#42 – Common Sense

Common sense leadership practices in times of crisis: Take care of yourself. Take care of your team. Trust your values. Trust your strengths. Ask for help. Learn. Share your learning. Today is a good day to turn each of these into a question and to assess how you’re doing: How have I taken care of

#18 – Build Capability Before You Need It

This is #18 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Here’s another one that I like a lot. Since we know that nothing lasts forever, a healthy, necessary and realistic point of view for leaders to take is that whatever is working right now will not necessarily work next year. Rationally, we understand that.

#13 – “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer

This is #13 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Actually, it’s not just an acceptable answer, it’s often a great one. It is wonderfully counterintuitive that the ability to say “I don’t know” comes from self-confidence. It is self-assurance in what we do know that allows us the ability to be more curious,

Who Am I Being?

“I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi Ben Zander, orchestra conductor and co-author of “The Art of Possibility,” had an epiphany about why his players weren’t producing the sound he wanted. Instead of berating them for a lack of preparation, professionalism

The Consolation of Completion (Redux)

Some further thoughts on yesterday’s post, The Consolation of Completion: Many of our workplaces create an ethos of task completion and goal achievement at any cost. This habituation to the measurable allows us to feel good about ourselves at the end of the day but it fails to take into account the fact that most of

One Minute

One minute is longer than you think. In class today, my colleague and I had our students give one minute presentations. We put a selection of topics in a bag, had them each blindly draw one out and after a few moments of reflection, speak about that subject for one minute. They talked about money,

How to Motivate Your Employees

You can’t, so stop trying. That’s step number one. Motivation is an internal dynamic, a choice based on a wide range of individual forces such as personality, values, perception, emotions, attitudes and stress. You can inspire but you can’t motivate. Knowing the difference is crucial to effective leadership. A leader’s job is to create the

What they want

“They” are your team. You are their leader. This is what they want: Meaning. Also known as “purpose” and “vision.” When they say, “I want to be part of something larger than myself!” this is what they’re talking about. Trust. I once heard a leader say, “They have to earn my trust.” The only acceptable response to

Routine Maintenance

Oil changes. Pulling weeds. Brushing teeth. Important but not much fun. Valuable but not exciting. Essential but not transparently so. At work: regular, open conversations with team members. About how they’re doing, what they’re feeling, what they’re hoping for. About how you’re doing, what you’re feeling, what you’re hoping for. Important. Valuable. Essential. No satisfaction

Someone Else Will

If you don’t give them a chance to show what they can do, someone else will. If you don’t give them clear and comprehensive feedback about their performance, someone else will. If you don’t paint a compelling picture of the future, someone else will. If you don’t speak candidly about your own goals and challenges,