Category: Leadership In Action

Super networkers have a great list of contacts and a network composed of many loose connections that foster the flow of opportunities and ideas. Here are 15 of Australia’s super networkers, the ‘golden contacts’ everyone wants to know. David Gonski Chancellor of the University of NSW, chair of the ANZ Banking Group and Coca-Cola Amatil […]

It’s much easier to speak your mind when you’re no longer holding high office, of course, but one might say it was how politics was done in the past. Back then there was no Twitter or selfies to be seen, but rather a genuine contest of ideas about local and global challenges. One issue both leaders […]

Networking can happen anywhere at any time. It can occur at an official event where you’ve planned your outfit, your opening liners and perfected your business card delivery or it can be as simple as an Uber ride on the way. In the lead up to National Networking Day on Monday, August 29, at AIM we asked the […]

The premise: up to 65,000 of Australia’s graduates – nearly a third – will be unemployed four months after they finish their tertiary studies in 2016, says the federal government. So, how useful is a degree? THE CONSULTANT Paul Peterson Training consultant and facilitator. We no longer accept that some people are born effective leaders. […]

People before profits I’ve been asked by Toyota to evaluate their plan and so far have found that their approach starts with a philosophy of “people before profits”. But does putting people before profits make for a less profitable company? I’ve found the opposite situation at Toyota. In my interviews and meetings with dozens of […]

The Australian men’s basketball team spends less than a month together in any given year, but training drills and what people may describe as traditional teamwork have not figured prominently in the Boomers’ preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. “At our skill level, we are not going to make a player […]

Place yourself in a second scenario: you head a market-leading company that wants to expand. You identify a struggling business, which has been trounced by its main competitor and been stagnant for a decade. You make a leadership decision to significantly outbid two private equity firms and pay well above what the market expected for the […]

What are the checkpoints a new leader should address if they want to succeed in their first 100 days? 1. A clear mandate A new leader must understand their going-in mandate – is it big, medium or small? It’s very possible to overreach and be too aggressive or underreach your mandate, cautions Robert Hargrove, an […]

CINDY HOOK, CEO DELOITTE AUSTRALIA When Cindy Hook, a long-time Deloitte employee, learned the top job would be vacated a year ahead of time, she swung into action with an external career coach. First she needed to decide if she wanted the role and to figure out if her personal values aligned with the firm’s. […]

In the pre-social media age, I quickly found that it took a lot of time and effort to start and cultivate those relationships, and they needed the right environment to prosper. I also observed that, all things being equal, people prefer to do business with people they like and trust, and you’re not going to […]