Blaire Palmer

Blaire Palmer is at the forefront of new thinking about what it means to lead in the 21st century.

According to Blaire, most of what you’ve been told about leadership is out of date.

In her speeches and workshops she busts the myths of leadership and presents a more human, more authentic, more collaborative model of the leader of the future.

Based on 15 years of working with Boards and senior teams as a coach, Blaire shares her thought-provoking ideas with audiences, inspiring them to step up and drive change in partnership with their people.

“Blaire captivated our audience in presenting her experience and advice with regard to empowering McCormick’s staff to succeed and develop.
She was upbeat, engaging and gave us confidence that we are on the right journey with regard to diversity in our company.”
McCormick UK Ltd

As one of the youngest female producers of the BBC’s ‘Today’ programme, Blaire spent a decade breaking stories and shaping the UK news agenda before her fascination with leadership and change led her to train as one of the UK’s first corporate coaches.

Since then she’s become an authority on leadership, writing 3 successful books on the subject in the process.

As an author, Blaire’s books include:

• The Hyper-creative Personality: How to Focus Your Ideas and Become the Most Successful Person You Know.
• The Recipe for Success: What Really Successful People Do and How You Can Do it Too.
• What’s Wrong with Work: the five frustrations of work and how to fix them for good.

Blaire Palmer – Keynote Speaker:

Blaire Palmer’s interest isn’t academic. Instead, Blaire draws on her insights as a coach who has spent a decade and a half challenging, supporting and guiding leaders as they shape their company.

Her speeches give audiences unparalleled insight in to what’s happening in the most innovative boardrooms in the UK and Europe, trends she’s spotting in her work and what actually works (and doesn’t) in real businesses.

Lively, thought-provoking, witty and direct, Blaire encourages audiences to challenge everything they thought they knew about leadership.

Known for combining warmth and charm with a no nonsense, straight talking style, she inspires audiences and leadership teams alike with her fresh ideas.

• Forget everything you thought leadership was about.
• Put all the books down!
• Ignore the wise words your first boss told you a million years ago.
• The world has changed and none of it matters now.

Speaking Topics:

• Busting the Myths of Leadership:
• Change and the journey of change
• Leadership and authenticity
• Motivating yourself and others
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Trust and the search for meaning and purpose
• Breaking down hierarchy and silos
• Diversity
• Generation Y and the search for self-actualisation
• The role of “followers” in business as well as the role of “leaders”
• Trust, credibility and presence
• Breaking down hierarchy and silos

New speeches for 2017:

Blaire Palmer on Trump:

Trust in all of our major institutions – media, government and business – is in crisis.

The election of Donald Trump as President of the US, the Brexit vote, “post-fact politics” and the rise of the extreme right puts Leadership – what kind of leaders we need, what kinds of leaders we’ve got and what kind of leadership is going to get us out of this mess – in the spotlight.

Many are asking “What can we do?” beyond signing petitions, going on marches or simply switching off the news.

But for Blaire Palmer, the question is different…

“What is the responsibility of business, and business leaders, to reverse this crisis in trust?”

In her speech she describes the crisis in leadership, its causes and consequences, and points audiences towards a new approach to leadership which can begin to reverse this crisis in trust.

Her model of leadership directly opposes the style displayed by the Trumps of this world but is no less radical.

By confronting their own beliefs about their employees, their customers and the responsibility of business in the world, business leaders can play their part in mending the divisions in society, and in their own businesses.

By understanding these global trends we can learn about our own attitudes towards leadership, our role in bringing about change and what kind of leadership is going to secure the future of our businesses in such fast changing, uncertain times.

Blaire Palmer on “Teal”:

What does the organisation of the future look like? As the hierarchical organisation slowly dies, what will take its place?

Are we on the verge of a revolution as significant for how we work as the industrial revolution?

Disruptive companies – the ones that pose the biggest threat to convention big business – aren’t structured this way.

A growing movement towards self-managing, trust–based organisations is developing in big business as an attempt to organise themselves the way the funky disrupters are doing.

But changing your org structure is the easy bit.

Getting people to give up on their career ladder, the status that comes with having a big team, being the hero who solves the problems of less senior people and being responsible for your own results rather than being able to blame someone up or down the chain is tough to get your head around.

Those that resist are typically the middle managers who have the most to lose. And yet they’re also the ones who are meant to lead the change.

Having worked in numerous organisations experimenting with self-managing systems and interviewed business leaders who are operating their own self-managing organisations Blaire Palmer is one of the few experts on this topic and what it means for leadership.

To check availability and fee, or to book business speaker Blaire Palmer please contact us.