A Few Thoughts about Inspirational Leadership
Think about people who have been inspirational in your life. Why do you consider them inspirational? What did they do? Great communication skills may be part of it, but for me it goes well beyond what they say—it’s more about who they are and what they do that matters...
Are We Looking at Work-Life Balance All Wrong?
Almost everyone I speak with has angst about their work-life balance but very few people seem to be happy with how they manage it. I wonder if we’re looking at this topic in the wrong light and hence why there is so much dissatisfaction… The phrase “work-life balance”...
Reliability and Adaptability – the Leadership Dilemma
So you’re now a leader. Your boss is counting on you to deliver results through other people in some fashion. Any person who is expected to influence and guide others is in a leadership capacity, regardless of whether they have formal title and direct reports or not....
Three Principles of Holistic Thinking
One of the key issues individuals face as they move into higher levels of responsibility is recognizing the value and importance of holistic thinking. I would define holistic thinking as the ability to see the whole picture and to understand the interdependencies of...
Three Critical Experiences that Affect Engagement and Retention
From the recent research and client work I’ve been doing, the term “experience” has been stuck in my mind. I’m not talking about a person’s years of experience in doing their job, but rather how a person experiences the organizational environment and how they view the...
Three Critical Impressions of Executive Presence
One of the most complex and elusive attributes of leadership is “executive presence". What makes up executive presence? How would you articulate it to someone else? It’s one of those things that could be described as “I know it when I see it”, yet that’s not very...
Developing Talent – How to Determine if it’s Worth Your Investment
As a leader, we have to make hard choices about where to invest our time. It’s easy to say we should continually invest time into coaching and developing everyone on our team, and that’s definitely true—to a point. However, when we have a team member who lacks a...
Becoming a Frictionless Employee
In the November 2015 issue of Fortune Magazine there was an article entitled The 21st Century Corporation by Geoff Colvin, describing an economy without “friction”, “where labor, information and money move easily, cheaply and almost instantly”. The idea is that high...
Be Strategic in How You Say “No”
At some point in our busy careers we’ll all have to say “no” (or “not now”) to something that someone else wants us to do. How will you handle this situation? Is it possible to say “no”, but in a way that does not burn bridges? We all have to prioritize and look out...
5 Keys for Creating More Franchise Players
Every professional sports coach is looking for franchise players—dynamic players around which they can build their team. In the business world, as in sports, going out and recruiting such players can be expensive and difficult, especially when potential franchise...
Sustaining a Culture of Development
Just as a beautifully landscaped yard at home won’t stay that way if you don’t maintain it, the same can be said for an organizational culture of development. In this final post in the series Building a Culture of Development we’ll discuss how to sustain that...
4 Keys to Aligning Development Culture Expectations with Systems
In previous posts in the Creating a Development Culture series, I’ve discussed the importance of creating a vision, establishing values and clarifying expectations to help form a development culture. With those elements in place, we can now consider the systems or...