“If I were in charge, I would…”
But you’re not, and wishing won’t make it so. And if you were in charge, would you be equipped to lead your followers who would be saying, “If I were in charge, I would…”?
Managing up isn’t as different from managing down as you may think. Continue reading Leading When You’re Not the Boss
I spent the early part of my career as a software developer. The nice thing about software is that it is highly predictable. Barring hardware problems, software does exactly what the developer tells it to do. Even bugs aren’t the software’s fault – it’s just doing 
exactly what some developer (either of the application, the compiler, or underlying operating system) told it to do. Not necessarily what the developer wanted, but what it was told to do. The developer’s job is to provide thorough and accurate instructions so the software behaves correctly.
If only human interactions were that straight-forward.
Continue reading That’s Not What I Wanted…
This week I talked with a man who was frustrated by a boss who wouldn’t say, “thank you”. This isn’t a “high-needs” guy, but he’s self-aware enough to recognize that, like most of us, he’s energized by gratitude. Having just poured extraordinary effort into a successful endeavor, a little appreciation seemed reasonable.
Continue reading Gratitude: High Yield, Low Risk Investments
Like most people, I’m a fan of excellence. But when everything gets labelled “excellent”, 
we devalue the word to where it doesn’t really mean anything. And it certainly doesn’t create the motivation we’re trying to inspire when we use it in our mission, vision, and value statements.
The problem is that no one can be excellent at everything. Continue reading When “Excellent” Isn’t
Paul felt his staff’s productivity was being hampered by constant disruptions 
from other staff members. So he made it a standing agenda item at his weekly staff meetings to remind everyone to consider the impact on the other person before interrupting. Was the issue urgent enough to justify the disruption? He offered tips each week, like collecting non-urgent disruptions and handling them all at once instead of interrupting for each one; or using email instead of text messages if an immediate response wasn’t necessary.
After a couple of months, Paul was frustrated that he wasn’t seeing much change.
Continue reading The Power of Informal Communication
Leaders tend to be smart people. That’s the problem. With an abundance of our own good ideas and answers,
it’s hard to give others a meaningful role in our endeavors.
Our education-rich culture leads us to expect followers to flock to us if we simply reveal our wisdom. Sometimes short-term evidence affirms that idea. People get excited by our vision and imagine themselves in the picture. But eventually their energy wanes as they realize our vision lacks room for their ideas.
Continue reading Compliance vs. Commitment
In his 1980 book, Culture’s Consequences, 
social psychologist Geert Hofstede defines Power Distance as one of four dimensions that distinguish one national culture from another. Hofstede would argue that these dimensions don’t apply to organizational cultures, but I believe they do.
Continue reading Power Distance
Leadership is fundamentally about using pooled resources to achieve some purpose. The narrative behind traditional organizational leadership goes something like this:
That approach has served us well for several generations. But as has oft been said, “what got us here won’t get us there”. Continue reading The Changing Narrative of Leadership
In his book, Hills, Skills, and Wills: How to Improve Yours (and Others) Performance, Michael J. Ayulo identifies three categories of obstacles that hinder a person’s performance. As the title suggests, he labels them as hills, skills, and wills. These are useful handles to put on some important distinctions.
If I go to the doctor with a serious illness, it’s important that the doctor diagnose the cause of my illness correctly. Otherwise, the treatment he proposes may not work or might even make things worse. The same is true in diagnosing a performance problem. Continue reading Hills, Skills, and Wills
Three generations. Global cultures. Diverse values. Blending them together for a common goal? 
Leadership today is tough. What if you had to knit together four generations of even more multi-cultural, more diverse values? That’s what our next generation of leaders has to look forward to. Millennial values are no more permanent than those of any previous generation, although no one knows yet what the values of the Millennial+1 generation will be. Continue reading If You Think Leading Today Is Tough…
