You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Leadership’ tag.
We are in a time of preparation before the year-end holidays.
When I was a child, I could never wait for the excitement. School holidays, new snow, Christmas gifts, meeting up with family … the anticipation was almost too much to bear!
I’ve had to learn a bit of patience. But this also applies to business and my various volunteering roles.
Read the rest of this entry »I need to ask … are you an actual human being?
A few years ago that question would have been really weird, but with the advances in AI it has become a bit more serious. But, in this case, the real question is whether you bring your humanity into your leadership.
What I’m talking about are things like:
Read the rest of this entry »I recently had a chance to talk with my friend Chris Hutchinson, who authored the book Ripple : A Field Manual for Leadership That Works.
It reminded me of how much I rely on the side-effects of actions I take in any group of people. Often I’ll be interacting with just one person, but my impact will extend to those they work with, and those THEY touch. And so on and so on.
I suppose it’s inherent in the kind of leadership coaching that I do. I almost never meet or even see my clients’ co-workers or family. Yet those people are affected by the changes my client is is making.
Read the rest of this entry »If you have a boss, then you might think that it’s best to manage the same way that they do. Consistency is good, right?
The problem is that you may not be comfortable – or most effective – adopting another person’s style. In the same way as how you developed into different directions than your siblings did, you’ll start adopting your own unique voice.
That’s a great thing, but not a carte blanche.
Read the rest of this entry »There’s an attraction to making things complicated.
I get that. It makes you feel smart and capable. You can feel pride in being the best.
But it surprises me how often it helps to go the other direction – make things as simple as they can be. This is especially true in leadership.
Read the rest of this entry »I’m an introvert, which means I’m more comfortable building energy by being alone rather than in a group.
I used to think that was a disadvantage for me being in a leadership role, or building my networks, or giving presentations. But it in fact it can give me just as many advantages.
I’ve learned how to come to peace with going out and networking. My trick is to realize that every person is someone I can learn from and has an interesting story. Which is actually true most of the time.
Read the rest of this entry »I made a mistake this week. I overloaded someone with so much information that they backed away from a project. It became just too scary for them.
It wasn’t my intention, of course. I was trying to be helpful.
So what do I learn from this situation? Well, it’s not about hiding information. It’s about communicating in layers.
Read the rest of this entry »When you’re dealing with people, things rarely go exactly to plan.
Why is that? Because we’re all imperfect and broken in our own ways. It’s one of the things about being human.
If you’re a leader, you’ve also taken on the role of organizational healer. You may not feel qualified, but this is something you can’t fully outsource.
Because it’s core to leadership.
Read the rest of this entry »There’s nothing which drives employees more nuts than being an unpredictable leader.
Careful! Predictable doesn’t mean boring. It means that your team can learn how you’ll make decisions and what is valued in the organization.
When they feel that you’re just making things up as you go along, that’s what drives them crazy.
Read the rest of this entry »I was part of a great discussion recently about the difficulty with incorporating personal values into the business.
This discussion was about incorporating Christian beliefs, but the same logic applies whenever we’re talking about something which doesn’t have a strong link to the purpose of the business itself. After all, we can agree about the need to treat customers and employees fairly – that’s just great business practice. But your personal beliefs often extend beyond that.
In addition, you might feel constrained in your authority to make decisions if you’re not the company owner. Fair enough. I have some thoughts about that at the end.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Values-Based Business 