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Archive for the ‘Management’ Category

Allowing People to Be

Posted by Liz McKechnie

At Aspire one of our core values is: Allowing people to be.
In management and leadership roles one of the most difficult skills to learn is allowing people to be their best selves.
As the pressure increases so does the tendency for leaders to slip into command and control, to jump headlong into a sea of “constructive criticism”, to hold on tightly and micromanage their staff. In so doing they can inadvertantly limit the learning, growth and diverse talents that can help support innovation and excellence at the time when it is most needed.

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. – Albert Einstein

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Face the facts: How we read facial expression as communicating social animals

Face the facts: How we read facial expression communicating as social animals

Posted by James Auden

Our brains also devote a lot more attention to faces than many other visual stimuli because faces are so important to our lives when we are communicating as social animals, and it’s as social animals that we’ve succeeded as a species.

The human face has evolved to be the most expressive on the planet, containing around 52 muscles so the possibilities for communicating our feelings are infinite.

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Influence - image old lad young lady

Influence – How to get me to see your view

Posted by Liz McKechnie

How do we influence others?

Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.

I’ve had this quote from Ian McEwan lurking on my desktop for some time now and every time I read it I am struck buy how amazingly simple and how astonishingly profound it is.

At Aspire Leadership our courses are all about people influencing and communicating with each other whether we’re exploring transformational Leadership or looking at more concrete things such as how to make a project happen on budget and on time.

The one thing all our work has in common is how on earth we manage to work with other people and get people to buy in and do the things we want them to do. How do we exert our influence?

Well first, why not try and step into their shoes and understand their stuff. What’s going on for them?

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