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Surviving and Prospering Under a Weak Leader

Learning to manage your team leader takes time and requires extraordinary care and handling. Being indecisive and failing to set direction are big shortcomings for a leader, but leaders that carry these attributes are all too common. You and your peers can either let the water-cooler complaints dominate the daily agenda or you can do something about it. Teams and individuals that have leveraged some or all of the suggestions above have reported some nice successes. No complete cures, but some nice successes and sustained progress in the right direction. When your feet are cast in concrete, progress of any kind is good.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:19-05:00October 21st, 2008|Decision-Making, Leadership, Leading Change|0 Comments
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Weak Leadership at the Top Derails The Pursuit of Performance Excellence

While some top executives err on the side of asserting a dictatorial style of leadership that poisons the working environment and stifles independent action, in my experience, many more struggle with just the opposite. Instead of overwhelming their associates with strict orders in pursuit of rigid targets, they default on their responsibility to set direction in a poorly constructed attempt to create an environment of empowerment. The results of this approach include endless discussions without resultant actions and massive frustration of well-intended personnel that want to move projects and ideas forward.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:19-05:00October 20th, 2008|Decision-Making, Leadership, Leading Change|2 Comments
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Are You Making Progress?

Not surprisingly, it’s often difficult for senior executives and management teams to gain objective feedback on their individual and collective performance. I’ve worked with clients and in organizations where the management team was generally satisfied with their own performance and would give themselves high marks at a time when the employees would give them lower or even failing grades. In all cases where I’ve observed this perception gap, there was no objective, systematic means of measuring performance and perceptions in place.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:20-05:00August 27th, 2008|Leadership, Leading Change, Marketing, Project Management|2 Comments
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Capturing Talent and Creating Great Customer Experiences: They Go Together

There’s no way that an organization that accommodates sloppy interviewing habits is landing and retaining the best and brightest. As a business leader, you want your customers to constantly be surprised and delighted. A manager that takes mid-interview smoke breaks and badgers a talented candidate about salary expectations is someone that I want working for my competitor.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:23-05:00July 18th, 2008|Leadership|0 Comments
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In Search of the High Performance Project Team

If the informal survey results above are even remotely close to reality, many/most people have not had the experience to participate on a high performance project team. While successfully managing projects is a tough task, I do not believe that we are dealing with a degree of impossibility. If project success is critical to your organization's advancement, everyone from the CEO on down has a vested interest in ensuring that greater than 10% of the project teams take on the characteristics of a high-performance environment.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:24-05:00May 18th, 2008|Leadership, Project Management|0 Comments
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Leadership and the Winning Environment

From selecting and supporting the right people to caring enough to provide the tools, mentoring and constructive feedback, this leader, whether CEO, Shift Supervisor or High School Tennis Coach, is truly responsible for creating an environment that breeds success. Success as we know, tends to breed more success. It's a wonderful, vicious cycle.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:25-05:00May 15th, 2008|Leadership|0 Comments
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Marketers, Are Trade Shows Extinct Yet?

This post is certain to generate some controversy about a long-standing, big investment marketing tactic that I believe is increasingly irrelevant. At the worst, if you read this and at least think about scrutinizing your investment in this marketing approach, I've done my job. The thoughts were prompted by a recent article in BtoB magazine entitled: "Exhibition industry sees growth slowing." What a shocker. And while the economy is identified as the primary culprit for this slowdown, I submit that this tactic is a carryover from another era when people gathered information and insights about prospective suppliers or service providers in a very different way, and when lead generation was more about trolling and interrupting than pinpointing.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:25-05:00May 6th, 2008|Marketing|4 Comments
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Why Strategy is the Leader’s Most Potent Tool

Leading is more than just being the person in charge. It's about selecting and developing talent, providing direction and motivation, creating the effective working environment and providing consistent and timely feedback on performance. The "direction and motivation" component comes directly from the leader's understanding of the firm's strategic environment (market forces, competitors, customers) as well as the direction and strategies (goals/actions) that have been selected by an organization's management. Strategy is context that gives meaning and purpose to individual roles and group activities and goals.

By |2016-10-22T17:12:26-05:00April 15th, 2008|Leadership, Strategy|5 Comments
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