A day at a country hotel

Well, great start to the day, picked up the hire car at 8 to head towards Hintlesham Hall for my day of training. I had the route planned out in my head then heard on the radio that there was heavy traffic on the A14/A12 so I decided to go through town - usual rush hour traffic there but still making good time. Until I reached the road to Hintlesham - absolute gridlock, nothing moving in either direction for ages. I could see the sign '2 1/2 miles to Hintlesham. 10 minutes later, still 2 1/2 miles to Hintlesham. 1o minutes later we start to move - cause of delay was temporary traffic lights stuck on red in both directions! Finally arrive with about 2 minutes to spare.

Today is the start of a years course in Leadership training - the diagnostic phase, we will receive feedback on the 360 degree questionnaires that we had to coerce our bosses, peers and staff to complete for us. Two very nice facilitators take us through the day and we're all sitting round like members of Alcoholics Anonymous ...my name is and - you get the picture! We're asked to name an inspirational leader - help, my mind is blank. For once I don't speak first - need to see what other answers people will come up with - Nelson Mandela (of course), Bill Clinton (!) so far so good, then somebody came up with a woman who runs an orang utan sanctuary!!! My turn - Joanna Lumley - for all the stuff she is doing with the Gurkhas!!! But everybody seemed to agree - phew that could have gone either way!

After the niceties we get our feedback amalgamated by the computer - remember now, no right or wrong answers, no good or bad scores - just other peoples perception of you!! Scary moment - you can sort of tell who thinks what, especially as there is only one person in the boss category!! The good news is that effective leaders peak in the middle scores and the high and low scores do sort of cancel each other out bizarrely - and guess what - most of the group are in the middle range!! We have to have something to aim for though and my weakest area is restraint! Must stop wearing my heart on my sleeve - start to count to 10, articulate my feelings in a more constructive way, ie don't let people know how p****d off I am immediately!!!!! Watch out world, the new calm me will be on the loose from tomorrow - OMG that could be so hard - watch this space!