March 2021 – Question of the Month

Question of the Month:  An employee finds out that he is earning 5% less than his peers, and assumes that the organisation and the management are unfair. This demotivates him and he considers finding another job. What should be done? Answer: This question arose in a recent Legitimate Leadership webinar – see our report on this below....

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Are Anonymous Callout Channels A Good Way To Deal With Abuse?

Bullying and abuse have been prominent in news reports about, among others, Priti Patel (the UK’s Home Secretary), Julie Payette (Canada’s Governor General), and Meghan Markle (the Duchess of Sussex). One question these cases prompt is: are anonymous callout channels a good way to deal with abuse? I recently weighed in on an article in...

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CEO Secrets – ‘My Billion Pound Company Has No HR Department’

By Dougal Shaw, business reporter, BBC News. COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE BY WENDY LAMBOURNE, LEGITIMATE LEADERSHIP: Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a role for support functions in companies big enough to afford them. But they need to perform an enabling rather than a controlling or policing role. The...

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‘Us And Them’ Became Just ‘Us’

A Legitimate Leadership intervention in a major industrial company in South Africa identified a problem of victimhood throughout the organisation. In the intervention, two groups of managers were being facilitated by two Legitimate Leadership consultants with one group reporting to the other. The module Building Strong People was applied, part of which is the Gripe...

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Leading Remotely? Stay Connected By Being Sincere, Deliberate And Courageous

“How do I stay connected to my people when they’re working remotely?” “How can I show people that I care without seeming like I’m prying?” These are questions that have been raised repeatedly by managers grappling with remote leadership for the first time. The answer to neither question is simple – relationships are, after all,...

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February 2021 – Question of the Month

Question of the Month: What should a Legitimate Leadership intervention deliver? Answer: Our standard answer is that it should deliver an organization characterised by legitimacy, trust, contribution and accountability – all of which then impacts on the results. However here are two more developed characterisations: That those in leadership roles will be able to answer ‘yes’ to...

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Why Legitimate Leadership Comes From South Africa

The Legitimate Leadership Model, in essence, strives to increase trust between management and non-management in all kinds of organisations; it strives to decrease the fraction of the workforce which is disaffected and disengaged, and increase the fraction which is pro-establishment. It is no coincidence that South Africa has been, and still is, a country where...

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What Should Leaders Do About Targets And Standards In A Crisis?

Leaders can choose to make targets or make standards what they focus on and prioritise in a crisis. They can also elect to change (raise or lower) the targets and/or standards, or leave them unchanged. The choices they make are important because they have a significant bearing on whether those they lead thrive or not...

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Passing the Intent Test is an Everyday Opportunity

In our introductory programmes one of the issues we work through is the idea of the Intent test.  Legitimate Leadership argues that the only real measure we have of whether we can trust someone is whether they are able to suspend their agenda for ours; whether they are able to set aside their self-interest, and...

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Ability and Accountability and the Hard and Soft Mistakes

A central precept of Legitimate Leadership is that a leader gains the trust of his subordinates by the provision of care and growth. Care and growth is actualised by the leader giving people the means and ability to do the job and then holding them appropriately accountable for performance. Once this is consistently demonstrated over...

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March 2021 – Question of the Month

Question of the Month:  An employee finds out that he is earning 5% less than his peers, and assumes that the organisation and the management are unfair. This demotivates him and he considers finding another job. What should be done? Answer: This question arose in a recent Legitimate Leadership webinar – see our report on this below....

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