Technology makes it possible for us to work around the clock, and it has become standard operating procedure to read and respond to emails after business hours. While many leaders love the idea of hardworking employees always "being on," the practice is having harmful effects on worker well-being, according to a new study, “Exhausted But Unable to Disconnect,” authored by … [Read more...]
Creative Disruption Enhances Leadership Performance
Creative Disruption has long been used in the marketing world to break existing patterns of behavior of a target audience, and smart CEO’s are now using this technique to change the pattern of behavior in their leaders. National business consultant Lorraine Grubbs along with CEO Frank Granara of Boston-based General Insulation recently used creative disruption to address a … [Read more...]
6 Ways to Nurture Professional Relationships
As a new leader, how much time do you spend each day building, nurturing and maintaining professional relationships with upper management? Your coworkers? What about your employees? Too many people reach a leadership position and decide to focus only on building relationships with those people up the ladder or on the same rung as them. They seem to think that their new … [Read more...]
What Should you Optimize? Define Good Work
This is a guest post by Tom Cox, leadership consultant, author and speaker. One of the most common, and tragic, causes of poor work performance is that everybody assumes the definition of "good work" is obvious, so nobody ever seeks explicit agreement on what it is. When the boss (that's you) doesn’t define "good work," things can get bad. For example, I live in Oregon, … [Read more...]
5 Limits Leaders Must Challenge
We all have limits. Those boundaries beyond which we just don’t go. After all, it wouldn’t be safe. It wouldn’t be prudent. It wouldn’t be easy. We set limits for safety purposes or for logical purposes, but most often, we set them because we need an excuse. We are scared or lazy or we lack confidence in our own abilities, so we need a reason (an excuse) to not try … [Read more...]
You and Your Employees Should Be Taking More Risks
Management guru Peter Drucker once said "People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year." The lesson here? You are going to make mistakes whether you take chances or not. However, if you don't take risks, you will miss opportunities to innovate and excel. You are better off to … [Read more...]
Leadership Lessons From the Presidential Campaign
Every four years the U.S. elects a new President. The process isn’t simple, and it certainly isn’t short. Because the process plays out in the news media, and because it requires leadership both to gain the job and do the job, you can learn a lot from the campaign this year, including: Don't Miss Opportunities to Communicate Political candidates excel at finding … [Read more...]
3 Communication Strategies Guaranteed to Irritate Others
In workshops and coaching conversations, I receive many questions about the right way to communicate with employees. While I cannot define a “right” way to communicate, particularly during conflict conversations, I can identify definitively wrong ways to communicate, including these three common tactics that are guaranteed to irritate others: Insinuation. … [Read more...]
Switch Off Your Autopilot Mentality
By Jaimy Ford, business writer and editor As a new leader, it's easy to slip into a routine and stick to it. After all, why should you change what appears to be working? However, if you simply adapt a previous leader's style or you rely on trusted approaches that come easy to you, you run the risk of slipping into autopilot. When that happens, creativity and innovation … [Read more...]
Your Words Are Powerful
In order to be a highly effective leader, you must be able to successfully influence and persuade others. While we all know how powerful our actions are in influencing others, we cannot lose sight of how powerful our words are as well. Ralph Waldo Emerson noted this power, for both good and bad, with these words: “No man has a prosperity so high or firm, but that two or … [Read more...]