Imagine your favorite football team drafts a great quarterback out of college. All summer long, and through the preseason, he is coached on how to beat the first opponent in the regular season, and is prepared for whatever challenges he might face. Right after the first game, the coach turns to him and says, “Kid, now you’re on your own,” and never gives him any more advice. You’d be horrified. No matter how well-trained someone is, the field changes through […]
Inspiration for leadership comes in a lot of forms. Some people get inspired by reading memoirs of great generals or titans of business. Others go to conferences, where they hear influential speakers and converse with their peers about winning techniques. Sometimes it’s just trial and error. But there’s also another way to take inspiration for your own leadership strategies. Sometimes, all you have to do is look around at the world, see what other people are doing, and say: “Nope.” […]
Mentorships are, in their essence, about how the past and present interact with the future. They are about taking accumulated wisdom, both personal and institutional, and giving it to the next generation of workers. The process is more complex than that, though. Mentoring isn’t about presenting hidebound and static wisdom, but about adapting the wisdom to contemporary and future challenges. It is strange, then, that so many mentorship programs are static, and focus only on one style of mentorship. Certain […]
Do you remember talking about the “fight or flight” instinct in school? Have you seen it in action? During a team meeting recently, one person intended to “fight” and as the intensity of the interaction increased, it led to another team member to take “flight”. One was blaming, accusing and increasing the volume and intensity of their voice and the other person chose to stand up, walk out of the meeting, get in their vehicle and leave. While not optimal […]
At some point or another, we’ve all probably worked under a toxic leader. Whether they micromanaged your every move (“15 minute intervals for time reporting seems too lax–let’s move to 10”) or were unresponsive to your feedback (“I don’t have time to read all the suggestions that fly at me everyday; we have deadlines to meet!”), leaders can develop harmful habits in their leadership style that they need to recognize and correct before it hurts employee morale and impacts productivity. […]
It oftentimes seems that the qualities of a leader – a visionary who makes bold decisions and guides others in accomplishing their goals – are factors of personality, something you’re either born with or not. But leadership qualities aren’t static traits. They’re more than just qualities, really: they’re skills. Skills can be cultivated, practiced, and nurtured. The best way to develop leadership skills is with hands on experience. Luckily, everyday life is filled with opportunities to work on your own […]
Sometimes your best partner is your competitor. If you’re in a competitive industry that’s facing an economic downturn, partnering with another company in trouble could be just the thing to revitalize your business. The revival of American Airlines[1. “American Airlines soars from bankruptcy to S&P 500 club,” March 17, 2015, http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/17/investing/american-airlines-stock-sp500/] is an excellent example of how competitors can work together to overcome hard economic times.
Brace yourself for a troubling statistic: a recent Gallup poll found that only 35 percent of employees are engaged in their work. What’s worse, research shows that when managers are disengaged, it has a cascade effect on the employees they manage, leading to less engagement over all. [1. “U.S. Employee Engagement Unmoved in June at 31.9%,” http://www.gallup.com/poll/184061/employee-engagement-unmoved-june.aspx?g_source=EMPLOYEE_ENGAGEMENT&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles] With all the effort good leaders expend trying to create a welcoming, engaging atmosphere for managers and employees — everything from ping pong tables […]
Do you remember what it was like to be the scrappy young upstart in your company? You were probably full of ideas and boundless energy — but you were most likely overwhelmed by all the things you didn’t even know you didn’t know: how to navigate office politics, how to snag that promotion, how to make that pivot into a different path within your company. That’s where your mentor came in. A leader within the company who knew the ropes […]