The Emergency Row Announcement I found my seat in row 16. I was right in front of the emergency row. I could hear the flight attendant introducing herself to the six passengers seated in row 17. She explained that they must have chosen the emergency seats on purpose and were prepared to hear her emergency » Read More
5 Reasons Curious Leadership Will Strengthen Your Organization: Exploring fills you with a sense of adventure, learning how things work and why they work that way makes your every cell in your body dance! In your explorations, you turn things over and look underneath them. You dig in the dirt and examine everything you find. Squiggly things » 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
One of my clients had recently started experimenting with how he responded to customer requests. His customers were co-workers —people internal to the company. He had been finding himself increasingly annoyed and impatient at their requests, and he wanted to change that. To his credit, he knew most of the annoyance he felt was simply » Read More
Looking for a fast way to improve how you manage people? Evaluate yourself on two sets of skills: the ability to Require of your employees (this includes setting expectations, focusing on goals, insisting on excellence, establishing appropriate controls, confronting performance issues, asserting your views) and the ability to Relate to your employees (which involves asking, listening, including, coaching and encouraging). It’s likely that one of these skill sets feels more natural to you. Are you, by chance, avoiding the skills that feel less natural?
“…We have observed that the biggest impediment to managers becoming great leaders is the lack of a clear vision. Yet less than 10 percent of the organizations we have visited are lead by managers who have a clear sense of where they are trying to lead people.”
My first corporate experience came at about fifteen years into my professional life. I made the decision to toss my resume in the air to see where it might land. The company I found myself attracted to was a $5B global high tech company with a very conservative culture. I quickly learned that this company » Read More
• Imagine knocking down walls that are limiting your success.
• Imagine accessing more funding because of strong partnerships.
• Imagine having more knowledge and support for your programs because of relationships.
Theory: all good managers have ready access to two fundamental skill sets—the ability to Relate and the ability to Require. “Relating” encompasses relationship-building behaviors: asking, listening, including, coaching and encouraging. “Requiring” refers to results-oriented activities: creating expectations, focusing on goals, insisting on excellence, setting appropriate controls, asserting your views and confronting problems. Over- or under-utilizing these skills can damage business results and/or relationships.
In the course of your day as a leader you are faced with many decisions. Some come in emails, some in inquiries, and some in meetings. Some you have time to consider, for some you will rely on input from others, and others you must make immediately. There’s no question, leadership requires decision-making. The decisions » Read More
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