We’ve always heard that the space program has done more for us than explore space, the moon, and Mars– but that we have NASA to thank for some other, “accidental,” by-products: Teflon and Velcro come to mind — and I use those daily, I think. What’s your space program? In other words, what crazy big … Read more
Few things are more energizing than leaving a productive meeting with your team, set ablaze with fresh ideas that will set the wheels in motion. You’re ready to go. Your team is ready to go. You’ve established MT goals and are ready to tackle the world.
It’s a great feeling. Until something, somewhere, gets a little hazy.
Last week’s blog talked about the value of vision as a leader. With vision, you have a clear destination; a clear destination can aid in motivating your team.
But with vision, comes goals. Goals serve as checkpoints on the way to your vision. But how do you know you have a goal worth pursuing?
“Employees want to constantly be better at what they do. If not challenged, they will look for challenges elsewhere.” –Ilya Pozin
As a leader, you have a job to do: lead people (sounds simple enough, right?). Where you lead them requires vision. Knowing your destination makes it possible for you to challenge them in a “directionally appropriate” manner.
An email I received yesterday: I would be interested in your thoughts about too much communication. It has been happening that with all the communication outlets, Facebook, Twitter, text, email, that keeping track of getting the word out is becoming overkill. I have some members that say they only check Twitter or Facebook and … Read more
Let’s make the assumption that, as a leader, you’ve taken a number of human behavior assessments (like the Leadership Practices Inventory, Everything DiSC®, Strengths Finders or Myers-Briggs), and therefore you have some sort of description (or two or five descriptions) as to what kind of leader you are. What happens to those analyses after you finish the assessment? Do they sit on your desk? In a file? Or worse yet, do they take a one-way pass to the recycling bin?
About a third of my work in leadership training is with youth organizations, with an emphasis on true empowerment of youth leaders to contribute to the organization’s work. It takes effort, so I was recently asked “Is it worth all the effort to have student leadership?”
I said yes, and here is my full answer:
Many would agree that it isn’t worth the hassle if the only thing you gain is some better role-modeling or extra worker bees. If, though, you actually train and empower students for the below three purposes, then you’ll have less stress, more productivity, and you’ve provided a developmental opportunity (think “differentiation”) that will benefit them later in life.
Last fall, I spent two blog posts discussing how effective leaders stay organized. At that time, I was referring to your actual to-do list, which typically won’t have the actual words “pay attention to John on Monday.” But maybe you should consider it. A colleague of mine was telling me about a car salesman who … Read more
I ate in a London pub with a group once, and the server made a mistake when calculating the bill. Unfortunately, he didn’t believe us, and our argument kept escalating. I got a little, um,