When Conflict Breaks Your SWING

When there is subterranean conflict across functions and sub-teams within your management team, it puts you out of swing. The team gets stuck and can’t access all its talent. Eventually this starts slowing down the team and its results. Such a conflict often means that peers aren’t asking for what they really want and need. Instead their unmet request play out in odd ways – unanswered calls, negative gossiping, and resentment building up. Taking the time to bring the whole extended team together and walk through issue by issue, focusing on who needs to do what so you can… Read the full article >

Why Miserable Leaders Claim they have a Horrible Team

A friend of mine told me that his friend, a top leader at a top company, actually said:  “I am great leader, but my team sucks.” We laughed hystertically!  It is so absurb.  Yet there are many leaders out there that think this.

Jim Collins’ extensive research in Good to Great tells us that great leaders of long term financially successful companies are the opposite of this leader.  They are humble.  They credit their success on how lucky they are to have such a great team working for them.

Yet I can empathize with this frustration of a leader who feels his team… Read the full article >

How Leaders Can Ask For Help and Keep Their Team’s Confidence

It’s a stereotype that men would rather be lost than stop and get directions, but it turns out asking for help carries a psychological penalty for guys. A study from researchers at Duke University, the University of San Diego, and the University of Pittsburgh found that male leaders who ask for help are perceived as being less competent. When female leaders solicit help, however, the negative image didn’t apply.

“What drives this perception is that help-seeking is atypical for men but not for women,” says Dave Lebel, assistant professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz… Read the full article >

When Leaders Must Cross The Toughness Line

With decades of talk about improving “emotional intelligence” (code for being nicer), and societies questioning gender roles–for men and women-the challenge for leaders is what is the toughness line and can they cross it?

One of the largest research studies on the traits of effective leaders, known as The Big Five, concludes that tough and even “abusive” leaders may be unavoidable and even desirable. The study identified Neuroticism (characterized by moodiness, jealousy and emotional reactivity) as one of the top traits of effective leaders. Abusiveness is a fuzzy line.  Some people perceive and cry abuse with leaders who use tough talk.  Others aren’t bothered… Read the full article >

Great Leaders Unleash the Power of Aspiration

Mediocre leaders focus on having their teams perform carefully proscribed functions for pay. But those companies that excel, those that create extraordinary results in the challenging world of business are those whose leaders raise the bar to exceptional heights with aspirational ambitions.
Aspirational ambitions are established by smart leaders who understand the nature of people. They know that creating something beyond the ordinary requires focusing people on the extraordinary.

Aspirational Ambitions are created to stretch your team. JFK… Read the full article >

The Invisible Code Of Extraordinary Leaders

I have detected a Code in successful leaders. One they never state as a strategy, per se, but that emerges like the sun breaking thru the clouds on a foggy day.  

It is so clear and simple that it would never be heralded as an innovation. Because it isn’t. It is an insight that leads to a powerful practice– an invisible one that simply presents itself as a facet of the leader’s personality. 

The code is success = learning mindset + making a difference.

It struck me… Read the full article >

How to Find and Fix Your Weakest Leadership Skill

Legendary NCAA football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant said, “It’s not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” And you can’t prepare to win without taking an honest look at your weaknesses.

How honest are you with the person you see in the mirror?

It’s not easy to admit to weaknesses, let alone bring them into the light, but humanity has long known of the importance of doing so. Most major religions include purification rituals and holidays… Read the full article >

The Best Way To Add More To Your Life/Career Is To Subtract From It

Most people look to make their life better by adding something. Get healthy by exercising more. Get the team more productive by adding more people. Be more successful by gaining more knowledge. In fact the opposite is true. To get better, you need to remove things.

When I discovered I had a tumor 15 years ago, one of the things I learned along the path to vitality was that I had to remove things from my life to get healthier. It is not that I didn’t add things…. Read the full article >

The Enormously Small Moments Of Leadership Greatness

I have come to see that leadership is about small moments.

It is rarely a big moment, with bells ringing and horns blowing, when a leader in name becomes a real leader. But rather a small moment – a moment when an executive suddenly sees that they can make a subtle shift to get different results.

Much of the time I am working with executives in a jam: trying to bring their team to new heights within the chaos… Read the full article >

One Small Thing You Do that Makes Your Team Think You’re a Bully Boss

Her team members were seen crying in the bathroom. They wrote a letter of demands, like hostages, to the VP of Human Resources. And she had no idea that she was the problem.

This was 20 years ago and the first time I was asked to tell a Bully Boss that enough was enough.

When I talked to her team, it turned out, as is often the case, that they liked her in general. But it was just one… Read the full article >