By Heather Campbell >> One of the most challenging aspects of leadership in the workplace is dealing with difficult staff. Rather than facing the discomfort of the tough conversations that this usually entails, many managers choose to ignore a person’s poor behaviour – such as bad time-keeping, laziness, disrespect or antagonism – in the vain hope that it will disappear in time. But we all know that this won’t happen; instead it leads to a negative atmosphere in the office, with underperformance ...

By Heather Campbell >> Leaders in business too often try to communicate messages that they don’t feel 100% committed to. Even worse, some try to sell ideas that they don’t believe in at all. Managers who do this fail to influence because others recognise they aren’t at ease with what they are saying. Those managers who believe they can call people’s bluff are kidding no-one except themselves. Their body language, tone of voice and even the words they use will give away their discomfort, ...

By Heather Campbell >> Trust and respect between managers and employees are vital components in creating good industrial relations. Leaders who fail to foster a high level of openness, honesty and two-way dialogue can accidentally create an atmosphere of mistrust, bad feeling and anger. In some cases this can spark industrial disputes. Traditionally, business leaders and managers lead from the front – making the critical financial and staffing decisions, then announcing the changes and leaving the staff to just ‘get on with ...

Building employee engagement is an ongoing goal for most organisations. It has been the topic of two recent lunches that we have hosted for senior leaders in Scotland. At the first of these, two of our guests shared their own stories of increasing employee engagement in their organisations. At the second, we explored the new opportunities that social media brings in terms of engaging people. The discussion was led by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, MD at Intelligise and specialist in the field. ...

By Heather Campbell >> All business leaders have times when they can’t switch off – we all know that feeling as reflections on the day just finished, or the one to come, buzz around in our heads. This can be invigorating when the thoughts are ones of success and achievement. But they are a huge drain on energy when they are more negative. This is a time when self-talk can lead us into a pointlessly negative place. It’s an occasion to ask ...

By Heather Campbell >> The right leadership communication is critical to employee engagement, which in turn is critical to business success. Improved staff engagement reaps numerous benefits: increased motivation, greater creativity and more focused business-thinking leading to greater overall efficiency and effectiveness. While improved engagement is a cost-effective way to realise a wealth of long-term business rewards, too many company leaders do not affect the required communication skills. This is often because they think they will have to adopt complicated communication routines. ...