Show up like a kid peeking over the fence. Better to live on your toes than stumble back on your heels. Successful leaders are prepared for action. They show up READY.Three ways to be ready to lead: #1. Ready to say YES: Consistent results require stable environments. ‘No’ protects the status quo;...
Every week brings more reminders of how unique and challenging a time we are living in. How and when will things stabilize? It’s becoming harder to know which indicators to trust. Momentum around the vaccines has been met with increasing concern over Delta and now Omicron. Lately, it’s a tough...
With the new evolving landscape, it is more important than ever to be a good leader to retain employees and keep them happy. With the new year coming sooner than later, now is a great time to consider additional steps that you can take to improve your leadership skills. That said, according to the...
Encourage people to speak with trusted peers, check in on them, and approve their solutions to stave off burnout. With the Covid-19 pandemic poised to begin its third year, business leaders face a host of significant challenges. Among the most significant is that in many industries demand exceeds...
It wasn’t my first difficult conversation as a manager, but it was one of the toughest. At the time, I was working as a consultant on a program for a large, household-name company. The team I led consisted of project managers who oversaw lots of data specialists and other technical types, all...
For a leader who develops leaders, there is something scarcer and much more important than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. One of the primary responsibilities of any successful leader is to identify potential leaders. So, how do you do it? How do you identify good potential...
In the best of times, leading and managing is hard work. After all, people are complicated, our business challenges are increasingly complex, and anyone called upon to regularly make tough decisions is bound to feel the strain. In this era, the demands are unceasing -- ripple effects of this...
Leadership is a complex endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. We often tend to make things more complicated than they need to be, and that’s true in the field of leadership. To prove my point, go to Amazon.com and search their book listings for the word “leadership” and see how many...
A coaching client said, “I need to think of myself as the mini-ceo.” He and his team manage a $2 billion year over year growth plan. You don’t want to walk around like the CEO when you aren’t, but the term ‘mini’ doesn’t float my boat. Stop acting like a blind mouse in a room full of cats. How to...
#1. I should have. ‘Should have’ is backward facing. Do your best to speak into the future. Instead of should-ing yourself, say, “Next time.” #2. You should have. Why didn’t you? See #1. ‘Next time’ is better than ‘last time’. #3. What can we do about that? “‘We’ is a tiny act of cowardice that...
Leadership is hard, demanding work. It’s also one of the most rewarding ways to spend your career. It would be nice if leading well was as easy as it is rewarding. It’s not. It would be nice if leadership was easy. If leadership was easy, more teams would be more effective. More people would enjoy...
The best benefit of effective coaching is improved employee engagement. The pillar of every successful business is happy employees, and effective coaching is a crucial ingredient to satisfied employees. Effective coaching leads to improved performance, knowledge transfer, skill improvement, and...