Looking busy at work
Business school researchers have identified a type of employee, who manages to look busy and successful without actually doing anything useful. You know the one, who talks a big talk at meetings but when it comes to implementation, they are nowhere to be seen. Turns...
Stressing the obvious
In Mental Health Week, we were yet again lamenting the levels of stress, rampant in the UK. The loss to individuals of quality of life, to businesses of skilled talent, through poor functioning presenteeism, or sickness absence and to our economy as a whole, is...
Don’t stand so close to me…
No, not the song by The Police, but the joys of commuting. Averil looks at the psychology of being squashed in a light hearted way on BBC Radio Scotland.
Women in the press . . .
Only last week I brought to the office an article written in the ‘80s about serious work with stressed execs in the public sector. My colleague and I were referred to as ‘executive sweets’. How attractive we were mattered more than our professionalism. The editor of...
Bringing in the bacon and bringing up baby
I answered the home phone and was asked if the caller could speak to the main breadwinner. I expressed some irritation and declined the conversation. Partly I wasn’t entirely sure who was and I certainly wasn’t content to hand over to my husband, if I worked it out to...
Happy International Women’s Day 2017 – Be Bold for Change!
Happy International Women’s Day! The theme for this year is Be Bold For Change. In Averil’s video below, she points out three critical actions you can start implementing today to foster change and have an impact in both your own life and wider society. What...
Nominate! Male Leadership research
New research from White Water Group in association with NatWest Markets, seeks to learn about good male leaders. Those leaders who succeed in these turbulent, diverse and more complex times, who are inclusive in their approach and are role models for younger men and...
Negotiation Skills: natural or learnt?
Negotiating is an essential life skill that we are not always explicitly taught. What are the key secrets of good negotiators? Averil Leimon, Leadership Psychologist and Director of White Water Group, discussed it all with Stephen Jardine on BBC Radio Scotland –...
Straight Talking can be for Good News too
Being a straight talker doesn’t mean that you have to be critical or offensive. We avoid not only confrontation but the good stuff too, suspicious of positive comments as just being a softener before the negative! If you take the opportunity to praise others in a...
Political correctness v. unconscious bias
In the increasingly fractious debate of what constitutes acceptable public speech, organisation err towards bland caution, for fear of unleashing a twitter storm damageable to their reputation. Yet the same organisations routinely reinforce the use of expressions that...