An effective leader must be a people person. But what is a people person. Some expect a people person to be highly sociable, perhaps even gregarious. You know this type. At an event, they know everyone and make the rounds having small talk with...
Read moreFear of Conflict
As a leader, it is often necessary to lean into conflict. This conflict might be based on some disagreement that someone has with us or it might be a conflict between two team members. There is great value in having divergent views and seeking...
Read moreFeedback Is Always Positive
Oh, don’t misunderstand the title of this article. Feedback is sometimes affirmational and sometimes corrective. Feedback identifies specific actions or behaviors and then asks (or directs) the recipient to provide either more of, less of, or the...
Read moreLeaders Speak Last
In a team setting, leaders should generally wait to speak last. A boss might feel the need to speak first, as a statement of his/her power and position. Or they might be a control freak, afraid to not have everything go their way. In a weak team...
Read moreThe Context for Feedback
Imagine a situation where the only time that your boss said anything to you was when he/she pointed out what you had done wrong. How motivated would you be? Would you look forward to seeing your boss again soon? Would you value the feedback that...
Read moreWhere and How to Compete
The best definition of business strategy, at least in my opinion, is a statement of where and how an organization intends to compete. A longer version of this definition would be business strategy is a description of where and how an organization...
Read more“Love Works” by Joel Manby
As you may suspect from the title, the big idea in the book “Love Works” is about leading an organization based on love. Joel Manby spent the first half of his career in the automotive business, in companies where leadership was based on the...
Read moreThe Secret to the Best Creative Workplaces
“You should feel like yourself at work, not a worker.” So says Becky Bermont of the design firm, IDEO, in a recent article posted on Quartz Ideas. Developing and sustaining a culture of creativity, important to a design firm, but increasingly...
Read moreFostering a Culture of Collaboration
“Leadership is about solving problems and unlocking the potential in others.” In an article, titled “Redefining Leadership”, in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, describes some of the traits...
Read moreThe Value of Feedback
Feedback, from an engineering perspective, is the process in which part of the output of a system is returned to its input in order to regulate its further output. In the workplace, the term ‘feedback’ is used to describe the helpful information...
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