Challenge yourself to make a difference
Leadership
Talks, Guest Lectures, and Expertise
Why Leadership
Our world today is fast paced and complex. At every stage of life, you will be involved in leadership. Often as a follower, but on many occasions also as a leader. Leadership challenges are diverse and do not happen in isolation, and as such is subject to many, often uncontrollable, requirements and influences – in addition to the ones you can control. Because of this, more than ever, it is important to understand and act on the requirement for leadership, and the responsibility that comes with being a good leader.
I suggest that as a good leader you should always be aware of, and looking to improve in three key areas:
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Individual understanding – this is about self-leadership (how you behave, act, and interact), how you assess and see yourself, and how others see you.
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Leadership understanding – what is leadership? (and this can be a surprisingly complex question to answer), how do you follow and how do you lead, how does culture affect you, those around you, and leadership within the given context cultural differences.
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Action – the important one! As a leader you have to actually do something, showing strong ethical resilience and decision making, and making sure that what you do has a lasting and positive impact.
It is further important to remember that we are incredibly privileged to live in a very diverse world which gives us access to a vast depth of knowledge and understanding. One of the most rewarding things about leadership can be working together with a group of other likeminded people and together achieving something that is more than what each one could do as an individual – creating synergy. We must also accept that leadership is a continuous, imperfect process. As a leader you will make mistakes. The most important thing is to learn from them (both your mistakes and those that others have made) and use them as learning opportunities. Always be curious!
Five ideas for good leaders
A frequent request that comes up is to give a piece of advice to those aspiring to improve their leadership. Based on experience, conversations with leaders and research, I encourage you to think about - and act upon - these five ideas. Some are meant as a challenge to yourself. You should however not feel bad if a challenge is not met, it is much more more about trying your best to accomplish these challenges as frequently as possible.
ABOUT
Following an international career in management within the hospitality industry, Alexander became interested in the leadership challenges he had experienced and witnessed in other leaders. Returning to University to obtain an MRes and a leadership focussed MBA provided the much needed academic foundation and context within which to understand these.
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The natural continuation of this journey was to work on honing his leadership and business strategy stills which Alexander now shares with his audiences. These come from a varied background from students embarking on their first experience of the subject, leaders in sporting situations looking for performance gains by better understanding their role in supporting others, to international organisations. In addition, Alexander also works one-on-one with people looking for more personalised leadership development.
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Alexander is an internationally active guest speaker and guest lecturer on the subject of leadership and business strategy but also works one-on-one with those looking to further develop and understand their leadership abilities.
