Discipline is important, but only when it helps achieve an outcome. Making the best decisions is important too. Making decisions is a key responsibility of leadership. Using rules to enforce compliance can be a way of avoiding hard decisions. Your decision to go against the “rules” can define your leadership.…
84. What catches your eye?
Doing something you like is easy. Leadership requires spending time on things you don’t like. That means as a leader you need to be very aware of what you like and what you don’t. What games can you play to ensure you pay attention to what’s important but isn’t attractive?…
83. Do you follow rules?
Whatever you think of the NBA or Netball Australia’s different handling of their players’ and sponsors concerns, you have to admit that both were big Leadership tests. And maybe be grateful that you didn’t have to decide for either… Making decisions based on principles or values is a good thing,…
77. Did you ever make a mistake?
Did you ever do something that you regretted later? Made a mistake that still haunts you? Of course you did. We all make mistakes. The mistakes we know about are important , but they’re not dangerous. The dangerous mistakes are the ones we don’t know we made. Errors aren’t linear,…
72. Do you promote incompetence?
There’s a paradox in open democracies. They can seem shambolic or even weak when they exercise their greatest strength. That strength is accountability and consequences for poor behavior or performance. Autocracies can seem stable and strong simply because their leaders aren’t held to account. For behavior or performance. A key…
64. What can we learn from Flowers..?
We can learn from Flowers. But not usually leadership lessons. Here’s one… Flowers are part of a plant’s reproductive process. They’re vital to the creation of new organisms. They’re also temporary. Many flowers come and go over the life of the tree. Cherry blossoms get a lot of attention but…
63. Do you follow the Rules?
Humans invented Rules. Rules were invented to make societies work. Individuals’ actions are limited to enable the group to survive or thrive. Don’t cause harm, don’t steal property, drive on the left. wash your hands before eating. Order drives Progress. Rules also make compliance & power easier to manage, but…
57. Q4: Where are we Headed?
Knowing where the team is, is a fundamental responsibility of leadership. Keeping track of progress is a serious task that should occupy a reasonable part of all leaders’ time. But knowing where you are isn’t enough. Knowing whether you hit the target or not, isn’t enough. All Leaders ask “Are…
52. Meet with Triumph and Disaster…
Ambition drives achievement, but it can also drive avoidance of reality. Likewise failure can be heartbreaking, and can drive avoidance of the same reality. A leader’s job is to ensure reality features in decision making – not just ambition and fear. A good predictor of a team’s future success is…
45. “Keep your Friends close, and your Enemies even closer…”
Staying close to your enemies is not an easy or natural thing to do. Enemies are dangerous. Our subconscious wants to avoid them, so we feel better when we can’t see them. Leaders need to understand that urge and actively resist it. When we understand that our objectives have enemies…