One of the toughest tasks of leadership is the difficult conversation. That’s why we don’t have them. When team members consistently underperform, we tend to compensate through doing their work for them, and consciously or unconsciously making the rest of the team take up the slack. Either way, we set the conditions for poor … Read more
I had an interesting conversation with a corporate executive earlier this week, where we were talking about what he kept referring to as “The Fear Factor.” It seems throughout his career, he’s been exposed to otherwise outstanding colleagues and team members that lived every day in fear. Fear of losing respect, fear of losing face, … Read more
How many of us have endured bad meetings? How many still do? The fact is, most of us fall into both categories. We’ve grown up with bad meetings, and now we perpetuate them on others as sort of a leadership punishment mandate – whereby we feel a perverse obligation to make our team suffer as … Read more
“I’m sure there is a reason why we have to walk along the sides of the hallways and square all of the corners inside buildings, they just don’t tell us.” West Point Plebe (freshman), in a video from the late 1980s All too often, it seems, we hear the request “Why?” from people we work … Read more
“The Art of Conversation is the Art of Hearing as well as of Being Heard.” ~ William Hazlitt Picture these scenarios: You’re in your office hard at work on your computer, and one of your direct reports strolls in. She stands in front of your desk, begins to outline a problem she needs your help … Read more
The best lessons in life we learned through our mistakes. Every mistake provides an opportunity to do something different next time, but only if we deliberately reflect and choose a new path. How many people have you met that make the same mistake over and over again? Some people learn from their mistakes, some do … Read more
