Headed by Greg Pritchard, Executive Business Coach, Leadership Trainer & Mentor, Speaker, Author and Social Scientist, LEAD N EDGE consulting is where practical experience meets human insight. As the Managing Director, Greg has led big teams, big projects, and big ideas but as a social scientist – it is the role that people play in their own success is where he seeks to focus to increase their success.
Established in 2012, LEAD N EDGE has been engaging with leaders in business by teaching the behaviors that create success. Manager HR Magazine named LEAD N EDGE Consulting in the Top 20 Leadership Development Training / Coaching Companies in APAC – 2022. Besides, Greg has won multiple awards as a Director Consultant in Business Network International (BNI) and within Australian Government agencies.
He is always expanding a positive and powerful influence. People are constantly amazed by his ability to think on multiple levels on any topic. In over 28 years as an executive leader, Greg has experienced the successes and challenges of managing people, implementing change, and delivering results. He has led thousands of people through large restructuring and business transformation projects.
Greg says, “I have worked with government agencies, small and medium businesses, international fisheries, hospital and medical services, and other domestic and international organizations. I have contributed by being in person in 5 different countries. I have also contributed to a body of work including leadership behavioral training, social and emotional intelligence in leadership, growth, exit, succession, and business coaching to bring focus to strategy, goals, and profitable work, and facilitation of business processes to support change in strategies.”
Journey of a Business Leader
Greg’s early leadership roles were in sports and youth clubs. Before leading and training in a workplace, he was a sports captain and sports coach. Through sports, Greg learned that people will be remembered as leaders for how they show up. The same is true in business leadership where Greg became less focused on learning new material once he was satisfied that he had a unique and practical skillset that enabled him to engage any leader or business owner.
Greg believes titles mean less than relationships, followership, and team results. He claims, “When you achieve with others, relationships are built on purpose and for a purpose. Those insights apply to business and leadership as well.” Greg has worked in government and for many private business clients. The earliest business leadership challenges were about taking teams through organizational change, aligning leadership training and leadership expectations to prevailing challenges, and establishing new teams with a new purpose.
“Leadership is engaged action – you get the response you deserve. If leaders are not prepared to work for the future of their organization (and for results for customers), they should get out of the way and let someone else lead. Staff and customers deserve the best leader their organization can get for them – leaders owe it to everyone to get better,” Greg opines.
Uniqueness is What Makes You Special
After 28 years in executive leadership, Greg reflected on what he had done and whom he had helped. Greg counted over forty managers he felt he had directly influenced. Greg believed they were better, higher-paid managers/leaders – partly because of what they all had done together, and there were many more he had influenced positively. He has brought that perspective to LEAD N EDGE.
Greg says, “I had partnered on projects with some leaders and consultants who had stretched my thinking too and completed leadership and management assignments in property, leadership training, corporate services, program management, compliance, fraud, business process and organizational redesign, emergency management, and others.”
Greg learned that while getting results is essential, so is building relationships everywhere – because the perception of a result is as important as the result itself. When you positively influence people, you also influence politics, corporate memory, and opportunity.
Conquering all the Challenges
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. Greg says, “The solutions clients seek often fail to recognize the role the clients themselves play in their challenges. So, program design and how / when to challenge leaders and business owners should be powerful, and timing is important. Mostly, I ask the most challenging questions after we have built some connection or relationship. A successful relationship can survive the truth.”
Greg adds, “I take care to remember that the client is the expert in their own life. My expertise is in viewing their life and leadership differently and sharing insights or questions that might take their breath and change their thinking at first. Strategically sharing experiences about what fires the passion, thinking, or courage in others can open-up other possibilities for some.”
Understanding Your Clients
The key tools of inquiry for LEAD N EDGE are the Business Model Canvas, a selection of behavioral profiles, and a commitment to deep connection. When they connect with clients on purpose, they uncover what is most important to them and what they are prepared to do (and not prepared to do) to achieve their desired results.
Greg says, “People at LEAD N EDGE believe Clients are not invested just because they pay a fee; clients are invested only when they contribute to the outcomes. So, the aim is for them to love the goals, the journey’s challenge, and that they can celebrate results with their teams, and even their customers.”
The whole LEAD N EDGE team seeks agreement on outcomes, agreement on process, and agreement to be flexible enough to respond to what arises within the engagement. They use over thirty established programs, then modify them to suit client needs. Program sources include Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ), Institute for Social + Emotional Intelligence (ISEI), the Center for Executive Coaching, and many others.
21st Century Leadership Thinking
When it comes to designing and training, the LEAD N EDGE team asks for or uncovers the skills/capabilities/behaviors that need to be developed for the challenging future ahead. Executive leaders today have different challenges from 20th Century leaders and managers.
New behavioral requirements (including cross-generational challenges) mean deepening their understanding of social structures is essential to drive future action. Diversity changes workplace conversations.
“We focus on leadership behaviors, social + emotional intelligence, conversational intelligence, and the team skills of leading change. Behavior, connection, and insight+adaptability will be the coaches of future relationships, while risk, technology, and inclusion will compete on the pathways. What goes wrong will limit acceptance of what is right.” Greg adds.
Current working Involvements
Greg is currently involved in cooperative agreements with Australian and overseas training/coaching partners while working with other private clients in Australia for results like business growth, exit and succession, leadership development, and business coaching. In the coming year, Greg is expecting more leadership training engagements.
Greg says, “I am a Director Consultant in Brisbane Central for 3 Business Network International (BNI) Chapters and a member of the Worldwide Director Consultant Chapter that has membership across 6 continents. One power group we are developing has a membership of seven coaches in seven countries. We plan to develop more ways to cooperate and extend our reach and results.”
Most Successful Projects as a Facilitator
Greg has always enjoyed working in partnership with other talented people. He mentioned three of his projects: a) the restructuring of the service delivery arm of an Australian government agency; b) the examination of fraud risks and control structures in sickness / medical insurance in China; and c) working with the National Fishing Authority of Papua New Guinea to increase the capability of staff and ultimately revenue.
He shares, “In the PNG project, my task was to train and coach leaders while the principal project leader, Glenn Hurry of MRAG Asia Pacific, brokered new financial arrangements through international fishing agreements – a substantial benefit to the PNG government.”
Developing partnerships with other training and coaching development organizations is how they do business. LEAD N EDGE Consulting regularly partners with others to leverage capacity and skill sets for clients.
He further adds, “Well-designed training also gathers feedback on whether the training met the needs of the group being trained, but there are other observable in-training moments: engagement through questions; body language of participants; and something I have heard called ‘the eyebrow test.’ When leaders and managers hear something for the first time, they are not only lifting their heads and then writing things down but also lifting their eyebrows and asking even more questions. Feedback at the end of a program is useful, but feedback during the program – especially engaged eyebrows tell you about the training experience and the impact you are having.”
Milestones as a Leadership Trainer
In Greg’s earlier years as a trainer, he was thinking about the content he was teaching, not content with the thinking he could be influencing. Greg tended to modify a course based on the previous group feedback rather than changing the experience for the new group as he responded to the group dynamics. Now Greg is more in the room and less in the content – he engages more, their team does more activities, and it is more about the attendees and their experience.
Greg says, “The decision to become a coach was a milestone in itself – it was not my plan; it was suggested by leaders I had worked with who recognized the value in the mentoring work I was doing. I was a leader who was a mentor, and meeting coaches whose expertise was coaching, not leading, was interesting. I had to understand my place. When I heard Malcolm Gladwell’s definition of expertise 10,000 hours + of practice, I finally realized where I should niche – leadership behavior, change leadership, EQ, and other areas of my business expertise.”
He adds, “I do not expect to be offered work as a coach. I wish to be offered work because I can help solve business and leadership problems and have rich leadership experience. Now that I have 10,000+ hours running a coaching business, that hasn’t changed my view – I am a practical leader who can teach, coach, and model behavior. I will be hired for my lived leadership experience and the insights that might bring, not just because I can coach or train, it’s because that is how I like it.”
A Workday in the Life of a Leader
Greg does not work traditionally at all. He programs three full days and three half days weekly, although he has international connections – which means he might take meetings at strange hours once or twice a week. Greg’s typical day at work begins at 5:00 am, and he rarely works after 5:00 pm (apart from the meetings at strange hours).
Greg says, “I do my best work in the morning when I am fresh and usually go to bed early. I take a 1-2 hours break on my full business days. One of the benefits of collaborating with partners and support staff in other parts of the world is that I can plan my time – including 8-9 hours of sleep most days and breaks for other planned activities. I schedule time (where I can) to complete work or review the work of others.”
He adds, “Mostly, I have limited a former tendency to overthink, overdesign and overextend myself in getting something right. The perfectionist trap can be limiting – I now like ‘excellent,’ and I know ‘really good’ more than meets most expectations. I am making them meet my expectations too.”
Leaders and coaches can create a lot of work for others too. Greg is conscious of that and plans to reduce the pressure on himself and others by being attuned to the impact Vs. the value of what he asks for. Mostly though, getting started early and planning effort opens- up time for new opportunities – he still plans to get better at that.
Advice for Other Business Executives
Words are powerful; they can prime others to trust and be inspired or hurt or damage a relationship. Human interaction does not require hierarchy. It requires engagement – that always means partnering is preferable to punishing, cooperation is preferable to coercion, and alignment is preferable to disagreement.
Greg’s advice, “Purpose and accountability can be revealed through conversation and facilitation. The executives who can engage, consult, and motivate in a multi-generational, diverse workplace can still expect behavioral standards – staff and customers deserve standards.”
“Belonging is important when we do not belong or believe, we leave – that is true of both staff and customers. Build a safe, exacting standards environment where staff and customers thrive,” Greg concludes.
For More Info: https://www.leadnedge.com.au/