Leadership

Why Your Most Powerful Tool is a Question Mark

I read this post by Nina Kern today about how to use questions to drive change. If you are leading a change project, I highly recommend reading the entire post here. Most change initiatives fail not due to lack of good strategy but due to lack of agency on the part of the people who need to make these changes. When we mandate change, we usually trigger a threat response within people who have to make the change. However, if we lead with curiosity and questions, we invite them to partner with us and define why and how they change. […]

Leadership

The Power of Belief

I was introduced to this TED talk by Kelly McGonigal by Peter Cook via his blog post here. Watch the talk if you have the time (about 15 mins) – its funny, insightful and hopeful – a rare combination.

Leadership

How To Create The Conditions For Good Things To Happen

In a recent post, Mike Shipulski shared some conditions for good things to happen. You can read the entire post here. One of the things that he talks about is to make it easier to do the right things. I have explored this concept earlier in this blog post where I talk about how convenience trumps everything else. There is another aspect of this very same phenomenon that we can use as leaders – making the wrong things difficult to do. Every leader worth their salt knows the areas where the potential for mistakes in any given process is the […]

Leadership

Warning Signs to Watch out

Premise: In the early part of the 20th Century, the CIA (yes, that CIA) created a manual for its operatives to help teach them the art of sabotage. One part of the manual was meant specifically to train them to sabotage organizations. While you may not have someone actively trying to sabotage your organization (or maybe there could be), there might be behaviors that are unintentionally sabotaging your operations. So, it is a good idea to learn about these behaviors and nip them in the bud if we start seeing them playing out in our teams – intentionally or unintentionally. […]

Leadership, Podcast

The Paradox of Modern Leadership

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https://traffic.libsyn.com/pushingbeyondtheobvious/Comfort_the_Disturbed_and_Disturb_the_Comfortable.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Email | RSSPremise: Life and work are never static; they operate on an emotional roller coaster where peaks of success are inevitably followed by valleys of struggle. Far too many leaders view their teams as “resources”—cogs in a machine designed for output—rather than recognizing the complex human beings behind the results. The most effective leaders possess the strategic agility to serve as both a sanctuary and a catalyst – they act like a thermostat (constantly adjusting the culture) and not just as a thermometer. Our core mandate is to build an environment where […]