Welcome to the latest edition of David Fraser’s newsletter.

Every few months, we share upcoming events, recent thinking, practical frameworks and content related to leadership, organisational effectiveness and navigating complexity.

It’s another way to share useful ideas and observations drawn from his work with leaders and organisations across a range of different contexts.

We hope you enjoy reading and do let us know if there’s anything you would like us to explore in future editions.

What’s on?

We are delighted to be running two events in November, each with two sessions available.

These practical online events will focus on the real challenges leaders face, offering advice that you can begin to put into action straight away.

Too Close to See It: Keeping Perspective When You Lead the Whole Business

Friday 27th November 9:30am | Monday 30th November 2:30m

Leading a whole organisation comes with a lot of weight. Long-standing relationships can affect how your staff communicate with you, often telling you what they think you want to hear as opposed to the full truth.

For a lot of business leaders, losing perspective from time to time is par for the course. The difficulty is noticing when it’s happening and finding someone to talk it through with who has no stake in the outcome.

This session is specifically designed for leaders; Owner-managers, managing directors, chief executives and general managers of SMEs and non-profit organisations.

These sessions are free to attend, but registration is required. 

Turning strategy into progress

Throughout his career, David has seen how organisations can struggle to make progress when they’re trying to deliver too many initiatives at once.

We worked with a large academic institution facing this very challenge, helping one of its schools introduce a more structured approach to managing its strategic priorities.

By bringing greater focus to where time and effort were spent, the institution was able to make faster progress. Alongside ongoing leadership and strategy development, this helped it substantially increase its research income and collaboration with industry.

How effectively is your organisation turning its strategy into action?

The Mastery of Leadership

We have always believed that being a great leader of other people starts with learning to lead yourself well.

It’s a principle David explores in his book, The Mastery of Leadership: Presence and Practice in Transformational Change.

Drawing on his experience working with leaders across different organisations, David shares practical insights into handling uncertainty, influencing others and bringing out the best in people.

If you’re looking to develop your own leadership abilities, you may find it a useful read.

Managers are chosen. Leaders emerge.

Throughout his career, David has seen that giving someone a management position doesn’t automatically make them an effective leader.

Leadership develops through experience, self-awareness and the ability to build relationships that encourage others to contribute and take responsibility.

A core part of David’s work is helping people develop these abilities, so they can lead with greater confidence and help their organisations make meaningful progress.

That’s all for this edition. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this update and do keep an eye out for our next update.

If you have any comments or questions, do send them over.