Henley Blogs

A collective and dynamic view on leadership

Ana Margarida Graça – Lecturer in Leadership A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle Japanese proverb The England football team during the World Cup 2018, Thailand’s cave rescue or the UK parliament during Brexit negotiations are all recent examples on the importance of teamwork. To some of these teams, coordination…

Why not me? Reflections on Workplace Envy

By Dr Amal Ahmadi “Who’s living the best life” I was watching an episode of “Friends from College”, where a close-knit group of friends reconnects twenty years after graduation. The episode unravels how excitement over the reunion quickly turns into envy and distress as the friends begin to brag and talk over each other to…

The Placement Journey of a Sceptic Student…

I was one of those people that signed up for the four year Business Management degree instead of the three year course with the idea of “changing my mind” at some point. The thought of taking a break from university for a year sounded, in my head, like a sort of gap year. I didn’t…

International Women’s Day

With International Women’s Day fast approaching, on the 8th March, I felt it would be important to reflect on the importance of this day and the women who inspired it. Below, are just a small number of women who have inspired me and continue to do so: Queen Elizabeth II After inheriting the throne at…

How Henley has opened doors for me

After finishing my undergraduate studies, I was left with two options, to go back home and find a job or to stay in the UK and continue my studies. With no jobs secured, I was left stranded with just a degree certificate in hand, an offer to do a Masters course, and a decision to…

How to lead in a Crisis

My work with the Royal Marines concludes that it’s irrational to expect people to perform effectively in a crisis if you’ve never trained them on their roles, responsibilities, and resources. Wise CSOs borrow a technique from the army and pre-emptively employ guided practice sessions to prepare their staff, superiors, and stakeholders on who does what,…

From sketchy to sketcher

Every day while reading the morning newspaper, I’m always intrigued by the daily cartoon jokes in them and wonder whether I would be able to draw any of it myself. That is until today when I attended an event delivered by Graham Shaw at a careers event. After the two hour workshop, I was astonished…

Is diversity just a buzzword?

We all bring rich dimensions of diversity to an organisation where we work or study at, such as our backgrounds, life experiences, our individual, religious and cultural differences, the languages we speak as mother tongue, our visual identity and other aspects. It seems that in recent years diversity became a popular concept, gaining importance in…

The need for a new type of manager

According to the annual statistics of the Health and Safety Executive, 595,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2017/18. 57% of all working days lost due to ill health were due to stress, depression or anxiety. That is a staggering 15.4 million working days lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety…

Happy New Year

Of course, it is at this time that many people are re-inventing themselves. Whether that is to further their career in 2019, to be more personally disciplined in some way, such as eating or keeping fit, or meeting some long-held social conscious ambition, such as volunteering. The New Year is a great time for turning…