The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—Harnessing the Power of Purpose in Your Work
What Work Should Be Perseverance and Ingenuity—what great names! I'm speaking of the Mars Rover and the small helicopter that hitched a ride all the way to the red planet. After all, it took both perseverance and ingenuity from many over the more significant part of...
Leadership Caffeine™—Harnessing the Power of Purpose in Your Work
If we’re not involved in moon-shots or mars-shots but rather working for seemingly pedestrian causes or offerings, how do we manufacture that sense of purpose? It’s easy, fall in deep love with the people we’re ultimately helping with our work.
It Takes Time and Experience to Find Your Leadership Voice
As an early career leader, you have little depth or breadth in your leadership voice. You struggle or at least strive to be relevant to your team members and your organization, and many flail in the process. Over time as you gain experience, learn and build confidence, a complex leadership personality begins to emerge. This is what those around you will take as your style, but you know that it is much more than an outward fashion statement. It’s who you are as a person that also happens to serve as a leader.
Leadership Caffeine™: 7 Odd Ideas to Help You Get Unstuck
While some argue that the natural order of life is towards entropy (a gradual decline into disorder), I would argue that the natural tendency of most humans is towards a kind of comfortable sameness and consistency in their daily lives. The pursuit of different requires more energy than the descent into routine. It is most definitely easier to not change. While comfortable and comforting, routine is the enemy of growth and progress and innovation
7 Ideas to Stimulate Experimentation in Your Organization
In some organizations, there are so many systemic and cultural disincentives to experimentation that it’s a wonder that executives and employees are able to decide what to have for lunch today that was different from yesterday. In spite of the natural inertia towards the sure thing or the shortcut (external advice in lieu of more risky and time-consuming experimentation), I’ll offer my few cents worth on why and how you and your firm can use experimentation as a means of building value and confounding competitors.
Leadership Caffeine™-Teach Your Team to Make Better Decisions
If you were to embark upon a rugged and lonely journey to the top of the mountain to ask for enlightenment from the Oracle of Management, I suspect that you would be left with the words “decision-making” to ponder on your long walk back to civilization. And in spite of the lack of a concrete answer from this journey, I’ll throw in my two-cents worth that decision-making is in fact the essence of management. It’s also darned hard to do, difficult to teach and challenging to get right more often than not.
Growing Up Globally Aware in America-A Key to Your Children’s Future Success
As if parenting isn’t challenging enough for most of us, there’s another task to add to a list that doesn’t seem to lack for things to do. This one may require foregoing a few soccer games, conducting some more of those “talks” and putting the effort forth to create new educational opportunities and family experiences. I’m talking about ensuring that our future generations of leaders grow up globally aware and highly familiar with the rich and complicated level of diversity, customs, practices and subtle and significant variations across cultures, countries and religions.
Make Meaning as a Leader
The best leaders that I know are driven by an internal belief and desire to create something good and significant through their leadership efforts. They are egotistical enough to understand that they want to pursue greatness in some terms, and they are humble enough to know that none of this is about them, but rather it is for and with and by others that this something can be achieved.
March Leadership Development Carnival at Great Leadership
I’m still chuckling over Dan McCarthy’s creativity with his Special Academy Awards Edition of the Leadership Development Carnival! In addition to great content from so many Red Carpet bloggers, Dan has me doing the opening musical and dance number. He clearly forgot to consult with my wife who would have informed him that I have two feet…both left, and my best songs are truly the ones that no one can hear outside of the range of my shower!
Friday Leadership Highs and Lows
Leadership highlights and observations from the past week, including, “Where have all the humble leaders gone?” and one highly paid athlete’s belief that “Chicago” is responsible for his abysmal performance last season.
Beware Contracting “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” Disease?
It’s time to add another malady to the long list of things that bedevil the many lousy leaders walking unencumbered through our workplaces. It’s called, “I’m Right and You’re Wrong” (IRYW) disease, and while it’s not fatal, it’s clearly annoying to people and debilitating to performance.