Every few months, I run a three-hour boot camp on strengthening your skills as a receiver and a giver of feedback. Here are the top ten insights from the recent cohort group.
Insights from the Latest Feedback Boot Camp
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The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leadership Caffeine™—Six Steps to Help You Start Strong with Your New Team
The point in time when you step into a new leadership role is simultaneously exciting and uncomfortable. Your start-up as the new boss is the early-awkward phase for everyone involved. Here are six steps to help you start strong with your new team:
Leadership Caffeine™—Here’s Where You Should Slow Down to Move Faster
It’s easy to swallow the dogma that has emerged around the “Cult of Speed” in our management thinking and teaching. Yet, the pursuit of speed in poorly designed systems exposes weaknesses and often precipitates project, strategy, and even organizational failure. Said simply, raw speed kills. Sometimes you have to tap the brakes and slow down to ultimately move faster.
Discovering the Right Approach for Leading in this Era
Much like the alchemist’s search, discovering the “just right” leadership style in today’s maelstrom of issues and wicked problems is elusive. Yet, for those striving to lead successfully, there is hope, and it comes in the form of a blended, adaptive model of leading.
Thinking Differently About What It Means to Lead
We’ve barely scratched the surface of the areas in our organizations where thinking differently is essential for survival and success. Teaming, strategy and problem-solving all loom large and merit this treatment. However, starting with the role and work of leaders and the processes for adding talent to the team and supporting their development are perfect entry points.
It’s Time to Rethink Leadership Around Leading for Resilience
In this article, I make the case we’ve been developing and valuing the wrong qualities in our organization’s leaders. We need to focus on a new style of leadership—leading for resilience.
Priceless Leadership Advice from a Mentor
Interestingly, the most important advice I ever received from a mentor about leading and succeeding was all about strengthening my communication skills.
Great Leadership Must Be More About What Happens Before the Crisis
In the sweep of recent history, there’s a familiar theme: almost no one and no nation is ever prepared for a crisis. If you read history, it’s clear we celebrate crisis leaders for their resilience and creativity in helping people survive and sustain. However, I wonder just a bit why we don’t do a better job creating leaders who prepare for and even prevent crises in the first place.
Leadership Caffeine™—We Are All Emerging Leaders
Here’s a little secret. When I use the phrase “emerging leader,” I’m talking about all of us. You’re never done learning to lead. Some of us are a bit more experienced, and others are more effective than others, yet even at retirement, the job of learning to lead is incomplete.
Three Discussions Most Managers Don’t Have with Their Teams (But Should)
People do their best work when they have context for their labors. Here are three discussions managers should be having with their team members to promote performance and stimulate career growth.