Ger – Page 5 – A musing Mulcahy

Why it’s important not to be defensive when we’re wrong

We’ve all experienced that horrible, sinking feeling of realisation that something we thought was okay turns out to be far from it. In our personal and professional lives, we all make mistakes in word and action. When we identify the error (or have it pointed out to us), our default response is often to justify our position. Here’s why that happens and why it is important to resist that defensive urge.

Why your mood matters when you’re a manager

We all have good days and bad days. At the moment, living with Covid-related lockdowns, many of us are struggling with “meh” or “groundhog days”. The lack of novelty and stimulation seems to make days run together, and we can feel anxious, down or even depressed as a result. When we are responsible for managing people, however, whether in teams or larger groups, how we process these feelings can be highly impactful.

What style of leader are you?

I was lucky enough in the past few weeks to have had an invitation to the Irish Management Institute’s virtual presentation with Jacob Morgan. He was speaking about his book “The Future Leader”, in which he describes four leadership types and five key behaviours. During the talk, I was reminded of a conversation I have had with a friend many times about leadership styles, particularly that of the Sherpa.

Dealing with the unpleasant gracefully

There’s a creature-wrangler in every home. Depending on the part of the world you live in, the creatures in question might range from the small to very large, the innocuous to the life-threatening. I’m the designated spider-evictor/creature-wrangler in my house. Despite my best intentions, I don’t always do the job with good grace.

The importance of psychological safety

From a team perspective, psychological safety is the bedrock that team success is built on. Successful interpersonal relationships depend on it. In highly functioning teams it often doesn’t get a mention. Safety is one of those things not always noticed when present but is conspicuous by its absence. What follows are some suggestions on how to make your team feel safe enough to tell you things you don’t want to hear.

On Inspiration

I’ve been thinking about sources of inspiration a lot lately. I’ve recently written about the decline in my writing, an ironic thing to write 🙂 I’ve also had a few encounters with people where I have inspired if not them, then at least their short term thinking. Those events, and some recent challenges, led me to think of the sources of inspiration.

On Feeling Stuck

There’s a feeling I get sometimes. It’s a stressful, sometimes even anxious feeling. And it comes from feeling stuck, creatively or practically. Having come back from a week’s vacation, I should have been feeling energised, but instead, I had a feeling of a significant loss of traction, and it took me a little while to figure out why.