Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

I'm not sure whether night sentries really call out, "Who goes there - friend or foe?" but I'm certain that foes don't announce their intentions before making an attack. The same is true in our personal or professional network.

Here's a hard truth, most of the people you know are neither friends nor foes, they are neutral. They will smile in the corridor, will nod in a meeting, and may even like your occasional post, but when push comes to shove and you actually need support, they are nowhere to be seen.

A true friend or ally will come to your aid in times of duress, even at personal or reputational risk. Such friendship should be nurtured and treasured. In my opinion, they are like owning priceless art, you must look after them, appreciate them, and you can't have too many or your attention will be diluted.

A foe in your network is easier to spot, as they will actively sabotage you whenever there is an opportunity. Your loss is their win. Such people see the world in terms of...

Since the Ancient Greeks, oratory, public speaking, and debates, have shown the power of the spoken word to influence and make an impact.

Not everyone wants to be a Professional Speaker, but everyone can become more professional when speaking to an audience.

Public Speaking and Leadership

Effective communication is a vital skill that every successful leader must possess. Leaders can inspire, influence, and direct their teams to achieve organizational goals through communication.

Whether it is the company kickoff, a team meeting, or presenting to the board, leadership requires confident and effective public speaking skills. 

Leadership requires courage and so regardless of your level of comfort with public speaking, this is a pill you will have to learn to swallow if want to be successful. Having been a professional speaker for nearly 25 years and coached hundreds of people to speak with confidence and gravitas, this blog is designed to sugar-coat that pill. 

It Starts with...

When you're looking for a global motivational speaker for your company's event or conference, you want to make sure you find someone who can really make an impact. A top motivational speaker can give your audience the insights and boost they need to reach their goals in a complex global environment.

So, what should you look for when choosing a global motivational speaker? Here are the top 12 things to consider when selecting a top speaker for your event.

1. Knowledge and Experience: It’s important to find a speaker who has a deep understanding of the subject matter and can provide insight and knowledge about their topic. Look for someone with years of experience across multiple cultures with engaging stories that reinforce their points.
2. Passion and Enthusiasm: It should go without saying that a top global speaker should be passionate about their message and be able to captivate a diverse audience with their enthusiasm. They should be able to make the...

Technology companies love to be ‘market leading’ and be featured in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant but despite cutting-edge technological advancements, unless the leadership of these companies addresses the people issues, growth will be short-lived.

Employee Burnout

In a recent research report “The State of Burnout in Tech”, 30,000 IT professionals were surveyed across 33 countries:

• 56% of men and 69% of women can’t relax once their workday is over
• 43% feel disengaged from their work, and 27% don’t see the value in it
• 51% feel they are achieving less than they should

Tech burnout is caused by unrelenting stress and manifests as exhaustion, cynicism, and negative self-evaluation. The burnout problem stems from the early days of Silicon Valley, where working until you drop was a badge of honor.

The 'burn and churn' attitude of leadership has an actual human cost, with two out of five tech professionals, and 50% of IT security employees, suffering...

"Can you speak on leadership as a woman?"

I recently received this request from the Executive Education department of a university.

Not being a woman but understanding the speaker's intent, I smiled and answered, "No", but having coached many women, I can talk about leadership challenges that women face.

International Women's Day

This being #InternationalWomensDay, I am going to be courageous and share some things that I believe should be part of the conversation, even though I am an older, white, male.

I am the son of a mother, brother to sisters, father to daughters, and husband to a wife. I have worked to advance women whenever and wherever I can. I have taught executive presence for women, I have mentored women, and I have taken a pledge to never appear on an all-male panel. My friend and colleague, Dr. Tanvi Gautam, says this makes me a #heforshe.

The number one thing that upsets me is women tearing down other women. If a woman is successful this should be celebrated because it...

Getting the right keynote speaker on the right topic is key to a successful conference or event. Booking an Astronaut, TV Star, or Gold Medal Winner to speak, will almost certainly be inspirational, but will be expensive and not necessarily address some of the issues facing your company or your audience.

Mindset matters and so do insights and practical strategies that the audience can execute to make a tangible difference. The following list of topics and speakers was compiled to provide a balance of motivation, mission, and methodology. While no such list can be fully comprehensive and inclusive, we hope it triggers your critical thinking about selecting the right speaker and topic for your event.

1. Business Creativity, Change, and Innovation

Creativity is a critical business skill that will help us move forward. To manage change and be innovative we need ideas. Almost everyone agrees that creativity is important, but not everyone is confident that they are creative, and...

Motivational speakers can be a powerful tool to help you engage your teams and create a positive, productive workplace. A well-known motivational speaker can help to inspire and motivate team members, helping to increase their motivation and performance. They can also provide valuable insight and guidance, helping to build team unity and create a sense of purpose.

Providing a New Perspective

Providing a new perspective is an effective way to engage your team and motivate them to achieve their goals. A motivational speaker with experience and deep insights brings a fresh outlook to the table and provides ideas for different tactics and strategies to facilitate your team to reach their goals.

They can challenge outdated thought processes and provide a new perspective on how to approach and solve problems. By introducing an outside expert, the team can gain valuable knowledge and ideas that can help them come up with innovative solutions. Additionally, the...

The term "business motivational speaker" can seem generic and vague, possibly like something from the TV Show, The Office. Far from being comical, a business motivational speaker is someone who inspires, informs, and motivates audiences to think differently, feel differently, and act differently. They are typically hired to speak at conferences, seminars, and other events to help motivate and inspire business professionals to reach their goals.

The professional, rather than the comical, business motivational speaker typically has deep subject matter experience that they can use to energize and motivate employees to take action. They will often provide strategies to help their audience reach their goals, with a mindset of enthusiasm and positivity.

Delivering results is essential for any team or organization, but delivering results when employees are fatigued, stressed, or unclear of priorities is impossible. A business motivational speaker is not a...

Whether in a one-to-one conversation or giving a presentation, you owe it to yourself and to your audience not to be boring.

The number one reason for boring your listeners is being too focused on yourself and or your topic. This could be because you are nervous and shy, or because you have not yet realized a fundamental truth that is attributed to Theodore Roosevelt:

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care"

3 Strategies for How Not to Be Boring

1. Be Curious

A great maxim for connecting with people and not boring them to death is, "if you want to be interesting, be interested." Be interested in the people you are speaking with, ask questions, and listen carefully to what they say. When you do this, you can connect what you want to say with their worldview.

Curiosity and open-mindedness will also mean that you can talk on multiple topics and have interesting perspectives.

2. Be Passionate

A guaranteed way to not be boring is to be...

Imagine being on a big waterslide at a theme park. Your descent to the bottom is inevitable, due to gravity, the flow of water, and the design of the slide. What is within your control is how you view the experience. Is it fun, or frightening? Are you learning and experimenting, or rigid and inflexible?

Now imagine your brain as a cascade of neurons firing rapidly. The pattern of connections is influenced by your genetics, your conditioning, and your physiology.

Just like the waterslide, in each moment of life, your brain is giving you an experience. This experience is yours to choose how to enjoy but ultimately governed by physics.

Self Awareness Matters

As you pay attention to your experience, your awareness increases, and with awareness comes ideas.

Ideas matter. Ideas are not just the result of experience, they become part of the cascade of neurological connections that generate your experience.  Ideas are what make us uniquely human, and without them, there is no...