Dealing With Critics
Any time we venture out of our comfort zones, it can feel like we’re sticking out, vulnerable to criticism. Someone is likely to say something. Here’s how to deal with the criticism when it comes.
Handling Conflict and Crisis
Leading When Things Go Wrong: Playing Soccer on the Ice
What do you do when things go wrong? Leading can seem fun and easy when things are going our way, but it’s when things go wrong that true leaders emerge. In this example from an Antarctic expedition gone disastrously wrong, one leader achieved great feats of endurance and survival to …
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Unstoppable: 12 Ways to Find the Courage to Continue
“How do you find the courage to continue?” Teddy Roosevelt once reminded us that “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” But in our struggles to achieve, that difficulty can be enough to make us want to quit. Where can we …
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The Ransberger Pivot: How to Win an Argument By Not Arguing
“Do you ever really ‘win’ an argument?” When someone says something that we don’t agree with, our first impulse is often to contradict or correct them. They are wrong. We are right. Then they argue back. The debate becomes heated, personal, and ultimately counterproductive. No minds are changed. If anything, …
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Leadership Mistakes: 3 Things to Do When You Really Step In It
What should the leader do when he makes a mistake? Nobody likes to “step in it,” but leadership mistakes will happen. What you do when they occur makes all the difference. Do these three things well, and you may end up with a stronger team than you started with.
How to Stay Optimistic: 3 Questions to Ask Before You Give Up
How can you stay optimistic in the face of failure? Failure is a natural part of doing business, of being human, and of attempting to do things you haven’t done before. And when we fail, there’s a natural tendency to want to give up. It’s hard to stay optimistic. But …
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Keeping Your LeaderShip Afloat: 4 Ways to Get Your Head Above Water
Does it sometimes feel like your attempts at leading are like, oh, I don’t know, paddling a half-submerged pumpkin down a river? Last weekend I had the privilege of watching people attempt to do exactly that. Join me for a video of what happened, and some thoughts about how to …
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Pulling Together: What it Takes to Build Group Cohesion
When you all pull together, it pulls you all together. What happens if you have two groups of people who don’t like working together? How do you get them to function as one? In a strange experiment over 60 years ago that evokes images of Lord of the Flies, a …
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Howling at The Moon: One Way to Handle Criticism
It can be tough to handle criticism. As leaders we need to be open and ready to listen to the good, the bad, and the ugly. How we respond to that criticism after listening can take many forms. The story is told of a man out walking with Abraham Lincoln …
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Independence Day: 7 Ways to Defuse Conflict and Assert Your Freedom
Do our reflexive reactions cause unnecessary fireworks? Conflict is inevitable in any human enterprise; how we handle that conflict is where leadership comes in. Too often we seem bound to react instinctively: voices rise, pressure grows, and soon it’s fireworks like the 4th of July. But to lead effectively requires …
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Winning at Chaos: How to Succeed When it All Falls Apart
“How can you prepare to succeed in the midst of chaos?” Much has been written about the big strategic decisions before the massive D-Day invasion of World War II. What sometimes gets missed are the thousands of little, tactical decisions made on the ground afterwards. Yet those were what ultimately …
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Don’t Fear the Elephants
Nobody said he was a great mathematician. But he may be the greatest general you never heard of. His actions over 2,000 years ago are a great example of how you can influence your future by the way you react to what’s coming at you.
