Leadership Caffeine™—Show Them You’re Not a Machine
It turns out that successful, effective leadership is much more than a focus on results. Here are some valuable leadership lessons learned the hard way.
Leadership Caffeine™—Learn to Love Uncertainty
We spend a great deal of time in our organizations striving to reduce risk and uncertainty. For some tasks that's possible, but for the big issues of strategies and market forces, it's impossible to bend behaviors and responses to fit our scripts. Effective leaders understand they must build teams that recognize uncertainty as opportunity and live to excel in those moments.
Leadership Caffeine™—Ten Essential Behaviors for Emerging Leaders
While some leadership behaviors are timeless, the context in which we lead is ever-changing. Here are ten leadership behaviors for emerging leaders in our era of volatility and uncertainty.
Leadership Caffeine™—Lead Differently
In our development of leaders, we focus on imprinting them with the same (important) but limiting behaviors. In today's world of change, it's essential for us to break this mold and work harder at developing and supporting individuals who lead differently.
First-Time Manager #15—Leverage Values to Give Your Team a Voice
If you've ever worked for a manager who suppressed alternative views and different approaches, you know how oppressive the environment becomes in that situation. A much better approach is to build in the values that promote fierce debate and rapid resolution leading to execution. Of course, this is easier said than done. You as manager own the hard work of creating this environment. Start with the right values.
Struggling as a Manager? Try Revisiting These 3 Foundational Issues
If you’re growing frustrated and fatigued with your life as a manager, you might want to take a step-back and review and strengthen the foundation for your role. Three items provide structural integrity for your managerial foundation: role clarity, values, and connectedness All three components inter-operate to support your effectiveness and to eliminate many challenges in this difficult role. Alternatively, the absence of the three is potentially disastrous.
Has Your Organization Fallen Victim to the Zombie Apocalypse?
In too many organizations, the absence of a galvanizing vision, meaningful, livable values, and a planning process that engages employees from top to bottom result in a form of zombie apocalypse. Instead of purpose, focus, and continuous improvement, people wander aimlessly searching for professional sustenance. If the leaders at the top won't fix this, you need to spark the revolution from the middle.
Beware of the Leader Who Demands Loyalty
We're loyal to teams, candidates, and even political parties, but when it comes to a leader at work demanding your loyalty, this should raise red flags and trigger alarm bells. Effective leaders never demand loyalty, they earn it, and even this appropriately has limits.
Travis Kalanick’s Growing Up To-Do List as a Leader
Travis Kalanick, the CEO and founder of Uber, has had a tough few weeks. With a major sexual harassment investigation and a lawsuit by Alphabet (Google) for patent infringement, the last thing he needed was another viral bad moment. Unfortunately, that's what he got when he berated an Uber driver and was captured on camera. Mr. Kalanick indicated that, "It's time to grow up," and he "wants leadership help." Here's a "Leadership To Do" list to help him get started...
Leadership Caffeine™—Experience Cuts Both Ways
When we overweight the value of experience in hiring situations or in navigating strategy, we increase our risk of failure. The challenge we face as leaders and managers is to imbue ourselves and our cultures with a sense of curiosity and the means and confidence to experiment.
