Learning is easy. It can be slow. It’s also easy to stop if you choose to. In a complex world you win when you control outcomes rather than they control you As a smart leader you control outcomes by giving your team control, not by controlling the team. You do…
106. Where are your boundaries?
Learning is easy. Once you set your mind on something. It’s impossible if you don’t. We talked last week about being open to new or different ideas. Now you’re at work, learning your job. Soon you discover that some things aren’t open to you. Maybe many things. What do you…
105. What do you Believe?
Belief is an integral part of being human, to accept some ideas as true. What we believe makes us what we are. There are upsides and downsides to belief however. The downsides have nothing to do with the spiritual or religious or political or social beliefs that you have. They…
104. Are you just a Leader?
I worked with someone, many years ago, who was promoted because he was great at solving technical problems but turned out to be a poor leader. Byron (not his real name) had some very serious personal flaws including his relationship with alcohol. Byron’s career was cut short in the end…
103. Do you know how Leadership works?
There’s a lot of pushing and pulling on sailing ships. Sailing ships combine simple things to achieve marvelous and complex outcomes. Wind pushes on canvas. Canvas pulls on rope and metal and wood, which then pushes on water, which pushes back on the keel. And so the ship moves forward.…
102. Are you the adult in the room?
Leadership is as simple as growing up. Or as difficult… Leaders act like adults – not like children.. Some poor leadership behaviors are just childish behaviors, so growing up is part of your leadership development. How? For one thing, as a child you know what you want & just try…
101. How did you get here?
When my children were small, we sometimes played a driving game. I would drive from our house and the kids would decide which way to go at every intersection. Turn left turn right go straight u turn… We had a lot of laughs, the kids loved being in control, and…
100. What’s Important?
In the 200,000 years since modern humans evolved, we have changed and dominated our planet. We call it Civilization. Civilization wasn’t built by individuals it was built by groups. Families, villages, organizations, nations. Groups of humans led by humans. Groups of humans created most things we have around us. The…
99. Are you pretending?
“ I trust you to do your job..” was a catchphrase in a business I was once in, intended to turn empowerment from a noun to a verb. Of course not every leader in that business trusted their own teams enough to actually empower them, but everyone in their teams…
98. How Brave are you?
“Change Management” is often described as if it’s like building a wall. One brick put neatly on top of another. “Define the problem” “Implement the solution” etc…“tick the box”. Anyone who has led real change knows it isn’t like that. Real change only looks certain in hindsight. You don’t know…