Leaders Help People Tolerate the Intolerable

A recent question: “How do you tolerate intolerable situations or people?” One of the toughest choices at work is to figure out which issues are worth addressing and which to simply live with. There is no black and white solution to these types of situations. It requires some discernment, because everyone has a different tolerance … Read more

Leaders Follow the Best Advice Lou Holtz Ever Heard

Recently, I had the chance to hear legendary football coach Lou Holtz deliver a keynote address. He’s best known for turning around the Notre Dame football program, and one of my favorite factoids about that process is that he removed player names from the backs of jerseys, to emphasize “team” rather than “individual hero.” As … Read more

More Thoughts on Leaders Managing Up

I heard Suzanne Lemen, the principal of Dynamic Corporate Solutions Incorporated, speak at the HR Florida conference in August 2018, and she had some good thoughts on managing up. I’ll present them in bullet points, but they seem to fit two major themes: 1) Ask questions of your manager 2) Have a deliberate strategy for … Read more

Watch for Signs of Previous Bad Leadership

Recently, I chaperoned a large group trip for a bunch of teenagers—over 300 of them. I had to keep track of about 35 of them myself, and punctuality was the most pressing issue of the trip. If any one person was late for the bus or the meeting point, it held up all 300. While … Read more

Things Successful Leaders Avoid Saying (Part 13)

Some words and phrases give off the wrong vibe, tone, or meaning. We’ve explored several of these over the course of this blog, and today we’re adding one more to the list. How do these conversations hit you? 1. “Hey Marco, what time is the meeting?” “I have no idea.” 2. “Say Abril, how many … Read more

Speaking the Other Language

We all have our own unique styles of communication. Whether it’s derived from nature or nurture, one’s personality style, or one’s language of appreciation, how we communicate and prefer to be communicated to are different. And sometimes we perceive what someone else is trying to say through the lens of our own preferred style, which … Read more

Leaders Ask, “Is There a Middle Step?”

We all have situations where we feel stuck and think there’s no way forward. Let me give you some examples: I need to address someone’s obnoxious behavior in meetings, but I don’t know how to bring it up. I’m bothered by a team member’s disengagement, but I’m having a hard time putting into words what … Read more

Leaders Understand the Role of Symbolism

We all work and breathe in four organizational frames. These frames are Political, Structural, Human Resources, and Symbolic. Political—power, conflict, coalitions Structural—organizational charts, policies, procedures Human Resources—meeting individual needs, teamwork, leadership, people problems Symbolic—culture, ritual, stories, traditions In times of change, the first two—political and structural—are usually where the change originates from. The bottom two—human … Read more