For a variety of reasons, many manager/employee relationships stay formal, cordial, and don’t realize their full potential. The conversation stays focused on the work at hand, and hopefully there is some discussion of strengths and development needs, along with a plan to improve on them. There is often real reluctance to go deeper. Why? Choices, » Read More
A prospective client asked to talk with me recently. (To protect her identity, we’ll call her Lara.) Lara’s executives wanted to clarify and begin driving a leadership brand throughout the organization. What unfolded during our conversation was a plan whereby their values, credo, code of conduct, and core competencies would converge into a leadership » Read More
This is a follow up to “What do you do instead of what you are supposed to be doing?” I introduced 10 things people (like me) do when we should be doing something more important. It also introduced the idea that shame and fear came from BS inside our heads. To catch up, check out » Read More
What do you do instead of what you are supposed to? Top 10 Things You’re Probably Doing Instead of What You are Supposed to be Doing: 10. Eating something bad for you 9. Checking your email every 3 minutes 8. Looking for inspiration from others’ work 7. Reading just one more article about “how to » Read More
As leaders grow in levels of responsibility, scope and scale, the issue of “transparency” becomes more significant. Executives have insights into confidential strategy, complex nuances, and serious situations. They also have large teams and a customer base watching every move. It’s common practice for leaders to pull back more as they rise in the » Read More
Gene was upset with his new team’s quarterly business results, and his withering criticism of their performance during the staff meeting had brought a stunned hush to the room. Not one of the ten people sitting around the table had been exempt from having their deficiencies cruelly described and even mocked during the meeting. As » Read More
Frank Wantland posted a creative piece over on his blog, Compete For People, about the importance of being truly involved and interested in the lives of the people employed by your organization. His perspective is more on the executive’s engagement than on the employee’s but he has an interesting story. It’s hard to fake genuine » Read More
Stephan De Villiers (LCG, Twitter) wrote an interesting post at Increment Success blog about character-based leadership. He quotes Jim Collins: A Level 5 leader is an individual who blends extremen personal humility and intense professional will. Stephan uses a slightly different definition of character-based leadership that we do here at Lead Change. However, he goes » Read More
Authentic Leadership leads to a sustainable workplace brand, the key to attracting talent ‘Authentic’ is a word rapidly falling out of vogue-especially with those of us engaging in social media. Yet none of us, if questioned, would deny we are authentic in our interactions with others. After all, we’re being ourselves all the time, right? » Read More
People are pretty interesting to study. So many people from so many places, so many different cultures, backgrounds, and histories. So many differences. But even in a world of differences there are some things that we can find most everyone has in common, and one of those common factors is that the majority of people » Read More
