I have been communicating a lot over the last two weeks – with our leadership team, with our staff, and with our clients. The disruption COVID-19 has made to our business, and the speed of decisions we as an organization have made as a result is unprecedented. As a training organization, we are in the business of bringing people together … Read More

Recently, a frustrated business owner asked me how he could motivate his staff. He said he tried everything, but when he described his attempts at employee motivation, they were all extrinsic. He had tried carefully monitoring job completion and task time, ranking employees, and threatening his workers if they didn’t live up to his expectations. He even fired two employees … Read More

What does it mean to lead through uncertainty? Amid global concerns regarding the coronavirus, leaders everywhere are impacting their communities and workplaces with their responses. Some responses are not helping while others are. We all take cues about how to behave, and even how to feel about things from the people around us, especially from those whose influence shapes our … Read More

Over the years, I’ve become increasingly aware and appreciative of those individuals who had the insight, time, and skill to work with me to help me improve. A core challenge faced by all leaders is how to support the continuous development and optimal effectiveness of their employees. Leadership, after all, is a verb. What makes leaders effective in supporting others … Read More

At the heart of people-oriented leadership lies humility. We don’t ever arrive! To be effective as leaders, we need to be growing and learning continuously. With all our responsibilities, it’s easy to forget to work on our own development. It is common for many of us to focus on production, profit, and the worthy goal of developing employees, but these … Read More

The ways in which leaders do or do not deal with problem behaviors have lasting impacts on their workplace cultures. Leaders must learn to respond quickly and thoughtfully to problem behaviors as they arise. When they do this well, they convey a spirit of care and accountability to the rest of the team and reinforce healthy workplace culture. Unfortunately, even … Read More

Whether you lead a team, division, or department, decisions about what to start, stop, or continue doing should be driven by something more than a “gut feeling.” Decisions based on evidence, including the right data (and the right interpretation of that data) will always outperform intuition over the long haul. However, this maxim comes with a caveat! Data-driven decision-making and … Read More

The annual performance review is probably one of the most hated of all business practices. One study highlighted in Fast Company reported that 69% of all millennials (who comprise the largest segment of the work force) think performance reviews are drastically flawed. Many stated that their experience with performance evaluations had a negative impact on them and caused a range … Read More

[Excerpt from The Ordinary Leader] As children, my siblings and I never had a shortage of ideas, and many of them were actually implemented in some form or another.  If an idea didn’t pan out, we would move on to the next one.  Being curious and creative was natural for us.  If we had an idea, we would pursue it.  … Read More

Young Leaders Must Be Intentional about Influence At a recent leadership workshop I was facilitating, a young leader approached me at the break with a big question: “I just got promoted to a new position at work,” she said, “and I’m younger than most of the people I’m supposed to lead. What’s your advice for leading people who are older … Read More