70% of American workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” (Gallup, 2013). That figure represents a failure of leadership. Leadership is the ability to impact and engage people in important work that causes positive disruption. That clearly … [Read more...]
Move Your Own D@%# Needle
There’s a phrase that many in business have been using for some time now. Typically it’s a manager in a leadership role telling someone else that they need to “move the needle.” That is, they need to cause some change, they need to increase revenue … [Read more...]
Leadership Development is a No-Brainer
A 2007 McKinsey report (“Management Practice & Productivity: Why they matter”) on the impact of effective management practices on productivity has gotten a lot of attention on twitter recently and is yet another example of the power of leadership. … [Read more...]
What Do Leaders Do?
What do leaders do? The list is long; but in a nutshell, leaders enable positive transformation. Success in business requires leaders to be able to impact and engage people to join in important work that produces forward movement with positive … [Read more...]
Back Away From The Phone
I was asked to observe a leadership team in action recently to give them some feedback on their interactions as a team. Throughout the meeting, people kept checking their cell phones for emails and texts. This happens every day in meetings in … [Read more...]
Don’t Empower. Lead.
In our work we hear the word ‘empowerment’ a lot. I have to confess I’m not a big fan of this word. It is over-used and perpetuates a hierarchical, “I have power and if you’re good I’ll share some with you” view of leadership. In a business … [Read more...]
Planning To Do and “To Don’t”
In my last post , I wrote about how we can approach planning in a way that allows for greater reflection, collaboration, and dialogue that invites creativity and innovation to the process. I know many teams that have become quite good at slowing … [Read more...]