Alan Matthews

What do I know about management and leadership?

Through several careers, I spent years struggling with the day to day challenges of being a manager and leader -trying to get people to do what I wanted, motivating and encouraging them, giving them a shove when they needed it, sorting out disputes and grievances, getting teams to work together.

I made a few mistakes along the way. There's a lot they don't tell you when you become a manager!

I worked for some excellent managers - and for a lot more poor ones. I learned from all of them and now I use that experience to train and coach people to become successful leaders themselves. I have a mission to help develop effective, ethical management practices in as many organisations as possible. There's far too much poor management out there and too many people spending their working lives unhappy and unfulfilled.

Part of my strength as a trainer and coach comes from my understanding that managing other people is a messy business. There are no clear answers, no templates, no guarantees. But some things tend to work better than others and successful leaders tend to have certain characteristics and qualities. You can learn and develop these - great leaders aren't just born that way.

What's my background? I live in Solihull in the UK. I started as a school teacher, working with 4 - 8 year olds, then I changed careers and became a Tax Inspector ( we all make mistakes ) - my first taste of being in management. Then I became a Tax Consultant with Deloitte and became a Senior Manager, then moved into training and ran their technical programmes in Corporate Tax and travelled the country giving talks on Tax Law. Eventually I moved into skills training and was responsible for developing and delivering management training programmes throughout the UK.

I left in 2003 and set up my own training and coaching business. I trained as a coach with the European Coaching Foundation and qualfied with Distinction.

I've written lots of articles, booklets, reports and white papers - you'll find some of them here or you can go to my website at http://www.manageleadsucceed.com and, while you're there, get a free copy of The Book Of 100 Management Tips.

I'm married, I love playing the guitar, walking, cooking, films. theatre, football ( that's soccer if you're from the US ).