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Leadership can certainly feel lonely at times.
A lot of that feeling comes from a belief that you’re not supposed to show weakness, doubt, or failure. You’re the strongest person in the entire organization, right?
But this leads to isolation.
Read the rest of this entry »There are some amazing leaders out there who we admire and even envy.
Here’s the problem: they’re not you. And if you tried to be them, you might totally fail. Or even hate yourself for trying.
How do we deal with this apparent contradiction?
Read the rest of this entry »We’ve all been there, the greatest embarrassments of our careers.
The hard part is being really honest with yourself, as you probably saw the failure coming and just hoped that you’d be able to find your away around it.
Jim Collins articulated this idea well in Good to Great:
Read the rest of this entry »Do you have periodic one-on-one meetings with each of your employees?
I would imagine we all INTEND to do that, but … things get busy. It’s not critical. So these powerful conversations get delayed.
I’d say you don’t realize just how amazing these kinds of meetings can be. What’s the point?
Well, primarily you’re:
Read the rest of this entry »There’s a powerful concept in the field of coaching called co-creation.
It’s also useful in the world of leadership because it says so much about aligning teams and engendering buy-in.
The traditional view of leadership is that the leader is the one who tells people what to do. If you have any significant experience at all, you know that this definition doesn’t hold water. Why? Because if you respect peoples’ humanity, you have to give them the ability to make their own decisions.
Read the rest of this entry »A leader’s primary reason for being is to instill hope.
Think about it: Why would an employee want to work for you? Because they hope for a stable life and valuable work, with people who make it interesting.
Why would a customer want to buy from you? Because they hope you’ll fix their problem or address a need they have.
Read the rest of this entry »Your relationships are built on single acts. Your organization’s culture is one conversation at a time.
It’s about the cumulative effect of many comments and actions. Each on its own may not feel that important by itself, but impressions are made by the totality.
That said, we all remember actions and discussions which had an immediate and lasting impact. I remember the time I told my boss that I would rather quit my job than do what he was requesting. That was nearly thirty years ago.
Read the rest of this entry »It seems like a lot of my thoughts this month are gravitating towards flexibility and resilience! This week I’d like to explore what it means for a whole organization to withstand the buffets of change.
Even thrive.
Last week I talked about core principles of perspective, readiness, energy, learning, and trust. Well, it turns out that groups of people exercise these characteristics as well.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many leaders in different kinds of situations, and it’s surprising how many get stuck on the “big picture” terms of Purpose, Mission, Vision, Goals, Values, Principles, Strategies, Priorities, and so on.
You might even be surprised where I end up with today’s message.
In my own language, I tend toward what feels like the natural English definition of the terms:
Read the rest of this entry »We try to make our businesses fairly resilient. Investments will fluctuate, customers will come and go, disasters will happen.
The smaller you are, the more you’ll feel it. That’s just the way it is.
But I don’t see leaders spending as much attention on critical roles that depend too much on a single person. Especially themselves.
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