Leadership, Performance, Productivity, Wellbeing
We’re heading into the final stage of this year, and it’s likely to be the toughest of the year. (Not to dishearten you, but I had it on the good advice of a 12 year old who explained to his father that this final school term was by far the longest and it was...
Leadership, Performance, Productivity, Wellbeing
I’ve been writing a lot about why we need to pay better attention to perfectionism, workload, stress and burnout and it’s not just to be good leaders and corporate citizens (although that would be enough!), it’s also to get better outcomes. Too much drive, too much...
Leadership, Perfectionism, Wellbeing
Perfectionism takes striving to a new level. It increases the chances of setting unattainable goals, never feeling good enough and not being able to switch off. It is much more strongly associated with chronic stress, burnout, and with a range of mental health...
Leadership, Perfectionism, Performance
It’s important to distinguish between striving for excellence, and striving for perfection. As Patrick Gaudreau and his colleagues show in their research, we tend to confound the two, as if striving of any kind is what it takes. It is not. Pursuing excellence means...
Leadership, Perfectionism, Wellbeing
While the pandemic is officially over, the ‘burnout epidemic’ shows no sign of slowing; reports of worker stress and burnout in 2023 continue to indicate high levels. While healthcare workers and teachers tend to have higher rates of burnout, and were even more...
Culture, Leadership, Motivation
Quite a few of my recent blogs have focused on the issue of confidence and how problematic certain ways of framing confidence are when it comes to leadership. In particular, how it skews the leadership pool and then backfires on us. For those of you asking yourself...