Category Archives: Leadership
Tool Box: The Waterline Model – A Tool For Resolving Team Breakdowns
Last month I wrote about the way we tend to make things personal when we run into conflict or challenges at work. This month, I want to offer a simple tool for understanding and addressing those sorts of breakdowns. It’s called the Waterline Model, and I have found it extremely useful over the years in…
The “Secret” Ingredient of Leadership Presence
“Presence” is a buzz word in the worlds of leadership and executive coaching these days. A simple Google search will yield dozens of blogs and coaching sites and articles on the topic, some interesting, some little more than fluff. But what does “leadership presence” really mean? Why does it matter? And how do you cultivate…
7 Leadership Lessons From The Dance Floor
About 15 years ago, back in my dancing days, I attended a workshop led by Frankie Manning, considered one of the founding fathers of lindy hop. Manning danced and taught his entire life, and was probably in his early 80’s at the time of this workshop. Despite his age, his mastery and energy were on…
Tool Box: Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams
One of my recent clients, whom I’ll call Mary, complained that she couldn’t count on her team to produce the work she needed from them. She said that every time she gave them an assignment (for example, producing the budget reports she needed for year-end reporting and planning), she wasn’t satisfied with what they delivered.…
How Are You Doing At Paying Attention?
If you look, you can find myriad articles and books in the leadership field about the importance of paying attention. (Try a quick Google search using “paying attention leadership” if you don’t believe me.) Different authors enter the subject through different doors – the focus might be on skillfully managing the constant flow of email…
The Fourth Fundamental Leadership Skill
A few months ago I wrote about three fundamental leadership skills: taking clear stands without steamrolling, staying connected to others, and managing your reactivity. Lately I’ve begun to think that I missed one, that there’s a fourth skill that leaders have to have to be truly successful, and it has to do with learning. Why…
Tool Box: Resources for Developing the Three Fundamental Leadership Skills
In my last newsletter I wrote about the three fundamental leadership skills that I talk about with every client: taking clear stands staying connected managing your own reactivity Here’s the trick: It’s much, MUCH easier to talk about these things than it is to actually do them. Do you know what I mean? How often…
Three Fundamental Leadership Skills
I talk with every client I have about three fundamental leadership skills. This isn’t the only way to think about leadership, but I find it an incredibly useful way to help leaders see how they tend to shoot themselves in the foot. (Because we all do this, right? If we’re lucky, we have good friends…
Moving Teams To Action: How To Ensure Follow Through On Decisions
As I’ve written before, one common challenge many teams face is the endless loop of discussion that never leads to decisions. No action will take place without that first step. Even when teams succeed in making decisions, though, there’s another common obstacle to effective action, and that’s lack of follow through. Do you know what…
Moving Teams To Action: How To Turn Discussions Into Decisions
One of the more common complaints I hear from leaders and teams alike is, “nothing ever moves forward around here.” People describe how discussions go on and on, or get revisited in meeting after meeting, without ever leading to a decision. (Or, decisions get made but there’s no follow through. I’ll cover this in an…