Articles tagged "Effective Leadership"
Are You A Disruptive Leader?
Being ‘disruptive’ in the professional world has become a trendy moniker for many. In the past few years, thinking, behaving and leading to disrupt has become the latest ‘in’ professional strategy to reinvigorate, innovate, or potentially save positions, teams, products, and organizations otherwise moving too slowly to stay relevant and viable. There’s nothing new to the idea of needing to innovate and change to stay relevant. The former leaders of Kodak, Blockbuster, and BlackBerry can attest to this. So why is there so much intrigue with being ‘disruptive’?
Why is there so much intrigue with being ‘disruptive’?
Are You Listening?
It doesn’t take much for a leader to show she cares for her team. My company is wrapping up a ‘listening’ and training tour for one of our clients. The new CEO asked us to provide leadership training to help her managers and supervisors enhance their own and their teams’ performance and outline a list of feasible solutions she could move forward to help them, help their teams, and help their customers. However, instead of simply jumping in with a training program on enhancing leadership skills, we included a critical sequencing piece to the training solution:
Are you serving each other with respect?
If I were to ask each of your managers to rate how well they and their teams are being served by other departments within your company, which of the eight options listed below would they choose?
Not Every Great Employee is A Good Fit
Hallelujah! After weeks, if not months, of diligent searching, resume and LinkedIn profile reviews, phone interviews, and then multi-stage in-person and team interviews, you’ve hired THE right person for your team. Kayla’s got the skills, experience, credentials, references, work ethic, communication skills, team skills, and personality you need. She’s got ‘it’! Every team member, client and vendor who has interacted with her these past few weeks loves her. They’ve been impressed with Kayla’s abilities, intrigued by her thought processes, and grateful for her work and team contributions. You finally feel as if a huge weight has been lifted. You’ve finally found the right team member who will help propel your team forward. Or have you… Something is gnawing at you. Even though Kayla has ‘it’, you’re not sure she’s a ‘fit’. Wait! What? How could a team member who seems perfect for your team, your organization, the job, and the clients, not be a good fit for your organization?
Leadership Is a Mindset NOT a Position: Be a Kyle, Bill or Jack
It was Friday at 5:45 PM and I was driving in Baltimore’s rush hour traffic. I was on my way to Virginia to have dinner with a client before leading their strategy session the following morning. The sun was shining and all was going well until my tire pressure alert started to flash. “Oh great. Not this again,” I thought. The alert had been sensitive during the winter cold, so I assumed it was the same issue again. Wrong assumption. Ten minutes later, I started to smell that distinctive burnt tire odor. Because I was driving next to a bus, I assumed it was the bus. Wrong assumption again. I pulled over and saw my left rear tire had blown out its sidewalls. I was riding on the rim.
