Leadership Lessons

What separates effective teams from those that struggle? What are the key principles of team leadership and team trust?

Feedback fails when supervisors make it about themselves, rather than developing the person receiving the feedback. We fail our people and our organizations when we do not provide timely and effective inputs.

In my work with leaders from across the country — many of whom are responsible for maintaining wellness programs for the companies they serve — three things seem to surface as critical strategies for coaching through crisis:

We’ve all seen the value that coaching can produce on performance, but traditional coaching approaches are difficult to scale and too expensive to implement.

As more people live in the virtual world and connect by mobile devices and computers, we must learn and understand how to create enduring connections and meaningful relationships.

When we choose to invest our cash or time in education, labor, recreation, etc., we typically expect a return. But when we invest a particular type of time — thought time — we often neither expect nor get an ROI. Why?

In uncertain times, it’s useful to question assumptions, mitigate risk, and experiment to see how you can do more with less. That might sound like a tall order, but fortunately, those are all entrepreneurial practices that we can hone and apply in corporate settings.

Organizational culture is very hard to define, and even harder to get it right. Many leaders believe that culture is, above all else, the most important factor in driving innovation and organizational performance.

The best leaders are humble and check their egos at the door. How you treat everyone around you, every minute of every day is noticed.

Working parents can develop their leadership capacity by looking for and pursuing “four-way wins” — improving performance at work, home, in the community, and for themselves (mind, body, and spirit).

“The only thing “lucky” was my having the opportunity to learn from someone who continues to make their own luck.”

One of a leader’s most important traits is authenticity. But to truly be authentic requires a willingness to be vulnerable. Here’s how you can become your ideal version of a leader.

To succeed in an AI world you need to keep technology in its place – as servant not master – and emphasize your distinctively human qualities, such as intuitive judgment, creativity, and personal relationships.

Today we manage knowledge workers — and so the great leader will ask not tell. Knowledge workers are people who know more about what they are doing than their bosses do.