McQueen Education Training & Coaching

🐾 Happy National Pet Day! 🐾

This is Freddie, my miniature Labradoodle. He is never far from me, but this week, he hasn’t left my side despite being unable to go for his daily walks due to a fall I had at the weekend.

So, today, as we celebrate our furry or feathery friends who bring so much joy and love into our lives, it got me thinking about the valuable leadership lessons we can learn from dogs:

🐾 Loyalty: Dogs are renowned for their loyalty to their owners. As leaders, building trust and loyalty within our teams is essential. When team members feel valued and supported, they're more likely to remain committed and dedicated to the organisation's goals.

🐾 Communication: Dogs communicate primarily through body language and vocalisations. Similarly, effective leaders must be skilled communicators who can clearly convey their vision, expectations, and feedback to their team members. Open and transparent communication fosters trust and collaboration within a team.

🐾 Adaptability: Dogs are incredibly adaptable creatures who adjust to different environments and situations. In leadership, being adaptable is key to navigating challenges and changes effectively. Leaders who are flexible and adapt their strategies in response to evolving circumstances inspire confidence and resilience in their teams.

🐾 Empathy: Dogs are known for their ability to sense and respond to human emotions. Freddie knows I’m in pain and is cuddling up to me more than usual this week. Likewise, great leaders demonstrate empathy and compassion towards their team members. Understanding the needs and concerns of others fosters a supportive and inclusive work environment where individuals feel valued and understood.

🐾 Teamwork: Dogs are pack animals, instinctively working together to achieve common goals. In leadership, fostering a sense of teamwork and collaboration is vital for driving success. Leaders who encourage cooperation and mutual support among team members can achieve remarkable results and overcome obstacles more effectively.

On this National Pet Day, let's celebrate our pets' love and companionship and reflect on the valuable leadership lessons they can teach us. Whether it's loyalty, communication, adaptability, empathy, or teamwork, there's much we can learn from our beloved four-legged friends.
🐶💼 🐾

To celebrate neurodiversity week, 18 – 24 March, I am offering three free one-hour coaching sessions.

If you have a neurodiverse condition and feel you would benefit from coaching to support you in the workplace, please DM me.

Have you set any New Year resolutions for 2024?

At any time of the year, it is always good to set goals; however, for some reason, we all tend to set our new year resolutions based on what we think we should do rather than what we want to do.

Last year, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to spend more time on social media to raise my profile; my goal was to post every day and, at a bare minimum, at least three times a week. I managed to post three times a week for six months, which was an achievement, then s**t happened, and I re-evaluated what really mattered to me, what I wanted to spend my time on – and it wasn’t social media!

So, whilst I am back posting on here, it’s because I want to say or share something with my network that I think might be helpful to someone.

To be successful at any change, you need to want it. Unless you take the time to consider what you want, you could make a resolution that you are not entirely committed to. Being realistic is something that I tell my clients every day, yet I was not realistic; posting every day or even three times a week was aiming too high for me.

So, in 2024, I will spend more time doing what I love and want to do.

What do you want to do in 2024?

After six months of not posting, I’m back!

New Year
New Beginnings
New Brand
New Me

Personal Branding with McQueen Etc 📚📸

A little taster of my new brand photos by Lucy Rebecca Photography

Good morning!

Each week I share a . This week is about feeling less ambitious.

You think of yourself as a high achiever, but lately, you haven’t felt that usual spark of ambition. Is this wrong? No, absolutely not! Here are three tactics you can use to make peace with your desire to tone it down—even if that impulse conflicts with your previous vision of yourself.

First, adopt a flexible mindset and recognise when to shift to another strategy. This could mean acknowledging that after years or decades of grinding hard at work, it may be time to reallocate energy toward a different role or your health, happiness, family, hobbies, and passions outside of work.

Next, understand that there’s no standardised timeline. Your career is a marathon; give yourself the grace to slow down sometimes, take mental breaks, and pace yourself.

Finally, figure out what you need to grow. Moving forward isn’t always getting a new job or taking on another project. Sometimes it’s about changing things up and exposing yourself to new things—a month-long trip abroad or a year of stepping back from the grind mentality and focusing on other areas of your life and well-being—that eventually lead to new and different opportunities.

DM me if you would chat about you are feeling.

Delighted to receive confirmation that I have been awarded The Chartered Manager Fellow status after over 30 years in management. I am incredibly proud of this award because it was gained while running my business and supporting the young people of Shropshire into Apprenticeships – a lifelong passion of mine. ❤

Thank you, CMI. I will display my Chartered Manager status with pride. 🏆

Chartered Manager - Fellow Chartered Manager is the highest status that can be awarded in the management and leadership profession, recognising exceptional leadership.

Good morning!

This week’s is about storytelling techniques.

In business, storytelling is a vital skill for all leaders and managers. We are all natural storytellers; we have been studying the art of storytelling all our life. Since our parents read bedtime stories to us, we read them to our children and grandchildren. So, you already know the structure, and although there is no agreed structure keeping it simple works best.

1. Have a clear structure – start, middle and end. When telling a business story, giving these three more prescriptive names is helpful, such as Context, Action, Results (CAR).
2. Choose a clear central message – a great story usually progresses towards a central moral or message. When writing your story, you should have a definite idea about what you are working towards.
3. Embrace conflict – as a storyteller, you should not avoid conflict. Great stories always have a villain, obstacle, or hardship along the way.
4. Use personal experiences – whether you are telling a personal story or not, always look to your life for inspiration and real-life experiences that you can include to make your story more authentic and engaging for the audience.
5. Narrow the scope – choosing the main key points can be hard if you tell a true story from your life. Choose a clear context (beginning) and results (end), then choose the key plot for the action (middle) of the story.
6. Finally, observe good storytellers. Your personal stories will always be unique to you, but there is no better way to learn than watching storytellers you admire relate to their own stories.

How will you use your authentic self to tell a story this month?

Every story has a main character who is the story’s hero. The most important criterion is that the hero needs to be someone the audience can identify with and see themselves in the hero’s situation.

Your hero doesn’t have to be real, but you are the most powerful character you could ever choose.