Bruce Holland
Facilitator, Wellington
Bruce comes to leadership development from training in finance and a background in business (senior roles in major corporates including Group Strategic Planning Manager at the Bank of New Zealand). As a result, he understands business and the pressures managers come under; and his approaches are based on realism and things that work.
Bruce is a licensed Herrmann Brain Dominance Index (HBDI) practitioner and uses that tool to underpin his leadership development work.
Although Bruce’s background is in business, he is naturally intuitive and has an ability to think broadly and pick out the essentials. He knows the most important thing in leadership is to understand yourself deeply. Since 1992 he has been an independent consultant working on what really matters in Authentic Leadership.
Bruce believes we all have a spark of genius, though most of us are better at putting ourselves down than letting our genius shine. Bruce works as a facilitator, helping people draw out their spark and be their most positive. He calls it 'liberating the human spirit at work'.
Bruce’s approach to Authentic Leadership is to provide an opportunity for deep reflection, self-understanding, practise and experimentation over a period of time long enough to make permanent change at a deep level. He is a strong believer in positive psychology and strength-based processes. He tries hard to create a safe learning environment that is based on trust and openness, a place where people can be themselves without fear.
Even though Bruce has studied leadership for many years, he still describes himself as a student of leadership. He thinks this is the way all leaders need to think of themselves. Ideally, they should see the Authentic Leadership Programme as a step in a lifelong journey towards mastery.
Bruce thinks individual leaders, like everyone, have their strengths and weaknesses. When developing leaders, it is far better to build on their strengths. However, leaders also need to understand their weaknesses and consciously build support systems to cover these. Bruce’s approach is to focus first on strengths.
Bruce has excellent oral and written communications skills. He communicates well with all levels of people. He always attempts to extract the essence and remove the jargon.
Qualifications and Accreditations
- Hermann Brain Dominance Index (HBDI)
- Bachelor of Commerce (Economics and Accounting)
- Associate Chartered Accountant