Tag: Management
Improve Leadership Ranks With This Simple Change
Organizations go to great lengths to help managers improve their leadership skills. This perpetual gap may be the single biggest organizational challenge of our time. Imagine the positive impact to organizations if we figure this out! Why the continued gap in leadership skills? In my lengthy HR career, I have found that often people seek ...
Go Light Your World, Part III: I Believe
To effectively lead, we must shine from the inside first. Adding the latest leadership traits to your skill set hardly ever works unless it fits with your true self, and well, you need to know your true self first to be an effective leader. Speaking of your true self, have you ever spent time thinking ...
Go Light Your World, Part II — What Inspires You?
In my last post, I asked you to spend a few minutes capturing what were Peak Moments from your past. This exercise gets to the heart of when you were at the top of your game. Each week in this series builds on the next, so a theme starts to emerge. The very tangible result ...
100,000+ Books on Leadership, Why Aren’t There More Leaders?
A former colleague that I admire and respect proposed writing a leadership book together. One of the first things I did was scan what was already out there. To my surprise, a basic “leadership” search on Amazon.com resulted in over 100,000 titles. While I admit my blog post title is presumptive (maybe there are more ...
The Time Has Come to Manufacture a Crisis
I have a favorite quote, “Nothing breeds motivation like necessity.” It sums up the challenge that plagues any person or entity in a position to try to change others: despite earnest attempts the last two decades in the fields of change management and engagement, the fact remains, people don’t like to change unless they absolutely ...
Find Your Way Home
Have you ever gotten lost before? Most people have, such as, taking a wrong turn when driving somewhere. Others have been REALLY lost, like in the wilderness on a hike, or a long camping trip. One thing is true in either scenario: staying lost is not an option. You have to find your way back: ...
A Foolproof Process For Acting Courageously
Over the years I have found and seen in others that courage is easy to talk about: put into corporate “core values,” notice when someone does a courageous act, proclaim it as key to leadership. We inherently know that even the smallest acts of courage cause an enormous, positive ripple effect to ourselves, others, places ...
I Changed, Where is Everybody Else?
Some of the best advice I got from a senior leader during a Leadership Challenge 360 feedback process was, “You’re always three meetings ahead of everybody. Where you want to go is right for the organization, but you need to bring everybody along.” I struggled with that feedback, until I actually tried “bringing others along” and ...
There’s Something Missing from Most Leadership Advice
I’ve probably said this before, but do a search on “leadership” books on Amazon.com and you’ll find literally millions of titles. Frequently, themes focus on leadership “behaviors” such as integrity, humility, collaboration, listening to others, creating a vision, inspiring others, taking risks, modeling good behavior and so on. But what about being strategic? I admit, ...
Top 5 Leadership Insights Learned from 8-year-olds at an Art Studio
This is another post in the “everyday leadership” category. One must follow one’s inspiration, and everyday events have surprised me lately. This time, it’s not a family reunion or hockey team helping out at church that offered leadership inspiration, but rather my daughters’ eighth birthday party at a Minneapolis open art studio, Simply Jane. It’s clear creative ...
McLaren Consulting 