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Go on Tour
Throughout my leadership career, one of my staples was regularly connecting with the people I worked with, whether my boss, my direct reports, or my peers across the organization. Years later, I read Scott Eblin’s The Next Level, and he described this technique beautifully when he talked about going on a listening tour. Today we’ll talk…
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1:1 101
Some organizations do a fabulous job developing new managers and giving them the fundamentals they need to succeed. Many others do not. If there is no formal management training program, you may still get lucky if you’ve had the luxury of a good manager in the past (or present). Or you may be flying blind.…
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Decisions, Decisions
I have a new rule. If I have the same coaching conversation five times or more, it gets a blog post. Here’s a coaching question I encounter a lot. “How do I decide between staying in my current job or moving into a new one?” Coachees often grapple with this decision, whether fueled by the…
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Do As I Say, Not As I Do
How many hours do you typically work per week? 40? 50? 60? 80? Last week I talked to someone who had logged multiple 100-hour weeks at a client site (yes, that’s 14 hours a day for 7 days…). There is no right or wrong answer here. Everyone’s situation is different. The critical question is how…
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The Rider and the Elephant
This week’s post continues the theme of Influencing for Change which I started last week when I discussed how to strengthen your connections. Today I want to share a few insights from an excellent book on the topic, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. I was gifted this book…
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Strengthening Connections
I recently spent time with a coachee discussing techniques to influence change, particularly in areas where you lack explicit authority. There are numerous strategies you can employ in this area. For today I’ll focus on one key aspect – identifying the key individuals that will help you influence that change and strengthening those relationships. Identify…
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Discovering Our Strengths
In my three-part series on delegation, I left one enemy of delegation unaddressed. This is a thankless task. I don’t want to make someone else do it. This one is undoubtedly relevant to delegation; however, it warrants its own post, touching on one of my core beliefs. Take a moment and list out some of your…
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Delegation 102
Last week in Delegation 101, we explored many common barriers preventing us from delegating effectively. This week we leverage one of the foundational components of ontological coaching, speech acts, to help us be clear with our delegation requests. Much of what I share here comes from Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence by Chalmers Brothers and Vinay…
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Delegation 101
Last week we dug into the Enemies of Delegation. If you missed that post, it’s a quick read, and I encourage you to go back and review it before continuing here. Today, we will talk through some strategies to overcome these barriers. I don’t want to overwhelm my employees. This one particularly challenges empathetic leaders. We…
