Joe is CEO of a mid-sized software company that sells enterprise software to financial institutions. The sales cycles are typically 18 months and there are a lot of decision makers to convince. He is one of those CEOs that staff love most of the time. He runs a good business. There is a pace to it. The financials are always produced on the seventh day of the month. Products are always shipped four weeks after the product software goes to the quality assurance department. Joe is a doer and he expects others to do what they say they will do.

I’ve been at quite a few talks on Leadership. You know the kind of thing – how to be a good leader, what makes a great leader, how I became a great leader etc. One thing they all have in common – as with much of the literature on leadership – is that they examine leadership from the point of view of the leader – rather than the led.

Every startup founder knows that the greatest challenge they face is to deliver products that customers want and are prepared to pay for. Discovering that group of customers is a risky business of trial and error. The timeline to find these customers is tight and runway limited.

Enterprise Ireland in partnership with Select Strategies is delighted to announce the launch of a new initiative, SPRINT, to help founders address this challenge.

You know the management meeting. Some helpful 'process-o-crat' suggests - 'we should introduce a performance appraisal system'. Even as I write the words, I start to get a pain in my gut. They don't work. They create frustration. No good comes from the paperwork they create. The processes they create block honest day-to-day feedback conversations. They focus on weaknesses too much.

We recently published an article on how planning a new market entry can help avoid a Waterloo. In the article we talked about the battlegrounds a CEO needs to consider when approaching a new market. There are myriad questions which need answers when you are planning a new market entry - yet in our experience there is often a common bias at play, which may lead to poor decision making.

We’ve all heard the jokes about the number of (insert relevant profession) it takes to change a lightbulb. But recently I witnessed an exercise that got me thinking – when we ask groups of people to work together effectively, do we give enough thought as to how that group will make a decision?

Declan Kidney knows that professional sports team management is brutish. Wins are quickly forgotten and sentiment turns quickly toxic when results don't meet expectations. Most leaders performance evaluation is conducted in private. Not so for a professional coach, even a Monday morning pundit (like myself) feels we have a right to review the coaches performance.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, is famously critical of the workplace with his cynical cartoons. He entertains millions with his experiences of jargon-filled corporate speak and the lack of emotionally honest messages.

Last week, I met famed leadership expert Gareth Jones (author of Why Should Anybody be Led by You?). Jones speaks about large companies and draws lessons from great leaders like Mandela and Branson. It got me thinking - how would his lessons apply to startups?

The phrase 'the elephant in the room' is often used yet it's impact is less frequently talked about. Sure we can all play along acknowledging the 'elephant' but not discussing it. However I wonder what impact this elephant ignoring has on growing companies?