I had a meeting with a potential coaching client last evening. The conversation was exhilarating. As it often does, the discussion turned to delegating, holding people accountable and developing leaders. I shared with this gentleman the concept of “I intend to” from David Marquet’s book Turn the Ship Around! We discussed how he can “manage up” with that concept as …
A colleague from the Midwest works for a very successful private company in a leadership role (no, NOT my Chicago based son for those of you who know me). In a recent conversation, things got around to how disappointed he is in how the company owner frequently demotivates people with his continued use of the pronoun “I.” And he isn’t using …
Many times, when facilitating discussions around leadership, I will ask participants to “brainstorm” a list of attributes for leaders. The list is always long with great characteristics for all manner of leaders. The chances of finding a person with all or even a significant number of the attributes is nil. Yet, it seems as though we expect our leaders to be …
I’ve heard it said that leaders are born and that one cannot be taught to be a leader. Personally, I don’t buy that argument. It may be true that there are some folks who, no matter how hard you try, are not ever going to be “good leaders.” The problem here is that those who can be good leaders, who …
When it comes to leadership, L. David Marquet likes to frame the discussion into four broad areas: Control, Competence, Clarity and Courage. With respect to courage, he often highlights the issue of the personal struggle a leader must make to break out of the old “command and control” model or what we know as the “leader/follower” model. It’s “fun” to …
What is an entrepreneur? Harvard Business School defined entrepreneur this way: “Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”– Howard Stevenson I was reminded of this several times this past month. First, over on LinkedIn, one of the groups I frequent posted this great article from Inc. Magazine. It’s an interesting read. Entrepreneurship is creating something …
A colleague mentioned that he was not able to meet with me over the weekend. He was attending a “Wisdom Weekend” course and would be tied up. Really? Wisdom in only one weekend? I chuckled and made some comment about how he’d be really scary if he had any more wisdom and wondered if he was teaching the course. But …
Why is it that we seem to have to keep learning the same lessons over? Oh, I’m not talking about each of us as individuals, although that is sometimes true for us too. I’m talking about our organizations. We seem to keep solving the same problems that have been solved before; either internally or externally. Why do we do that? …
It’s your business. You are the final decision maker. You are accountable to the board, or perhaps there is no board and you are the founder/owner. So where do you go when you need advice? Have you established a mastermind group or advisory board? Do you really have “all the answers?” Who questions your answers? Some small private companies are …