Blog2024-02-20T13:24:43+00:00

Why Training and Developing your Team is an Essential Investment

Continued training and development are important to make businesses and their workforce function effectively. The world has changed so much since the COVID pandemic sent shockwaves through businesses across the globe, and it’s now even more critical than ever in our changed ways of working to make sure that our team members are able to develop and grow to support the future of your business. This article will take you through the significance of team development as [...]

What is leadership?

The term leader is often accompanied by words like ‘power’ and ‘authority’. Alexander the Great, Abraham Lincoln, and Queen Elizabeth are some renowned figures known to have personified the term. While these well-known personalities deserve due respect for their historic successes, leadership can’t be limited to a hierarchical position, seniority, title, or personal attribute. Speaking in today’s organisational terms, leadership isn’t limited to a certain pay grade. Before we dive into answering the broad question of what [...]

Executive Coaching and Mentoring

Understanding executive coaching At Catalyst we believe that business leaders, like top athletes, benefit from having a coach at their side to help them perform consistently at their absolute best. This week we will discuss executive coaching, explain how it differs from mentoring, and outline the benefits. Executive Coaching London What is executive coaching? The coaching process focuses on providing a safe environment in which business leaders build a collaborative partnership with their coach, to explore [...]

Why are coaching and mentoring effective leadership techniques?

Effective coaching and mentoring are essential components in helping any member of staff to perform more effectively and helping a business to function more smoothly. As we see our economy on tenterhooks and we look over the edge of the cliff of a potential second lockdown, many businesses will welcome ideas and inspiration to lead their teams through this tough time, so this blog post runs through some ways in which coaching and mentoring are good leadership [...]

By |November 5th, 2023|Categories: Leadership|

Holding effective Virtual Meetings

How do we make sure that meetings are effective when we’re all working at home and relying on video technology? According to Rogelberg, in his book ‘The Surprising Science of Meetings’, it’s estimated that non-managerial employees have eight meetings a week and managerial staff have 12, costing companies an estimated £100 million in lost profit each year. However, the cost of meetings shouldn't just be measured by how many hours they absorb but instead, measured by the [...]

Adaptability for the new financial year

For some time now I have been talking about the need for businesses to be adaptable and flexible during this global pandemic.  I’ve discussed the importance of coaching and mentoring your teams to streamline productivity, alongside the need for resilience in these challenging times. A key element of adaptability that we still need to reflect on is how to approach the new fiscal year. January did not, unfortunately, deliver the positive beginning to 2021 we had hoped [...]

Leading your teams out of COVID: pandemic recovery strategies

It’s perhaps an understatement to say that the past year has been a colossal challenge for businesses globally. Many industries such as aviation, hospitality, leisure and entertainment have ground to a halt, with devasting job losses despite the best endeavours of the furlough scheme in the UK. The public now has a clear message that there is a path out of the Pandemic thanks to the rapid rollout of vaccines. But what if you are a leader [...]

Ways to be more adaptive and resilient at work

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to end, it’s about learning to dance in the rain”. - Vivian Greene. Developing the resilience to adapt to a change in circumstances and make the best of them is a vital human resource. A recent study from the University of Toronto and Cornell has shown that humans began to develop resilience and adaptability as early as The Bronze Age.  Historians have found that early human settlements in Turkey learned, [...]

By |January 7th, 2021|Categories: Leadership|

Improving productivity to help you become a better leader

As we enter into a new school year, many of us are thinking about fresh starts, new routines and an all-round more productive life. Often, these ideas are fleeting, as we quickly get swamped with daily demands. But this year can be different – after almost six months of our routines being flattened by Coronavirus, it’s time for us to take charge and forge ourselves a new, more organised path. This blog post goes through some tools [...]

By |September 1st, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

How do coaching and mentoring contribute to leadership development?

A leader’s role is to give advice, guidance and direction to the people following him or her. A great leader inspires others to be empowered, creative and enthusiastic. If you can influence people to be their best, you’re already a leader, no matter what your job role or title. The best leaders in business are always learning, adapting and developing. They are looking for new ways to improve, which is where coaching and mentoring can help. This [...]

By |August 3rd, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

How diversity can drive innovation

Decades of research has shown us that diverse groups are more innovative. Diverse groups, including people from different ethnicities, races, genders, and sexual orientations, have been proven to be more innovative than homogeneous groups. This is discussed in depth by Katharine Phillips in Scientific American, who concludes that diversity and inclusivity are giving companies a competitive advantage. It’s believed that this happens for two main reasons: People from different backgrounds bring new and differing information and viewpoints. Interacting [...]

By |July 2nd, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

How can you lead effectively through change?

The pace of change was already at top speed - we were always running to keep up. Now Coronavirus has given us all a level of change that we’ve never experienced before. We’re feeling scared, confused and uncertain, and we’re working as fast as we can to mitigate the damage caused and to find new opportunities as the crisis passes. It’s highly likely that your teams are feeling the same way as you. They’re worried for their [...]

By |June 4th, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

How will your business bounce back from Coronavirus?

We have a global pandemic on our hands, thanks to a pangolin somewhere in China. A single event, originated in nature, has created effects that are unprecedented and has caused ripples across the globe. Image: A pangolin. From Wikipedia Commons. We’re at home for the foreseeable future and potentially facing a very different way of living and doing business for several months. Many of us are wondering how to keep our businesses afloat in these [...]

By |May 11th, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

Are leadership skills inherent or learned?

We often hear the saying that some people are ‘born to lead’ but is that really true? The adage of nature versus nurture is as old as time, and unfortunately it seems the debate is as true as ever when it comes to leadership skills. Are some people ready-made leaders? Like some people seem to have innate musical abilities, or possess athletic prowess from the get-go, so it can seem that some people are ready-made leaders. We [...]

By |April 2nd, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

How to be more effective when you’re working from home

I have been working with clients this week who are now entirely working from home. Adapting to the new work situation and being in such close proximity to spouses and children they are finding it difficult to get more than ten minutes’ work done at a time without being interrupted or distracted. I gave them some guidance on more effective home working, which I thought you might find useful in this unprecedented time. Create your own space [...]

By |March 27th, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

What are leadership theories?

Have you ever wondered how some people become leaders? Some seem ready-made for the positions, others, well, we might internally ponder how they got to where they are. Leadership theories give us a way to explain why certain people become leaders. For a long time, the typical discussion revolved around nature versus nurture, and whether some people are born with the inherent skills they need to lead. Formal leadership theories are a more recent concept that offer [...]

By |March 10th, 2020|Categories: Leadership|

Are leadership skills inherent or learned?

We often hear the saying that some people are ‘born to lead’ but is that really true? The adage of nature versus nurture is as old as time, and unfortunately it seems the debate is as true as ever when it comes to leadership skills. Like some people seem to have innate musical abilities, or possess athletic prowess from the get-go, so it can seem that some people are ready made leaders. We all know the type. [...]

By |November 16th, 2019|Categories: Leadership|Tags: , , , , |

What is executive coaching?

This animation describes exactly what executive coaching is, in case you’re thinking about it but you’re not sure if it’s right for you. It describes the uses and benefits and will help you to know if you would benefit from an executive coach. Executive coaches sometimes work with metaphors so, for a moment, think of a coach as your private travel guide for your personal journey of exploration and development. The guide helps you to choose where [...]

Go to Top