Helping Bosses Become Leaders
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The Balance of Authority and Autonomy in Leadership
Empowering individuals within a workplace is a delicate balance between granting authority and offering autonomy. This concept, pivotal to effective leadership, revolves around not just assigning tasks but also stepping aside to let individuals exercise their creativity and judgment. As a leader, it is vital to establish clear purpose, principles, and parameters. However, what is…
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Your Processes are Flawed, Not Your People.
In the intricate dance of organizational performance, two crucial aspects often get muddled: the management of people and the management of the environment in which the people work. Renowned thinkers in the field of organizational performance, Rummler and Brache, astutely observed that “Organizations tend to overmanage their people and undermanage the environment in which they…
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Quit Starting with the Brainstorm!
In our fast-paced world, the rush to brainstorm solutions the moment a new project lands on our desk is almost reflexive. It’s an understandable impulse – we’re eager to tackle challenges and demonstrate our creativity and problem-solving skills. However, in the fervor to ideate, we often overlook a critical aspect of effective project planning: The…
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When to Counsel and When to Coach: The Art of Leadership
Leadership is an intricate dance between guiding and empowering, a balance of counseling and coaching. Understanding when to offer validation and praise as opposed to instructive criticism is key to effective leadership. Here, we explore how leaders can discern between these two critical approaches and apply them effectively. Counseling: The Power of Validation and Praise…
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Don't Sacrifice Conflict to Avoid Contention
Photo by patricksommer In our quest for harmony in professional settings, there’s a critical balance we often overlook – the balance between avoiding contention and fostering constructive conflict. Yes, conflict – a word that typically sends a shiver down the spine of any well-meaning professional. But let’s pause and reconsider our aversion to conflict, especially…
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The Word I Learned in College That Changed Everything
As a budding high school history teacher, my journey through undergraduate college was an eye-opening exploration of methodologies and philosophies. However, it was in my Motivation and Management secondary education teaching class where a singular concept transformed my entire approach to teaching and life: rapport. Rapport, a seemingly simple word, encapsulates the essence of connection…
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The Future of Leadership: Embracing Artificial Intelligence
In a world where technological advancements redefine the boundaries of possibility, artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as a pivotal force in various domains, especially in leadership. As we step into the near future, the integration of AI into leadership practices isn’t just an option; it’s a necessity for sustainable growth and innovation. AI: The New Co-Pilot…
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Five “P’s” of People
Years ago I heard the adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day. And while that adage is technically true, we certainly want to be more successful than a broken clock when working with people. Like cogs in a clock, there are a lot of moving parts when working in groups. Think…
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Giving the Benefit of the Doubt
I read a great blog post recently by Nir Eyal called The Secret to True Kindness. (Check it out.) However, in the article I think Nir may have left out an important principle as to why we give people the benefit of the doubt. As I looked at his diagram screenshotted below (which is great…
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Analyzing and Fixing Performance Problems
We all struggle at one time or another. It may be that project you keep putting off because you can’t seem to identify next steps to move it forward. It may be that spreadsheet calculation you got wrong that was discovered by a board member. It may be last quarter’s budget that you went over…
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Quit Making College Students Major in Minor Things
Administrative overhead is not high on my list of environmental factors that contribute to the mission of any university. (Administrative overhead being the transactional encounters a student must have to facilitate their education, e.g.: apply for admission, register for school, pay for tuition, etc.) In fact, it is at the bottom of it. Administrative overhead…
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Protected: Curing Left-handedness
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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The Zero Overhead Principle In Higher Education and Other Service Sectors
Years ago our team interviewed an individual for a position on our office staff. This candidate had previous work experience in their international church’s facilities management group. After asking a particular interview question this individual was reminded of an experience she had with a facilities request that had come into her group to swap out…
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Agree to Disagree… Long Enough
There is no shortage of self help and business books surrounding the collaborative and counseling culture that should exist in organizations. But let me teach a quick principle from a religious leader quote from long ago… “The reason why men [and women] always failed to establish important measures was because in their organization they never could…
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The Pain Principle
Each of us has situations we find ourselves in or opportunities presented to us wherein we need to make decisions. We also find ourselves in situations where we rely on others to make decisions on our behalf. And while many things contribute to effective decision making aptitude and decision making ability one principle for decision…
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Are Your Remote Meeting Participants Texting More in the Private Chat than Talking in Your Video Meeting?
So, many professionals are now working remotely. (Hats off to all those professionals who still have to work face to face during this COVID-19 pandemic.) Between Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meetings, etc. we are all growing accustomed to working with others through video conferencing technologies. Although, even a few months into this, we still experience…
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If You Want to Lose Credibility, Here’s What You Should Do.
If I wanted to lose credibility quickly I would sit in a meeting, not write down an assignment given to me, and not complete the assignment after the meeting. Even worse, I would write down the assignment (tacitly acknowledging I will do something about it) and then not complete the assignment after the meeting anyway.…
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For the Love… Stop Sending Email Attachments
We all get them, you know, the email attachment. “Oh, wait, that is an older version of the template. Let me email you the latest version.” Agg.ra.vat.ing. People! Have you heard of Google Drive or One Drive? This isn’t even a generational problem. It’s an indiscriminate pandemic. My experience has been that from my teenage…
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It is Better to be Trusted Than to be Loved
So, a while back, during a particularly challenging conversation with my teenage kid, I heard myself say “There isn’t anything you could think, say, or do that would change how I feel about you. I love you. But whether or not I can trust you is up to you.” After that interaction I questioned whether…
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A Good Leader Loses His or Her Job
Yep. That’s right. A good leader looks for ways to make his or her job obsolete. I recently called our company financial customer service line since I received an automated email telling me I had an expense I had not yet reconciled in our employer financial system and the due date was coming past due.…
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Dot Drawers and Dot Connectors
It was in elementary school where learning my numbers was reinforced by connect-the-dot pictures on a page. I remember connecting the dots of a turkey around Thanksgiving and presents under a tree before Christmas break. But what does connecting-the-dots have to do with personal productivity or performance improvement? This isn’t just a quaint post that…
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We Need More Babble in the Boardroom Than in the Break Room
My attempt at alliteration in the title was intentional. While “babble” may be defined as incoherent, I am using the term more loosely here to describe candor, conflict, and collaboration that all good teams and organizations have as a fundamental part of their culture. I recently read chapter four of Ed Catmull’s book Creativity Inc.…
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A Good Leader is… Inconsistent
Uh, did you screw up the title of this article? You meant that a good leader is consistent right? No, and let me explain why. I received a text message today from a colleague. After explaining a particularly frustrating experience this individual had with someone else under my leadership, the text said in part: “I would just…
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Liking Ain’t Learning!
We live in an amazing social media world. Facebook, Twitter, and even Reddit as well as a host of other platforms have changed the way we communicate with friend and foe. Having said that, the concept of the “like” has also changed our perception of quality and impact. Think of a recent time you have…
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The 2-Minute Rule
GTD. Ever heard of it? Just Google or Bing “GTD” and you will quickly learn that it is an entire philosophy and methodology around Getting Things Done. Trademarked by David Allen, Getting Things Done is a way to achieve a sort of personal productivity nirvana. Years ago, a colleague of mine showed me this bizarre 43 filing system on…
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