Recent Blog Posts:
Moving the Needle
Influence is a Process, Not an Event
Instant oatmeal, same-day deliveries, on-demand video – we don’t like to wait. Our culture doesn’t cultivate patience. So naturally, we expect instant buy-in to our ideas. Instant Influence: If you can bottle that and sell it you’ll become instantly wealthy!
The Big Pitch
You walk into the boss’s office ready to pitch your latest great idea. Convinced he’s going to love it, you passionately lay it all on the table. “That’s interesting”, he casually responds, “but I don’t think we’re going that direction.”
How can he not see the brilliance of your game-changing idea?
Let’s assume for the moment that your idea really is brilliant. Your idea isn’t the problem, it’s your skill at influence that fell short.
The Confidence of a Humble Leader
Not “The Arrogant or the Wimpy Leader”
Is it possible to be confident and humble at the same time? If you equate confidence with arrogance and humility with uncertainty then you would probably say, “no”.
What is Confidence?
One of Webster’s definitions of confidence is, “faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way” [1]. That describes the kind of confidence we want to have in our leaders and want others to have in us as leaders. If we take another of Webster’s definitions, “a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances” [1], that sounds like self-confidence that could be good or bad depending on how we use it.
Let me suggest a tweak to that second definition that I believe better describes the self-confidence of a healthy leader: “a feeling or consciousness of our team’s powers or of reliance on our team’s ability to navigate the circumstances”.
Being and Being Under Authority
Authority vs. Individualism
Electricity is a good thing until it electrocutes someone. Authority is like that – a good thing until it’s not.
Not to be political, but the example is too obvious to overlook: America is seeing its founding strengths of freedom and independence morph into an extremist individualism that is hindering our ability to work together and make progress. We’re increasingly unable to trust and unwilling to submit to authorities.
What does that say to us about authority within our organizations? We might like to think our employees’ separate their attitudes about government authority from organizational authority. Maybe. But I suggest the default posture is that authority is authority whether in the home, work, government, or elsewhere. If you want to be seen in a different light, it’s up to you turn on the lamp.