The role of the leader is not only to lead the enterprise and the team. It is to lead individuals as well. Often, individuals on the team are struggling to cope and therefore to perform fully in the team. Many struggle in silence and alone, unable benefit from the help they need and often unable … Continue reading Leadership Power Tool: Respond to Individuals
Leadership
Leadership Power Tools: Removing Pebbles
Muhammad Ali once stated that, “It is not the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it is the pebble in your shoe.” As the recent pandemic surges have waned a bit, we have an opportunity to look back to find the “pebbles in the shoes” of our teams, as a group and as … Continue reading Leadership Power Tools: Removing Pebbles
Leadership Power Tools: Trust
Maintaining an emotionally healthy workforce has been a difficult challenge for leadership over the last two years. Many of the emphasis on avoiding burnout and traumatic stress has been at the employee level, often in the form of reminders to exercise better self-care and build resilience. There is much more that can be done to … Continue reading Leadership Power Tools: Trust
Leadership Power Tools: Listening
Leadership, like carpentry, is made easier and more effective using power tools. Instead of circular saws and impact drivers, the leader leverages specific skills to better the outcomes of the enterprise. These “power tool skills” are used to support, encourage, strengthen, and make better the experience of being a part of the team. One of … Continue reading Leadership Power Tools: Listening
Leadership: Empathy from Starbucks
Who would have thought one could look to Starbucks for a power tool to improve leadership? Yet it was Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, who summed up the importance of empathy in the workplace in his book, “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul”: “Don’t embrace the status quo. Find new … Continue reading Leadership: Empathy from Starbucks
(Not So) Great Expectations
We expected this pandemic would take a year or so, then it would be back to normal. We expected most people to rally to the cause of protecting their neighbors and not their own self-interests. We expected a safer world would return, yet it is getting decidedly less safe. We expected a rest from political … Continue reading (Not So) Great Expectations
Tools for Tough Times: Encouraging Others
Many people endure setback, disease, and disaster with calm and focus. They divorce amicably. They relocate and change careers with little disruption. Some go through major disaster and significant duress with strength and calm. It is not that they are somehow better than the rest of us. It is most often due to their paradigm, … Continue reading Tools for Tough Times: Encouraging Others
Tools for Tough Times: Gratitude
Gratitude is like a health food for us, including in the tough times. The research is rich with the positive benefits of thinking and and acting on gratitude on a daily basis. For example.... We know that grateful people, those who find ways to express heartfelt gratitude daily, will sleep better and longer, are more … Continue reading Tools for Tough Times: Gratitude
Adaptive Leaders: No Growth is Failure
To achieve one’s potential as a person, an influencer, and a leader, one must move from fixed or mixed mindset into a true growth mindset (see previous post here). To quote Carol Dweck, one of the top researchers of growth mindset development: “It’s hard work, but individuals and organizations can gain a lot by deepening … Continue reading Adaptive Leaders: No Growth is Failure
Adaptive Leaders: Always Growing
“Becoming is better than being.” - Carol Dweck “Growth is the only evidence of life.” - John Henry Newman What if, as a leader and as a person, you were to continue to grow deeper and stronger in all areas of your life and leading for as long as you live? This growth would be … Continue reading Adaptive Leaders: Always Growing
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