Category: Leadership
Are we Headed in the Right Direction?
Leaders need to not just remain calm under fire they need to excel under fire. That’s challenging when you are being inundated with information and so much of it seems negative. In this 8 minute video I talk about the fickle nature of our mind and two sure-fire ways to tame it. You might like the Zen story and, beware, I am up to my old tricks in this one.
How to Lead from Your Heart
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens. — Carl Jung I want to be a heart-centered leader. I want to be authentic so the people I lead can connect to my authenticity, not just my words, title, or position. I want people to feel me, not just understand me, so they will be inspired to step into their own authenticity and genius. I want others to live and lead from their heart because I know what’s possible when people experience connection. The Most Important Leadership Skill of All Leadership requires effective communication, relationship-building, and presence. Competency in these areas demands high emotional intelligence (EQ). You have a […]
How Leaders Spend Their Time: What’s a Choice and What’s a Requirement
I want to share a great research-based Harvard Business Review article (read the full article here) written by strategic planning guru Michael Porter. It focuses on how CEOs spend their time. It’s a bit long so here are my key take-aways: CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies work an average of 62 hours a week. If you are working more than this then that’s more of a choice than “comes with the territory.” If you are working too many hours, chances are you have a team you don’t trust to do the work. Upgrade! If you are working too much you’re probably spending too much time in meetings. Most hour-long meetings are 30 to 45 minutes longer than they need to […]
Basic Instinct: The One Thing Every Great Leader Knows
Know Thyself. – Inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi The most important work leaders can do is anything that increases our awareness of our brilliance as well as our shadows. This awareness increases self-mastery and leadership capacity. Self-aware leaders have the capacity and courage to give real answers to these important questions: “How are you feeling? Why are you doing this? What are you thinking?” When we replay our response to any situation, we can often see that we were driven by deeper instinctual impulses than we realized or were willing to admit in the moment. When we are disconnected from our deeper motivations, we radiate an incongruence between what we say and what’s going […]
How Smart Leaders Can Stop Doing Stupid Things: Three Steps to Increase Your Self-Mastery
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. – Victor Frankl I used to be a customer service representative’s nightmare: indignant, self-righteous and impersonal. I rationalized my behavior as I turned human beings into objects. I relented only when someone met my demands and said the equivalent of, “You’re right, we’re wrong.” As embarrassing as all this is to admit, I wish I could say I reserved this behavior only for customer service representatives. Leaders Know Better Leaders can be reactive. Reactivity can look aggressive or passive. It can come in the form of loud anger as well as over-thinking, emotional […]
How to Prevent Personal and Organizational Beliefs from Killing Your Change Management Process
“But, we’ve always done it that way!” In my book, The Business of Wanting More: Why some Executives Move from Success to Fulfillment and Others Don’t, I spend quite a bit if time on what I call “The Bubble,” that personal lens that surrounds us and distorts reality. Our Bubble is created by our personal belief systems, and the many conscious and unconscious ways we interpret what’s going on around us. Turns out, organizations have a bubble too – the cultural norms and collective belief systems that influence the way employees view the world. The quote above, which virtually every leader or manager has heard when trying to make changes for the better, is perhaps the most exasperating example of […]
The Point of Purpose
I dropped a client a note today as a follow-up to a conversation about purpose. He asked a good question, “Do we need to work on developing a purpose statement for the company?” He is my note to him: I love that you keep thinking about culture – you have a blank canvas with your company and what you do with that challenge has the ability to drive change and aliveness in you. I think a lot about things like “purpose” – however it’s defined, purpose is something that is always there, we just get more and more clear about what our purpose is. I think the purpose of humans and the entire universe is to evolve, to get more […]
Seeing the Opportunity in Conflict
What would happen if you were to view conflict as an opportunity for understanding and connection, instead of tension and defensiveness? “Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let’s love turbulence and use it for change.” – Ramsey Clark, former US Secretary of State While viewpoints often differ, disagreements can be healthy if you can overcome a lifetime of conditioning to avoid conflict, and resist any impulse to attack the person with whom you disagree. The messages we hear growing up: “If he hits you, hit him back,” “An eye for an eye,” or “Don’t rock the boat,” and “Leave well enough alone”, have trained us to either respond aggressively to conflict or to sidestep it whenever possible. Yet, the […]
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