What we do

Leadership support

You need to be a credible leader for people to follow you. This is different to being authentic and more than just being trustworthy.

Becoming a
credible leader

Every leader wants people who will follow them and seamlessly perform the necessary tasks needed to succeed. But no matter how hard they try, most leaders struggle to get their teams to do what they want.

In a post-pandemic world where people are working from anywhere, the roles of communication and community—two areas that are chiefly built on trust—have never been so important.

What does a lack of credibility look like?

People are disconnected from the organisation and they don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. There is a lack of clarity about why things are happening and there isn’t anything that outlines what the organisation as a whole is trying to achieve.

There is disengagement across the organsiation seen in low engagement scores. Trust, transparency and reliability are all missing and it's leading to people feeling disengaged and in some cases, actively working against the organisation.

Apathy or stagnation are all signs that people are lacking inspiration. Being able to lead means being able to communicate well and with passion for the future. As a leader, your ability to move others is key to the sustainable success of the organisation.

Common problems in leadership

If people aren’t following you and you aren’t working as a team, it’s team to look a little deeper into leadership alignment and we have a variety of ways we can help.

A new CEO, Chairman or MD

When you're new to an organisation you'll need to establish credibility quickly. For some stakeholders this will be about demonstrating capability, for others empathy and integrity will be more important. Take the time to invest in listening and aligning your words and behaviours.

Merging of leadership teams

When organisations come together in mergers or acquisitions there will be tension. We have to understand, roles and responsibilities and where strengths and weaknesses are to keep things moving. This is uncomfortable but it’s important to blend group coaching and 1:1 coaching here to get this right.

Rapid growth from a start up

When you grow quickly you often focus on the processes needed but you can often ignore the relationship aspects of growth. Relationships include the culture and the communication and this needs attention before things get too chaotic when there is so much pace.

Lack of trust in the leader

The weight of trust is heavy for a leader. When people say the trust is missing, we need to explore if it can be rebuilt and why it has gone in the first place. Getting underneath the root cause of trust breakdown is important to fix the right things.

Being unprepared for change

Getting people ready for change is always better than change that happens as a surprise. If you know it’s coming, prepare the team with skills around understanding people, what they need to feel comfortable with organisational change and how to communicate effectively.

People aren’t listening or following

People won’t follow leaders they don’t believe. And they will only believe people they perceive as credible. There are eight traits that make you credible as a leader and practical ways to build them all so people will follow you.

The Field Model – Organisational Change

We had been through rapid growth, and I wanted to explore how we could make sure our people were with us on the journey. We went through The Field Model™ and – while there were uncomfortable conversations – Jenni always put the team at ease and helped us work through the plan to change. Jenni enabled me to reposition and understand where we needed to go. She enabled me to gain greater clarity between employees and the business.

Workshop

The workshops provoked conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise and helped us look at things from a different perspective. The workshops for our leadership team were very engaging and Jenni has been our go-to for helping us tackle internal communication issues and challenges. She’s challenging in all the right ways.

Leadership Alignment Tool

Our communication, culture, team and dare I say leadership has all vastly improved. I have learned a lot and not just about communication but, from lots of different perspectives. On a personal level you have helped me become more direct and clear with both my leadership style and my communication.

Our happy clients

We have worked with nearly 100 organisations around the world. From San Francisco to Morocco to London and the rest of the UK, we have supported organisations in defence, public sector, charity, technology, finance and more. We have implemented The Field Model around the world, run online and in-person events and supported projects to improve engagement and organisational change.

FAQ on leadership

I’m a business owner / leader – what do I need to focus on with regards to communication?

Leadership isn’t easy. There’s a huge amount of pressure on leaders to understand the complexity of their industry and organisation, lead projects, grow the business, as well as recognise team dynamics and nurture relationships.

When chaos hits the leadership team it can have a huge impact on the whole organisation. Chaos related to leadership can result from a lack of alignment with organisational goals, inability to make decisions, absence of leadership skills or egos that prevent progress. If you’re looking for additional support, there are some resources and links that may help you below.

How do I become a leader people will follow?

You have to focus on your credibility and the eight skills linked to this. This is around building your skills and strategies around empathy, having a vision, capability and integrity to name a few of them.
You’ll need to be more intentional in how you communicate and engage with others and invest in yourself and your development to grow in these areas. Drop us an email if you’d like to explore more as Jenni can share her research in this area and do some 1:1 consultancy with you too.

Why is it so important to develop communication skills?

Communication is so important in building and maintaining excellent relationships at work. Do you understand your communication style? And do you know how you impact others? These questions are so important to answer to make sure you communicate effectively. If you’d like to improve your communication skills, we create and deliver bespoke communication workshops for teams to help you to adapt your communication style to influence others and use the right communication methods to achieve the outcomes you want.

What are the eight traits of credibility?

From our research we have identified these eight traits as the skills to build to improve credibility: Capable, likeable, empathetic, integrity, supportive, trustworthy, visionary, vulnerable. When one of these is missing there is an impact on the individual and the organization. You’ll need to delve into different ones more at different times and with different individuals or groups.