“Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”
– John Wooden
Leadership can be like learning to ride a bike: at some point you have to climb on and give it a shot. A few falls are inevitable, but there are skills and techniques that will make the process less painful. On this page, look for tips, tricks, and ideas about improving your leadership skills so that you do less falling, and more flying.
Are there any leadership exercises I can do? Someone asked this question recently, and I thought it was a good one. Learning leadership is tricky business. It’s not like practicing musical scales or pumping iron at the gym. But I do think there are exercises we can do to become …
Leadership Exercises: 7 Ways to Build Your Influencing MusclesRead More »
“How can seeking discomfort be a good thing for leaders?” Hey, I’m here at a local park in Minnesota, getting ready to do my weekly tempo run. Believe it or not, I think that there is a very close parallel between learning to run fast and becoming a better leader, …
Comfortably Uncomfortable: 7 Ways Seeking Discomfort Makes You BetterRead More »
Are you a potential leader who’s just looking for an opportunity? Do you think you have what it takes, and just need others to notice your leadership ability? If so, this video is for you. Today we’ll talk about seven things you can start doing today that will get you …
Are You a Potential Leader? 7 Ways to Get NoticedRead More »
“How do you build influence if you are the low person on the totem pole?” We all have to start somewhere, and usually that somewhere is at the bottom of the heap. So how is it that some people seem to climb higher faster than others? It really comes down …
How to Build Influence: Go From Gofer to Go-To with These 3 Simple StepsRead More »
“In any leadership interview, they are going to ask about your experience. What if you don’t have any?” Everyone has to start somewhere. Moving up in the organizational hierarchy often involves taking on a formal leadership role. But if you haven’t had one before, how you respond when they ask …
Leadership Interview: 7 Ways to Talk About Leadership Experience When You Don’t Have AnyRead More »
What is it about leading experienced people that makes it so challenging? They know more than we do. They have been there longer. They already have their ways of doing things. Then we walk in and we’re expected to tell them what to do, and when to do it. We …
Leading Experienced People: How to Overcome 3 Dilemmas That Make it HardRead More »
No one likes to hear that they are not doing well, have weaknesses, or are not measuring up in some way. As leaders it often falls to us to give this kind of feedback to others, and those can be difficult, uncomfortable conversations. But what about receiving critical feedback? Most …
Seeking Discomfort: 7 Ways to Embrace Uncomfortable FeedbackRead More »
How can asking questions be more powerful than answering them? In the effort to demonstrate our worthiness to lead, often we find ourselves in a hurry to provide answers. People want guidance, direction, and need to understand priorities. But if we’re playing the Shell Answer Man all day, we miss …
The Power of Asking Questions: 7 Ways Questions are More Powerful Than AnswersRead More »
Why should anyone listen to you? If you’re trying to lead people, one of the first challenges you face might be just getting them to listen. This can be doubly challenging if you happen to be newer to the team or younger than the others. When it comes to getting …
Getting Them to Listen: How to Get People to Hear What You are SayingRead More »
She started her own business late in life and turned it into a multi-million dollar enterprise. She donated millions to worthy causes. She was once named the most outstanding business woman of the 20th century. Much of her success was the direct result of good old fashioned hard work and …
What if that carrot we offer actually slows them down? In the effort to motivate our teammates, we are quick to offer carrots we think will incentivize them to greater efforts. But as this story of the Soviet Union’s most prolific athlete shows, sometimes our incentive system can do the …
Could Your Incentive System Be Hindering Performance?Read More »
How do you improve your team with an After Action Review? The After Action Review (AAR) is a deceptively simple yet powerful way to stimulate the growth and performance of any group of people. As an organizational learning tool it has been used to transform small teams and entire armies into …