“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.
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 …
What skills does an introverted leader need to develop? Statistically, about half of us tend towards introversion (I’m definitely one of them). That fact doesn’t exclude us from being effective leaders. In fact, many of the traits associated with introversion are actually strengths for someone who wants to lead well. …
Skills for the Introverted Leader: 6 Ways to Expand Your Comfort Zone Read More »
What does it take to be a great boss? Some bosses are more memorable than others, and some perhaps you’d like to forget. But what does it take to be a great boss? What distinguishes the one that people remember years later as the leader who made a difference? I …
How to Be a Great Boss: 9 Ways to Get a 5-Star Rating From Your Team Read More »
How can 80% of people believe themselves to be above average leaders? One of the many challenges of being a leader is knowing how well you are doing. Are you sinking or swimming? It can be hard to really know, and yet knowing is the key to becoming better at …
How to Tell if You Are Sinking or Swimming as a Leader Read More »
How do you lead people who aren’t on your payroll? Since moving to Minnesota, I’ve wanted to get engaged locally as a volunteer. Last month I signed up to help at a local agency, and it was a great experience. The way they worked with the volunteers made it fun, …
Leading Volunteers: How to Keep Them Coming Back Read More »
If I’m delegating effectively, why do I always seem to have the ball? We all know that as leaders we need to delegate effectively. As one boss even told me, “You have to delegate or die!” But sometimes it can seem like that ball keeps bouncing back into your hands. …
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 …
Keeping Your LeaderShip Afloat: 4 Ways to Get Your Head Above Water Read More »
What happens to performance if someone is watching? The answer might surprise you. Performance isn’t just about the players, it’s also about the audience. Today we’ll unlock the power of social facilitation and show you how you can use the audience to get the best out of your team.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had something to say, but people didn’t seem to be listening? How did that make you feel? I’m guessing your response would not include words like “understood,” or “respected.” Listening skills are are often overlooked in leaders and yet are so …
Listening Skills for Leaders: 8 Ways to be Sure You Get the Message Read More »
Can we change opinions by changing expectations? A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seems to think so. He conducted a simple but revealing experiment that speaks volumes about how humans form opinions. Spoiler alert: we are not nearly as independent-minded as we like to think. But that’s good …
Influencing Outcomes: 3 Ways to Get the Ending You Want Read More »
Getting our leadership message across to the team can be a challenge. But as leaders, we can forget that by virtue of our position, we are up on a stage. And like the stage occupied by actors and musicians, there are some great tools available to us, if we’re smart …
Stage Magic: 3 Ways to Amplify Your Leadership Message Read More »
Why should leaders sweat the small stuff? Someone said that you shouldn’t “sweat the small stuff” but based on what I just read, they have it all wrong. Sometimes it’s the small things that can make all the difference. If you want to be effective as a leader, there’s good …