Michael Jenkins

International leadership expert Michael Jenkins shines a light on the adverse effects of dysfunctional and toxic boards and how they have the potential to destroy an organisation’s culture. This can happen through erosion of brand value leading to talent attrition and increased mental health issues in employees due to a deterioration in trust and psychological safety. Combined with recent fundamental changes in the labour market and demographic changes in the workforce, there is a potent cocktail of Future of Work issues that will not go away. Enlightened leaders must tackle such issues head-on if they are to steward sustainable and responsible organisations and businesses. Based on extensive research, including interviews with board members from around the world, together with one-to-one interviews with leaders from the VAB (Virtual Advisory Board) network, Toxic Humans: Combatting Poisonous Leadership in Boards and Organisations outlines various experiences of toxic leadership and how successful directors managed to work with and through it. These interviews shape the final sections of the book where the reader is given a set of recommendations for action to help mitigate and manage the effect of toxic leadership – at the Board, senior leader and team levels - and to build a positive and productive workplace where all can flourish.

Expert Humans: Critical Leadership Skills for a Disrupted World examines the critical leadership concepts of Altruism, Compassion and Empathy (ACE) and their application to the great disruptors of today: sustainability, global health, inequality, digital transformation and erosion of trust - from social, historical and psychological perspectives - to support the development of more human workplaces and a better world. The book investigates these ACE behaviours and attributes in depth to show how they can strengthen existing leadership capability. With more ACE leaders in the field the challenges of our disrupted world can be better addressed, and by so doing, create more human workplaces and a more humane society for now and for the future. Drawing on data from the social sciences, close human observation, stories of working people and mini-case studies from around the world - Expert Humans encourages the reader to adopt a more human - and effective - way of living, working and being. This book is intended as a gentle provocation to leaders of small, medium and large organisations, as well as to human resources and organisational development professionals - to help change the nature of what it takes to be a leader, for good.

Who's ready to smirk insignificantly? Michael has put together a collection of 58 (count 'em--58 ) comedy essays that is almost (but not quite) guaranteed to make you kind of grin maybe. Included in this collection are such titles as, "The Unappreciated, Aspiring Author Files an Auto Insurance Claim," as well as the ever-tantalizing, "This Condolence Card Should Add Just the Right Amount of Sexual Tension." Are you intrigued? Would you like to read more? No? Well, let me sweeten the pot a bit: also included in this collection are celebrity interviews conducted and concocted by the author himself. This is not a comedy book you won't want to pass up until you do

In 1951 Michael Jenkins, then 14 years old, spent the summer with 'the aunts in Flanders'. His 'aunts' were a group of elderly women whose connection to his family had never been explained but they immediately embraced him and he quickly became entwined in the lives of an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins. The warmth of their life awakes Michael to the complicated world of relationships as he falls in love for the first time. Michael Jenkins's vivid memoir of a summer that changed his life has become a much-loved classic, with its evocative portraits of his aunts, the raw memories of two world wars that still scar the Flanders plain and Michael's unraveling of the secret at the heart of this family.