to have to lead their team through a redundancy programme but when you do have to, how can you make sure its a constructive process that positions everyone for a successful future either inside or outside your organisation? In this week's episode we talk about how leaders can do just that, so are you ready?  It's time to get curious and make some choices about how you are going to lead when redundancies are in the air.

It's a mistake I've seen many leaders, especially inexperienced ones make more times than I can count - avoiding answering difficult and challenging questions. In this episode, I  talk about why it's such a big mistake and why leaders should love being asked those difficult questions.So are you ready to get curious and make some choices about how you react to difficult questions? 

As the UK Government's job support scheme is being phased out, it leaves a very tricky team dynamics between those who have worked through and those who are returning from furlough, for leaders to manage.  This post furlough divide is going to provide yet another test of our leadership and given the challenging trading conditions we are all operating in, getting it right is potentially critical to the future of our businesses. So are you ready to get curious about the post furlough divide and make some choices about how you minimise its impact for your team? 

Right now, many of the people you work with are worried about their jobs - are they going to have to start going back into the office, how safe will it be to travel to get there, how safe will they be when they get there, how secure is their job anyway? For others, their concerns will be around what happens at the end of the furlough scheme, or maybe they are worried about contact with the public or what happens if there is a second wave of the pandemic. As well as worrying about themselves they may be worried about their friends in the organization and the future of the business too. And as leaders, we know how that feels since we are feeling it too - and it leaves us wondering how best to support our teams through this uncertainty. In this episode I share a practical approach to supporting your team when they are worried about their jobs and you don't have all the answers.

There is more to being successful than hitting your targets and in this episode, we turn the lens of curiosity inwards and talk about how we define success for ourselves, so we can work in alignment with our definitions and be the best leader we can be.

When we ask people to do something difficult, like change the way they work, they are very unlikely to do it unless they understand the reasons that sit behind the changes, but the rationale itself is often not enough.  Unless not changing puts people in danger, they need something more than a logical argument to be motivated to make those changes. They need to be inspired by a bigger vision or purpose, our business why.  But that’s not the only function talking about our business why has during change, it also serves as an anchor for our decisions when it seems like everything around us is changingYou can download the What's Your Why Worksheet mentioned in this episode here.

How can we possibly make decisions when everything around us is changing?When we are in the middle of change and surrounded by uncertainty, the feeling of not being able to get your head around decisions grows, it’s very unsettling and can leave us questioning our own judgement.And that’s not a great feeling especially when we are leading others through change - in fact, that just piles the pressure on and makes it even harder to think and make a decision.So what can we do to help ourselves make decisions when everything around us is changing?