As you change, evolve and grow, you are faced with choices to make every step of the way. As a business leader, you would recognize that there is a lot of intelligence in your team. So how do you to tap into that collective genius? Carol Talbot says that the journey starts with “you”. And as a leader, you lead by example so that you can be the catalyst to the team. In this podcast, she talks about the necessary steps and skills that leaders should display – including communication, creating a culture of openness and creativity.  All of which are crucial to build the necessary trust in any leader.

A key quality of a leader is to recognize what your team does well as opposed to the conventional focus on what they don’t do well. She discusses the importance of learning through –reading, conferences, online learning and videos, other than traditional training. She also highlights the necessity of a ‘feedback sandwich’ as a method to help others to learn and grow. There are a number of techniques including visualization tools and music which can supplement motivation and encouragement of learning and the choice is identify what works when in your business.

Carol tackles the business context of SMEs and suggests ways of encouraging the learning process so that learning is not seen as a punishment but is perceived as a reward. The podcast also touches on how to measure the impact.