Recovering Leader

Listening to Your Struggle’s Message

In Western culture we tend to think anything worthwhile should be difficult. Along those lines, it’s easy to miss when a struggle is trying to tell you that it’s time for a change. Fixated on our goal, we soldier on, trying ever harder. Then, exhausted, we see in hindsight that the signs were reading, “I need a change” all along.... Read more →

Leadership and Getting Real

It's been said, "No plan ever survives its first contact with reality." Achieving a vision or dream requires a leader to be realistic about plans, expectations, resources, people, and circumstances; pilots call it “situational awareness.” You need a clear, open mind, and a sharp focus. It also means standards and milestones to chart your course—and reasonable expectations about progress. When... Read more →

Leadership: Loving and Leaving the Chronically Marginal

Most leaders eventually have a chronically low or marginal contributor among their team. While avoidance and rationalization in such situations are quite common, they simply amplify the problem. In my experience as a leader and executive coach, clarity, compassion, and consequences are the keys to skillful handling of persistently problematic performance: CLARITY that you expect their best on an ongoing... Read more →

Ask Your Team the Hard Questions, Like…

Much has been written on how to upgrade team performance. Not rehashing that here, but rather underlining the usefulness of asking REALLY tough questions, and providing several specific suggestions for you along those lines. When evaluating a group that thinks it wants to be a higher performing team, I always ask three “raise the stakes” types of questions. If you... Read more →

Great Leaders Ask Better Questions

You're paying your people too much to think for them. Guide them to do their own best thinking, and their contributions multiply exponentially. Directive behavior does the opposite ... it shuts people your up, and shuts them down. "Why doesn't she do what I tell her to do?! " This CEO mentioned he was having trouble getting one of his... Read more →

If Only They Knew, They’d See I’m a Fraud

It’s a common belief among high achievers that they are not as smart, talented, or capable as people think they are--something they see themselves as managing to hide from others. It’s been identified in popular psychology as the “Imposter Syndrome.” When I was newly-promoted to Senior Vice President at Charles Schwab, Dan Limon, then our EVP of Corporate Strategy, gave... Read more →

"I Know" is Ego, Not Leadership

Saying "I know" doesn't reflect understanding or knowledge—it says "My ego has an issue with what I know or don’t know." I can’t think of a good reason for a leader EVER to say it. Even at its best, it’s not smart and/or cool-nerdy and/or charming. It’s distancing, distracting, and ultimately shuts down the other(s) in conversation with you, none... Read more →

Making a Smooth Transition from Peer to Leader

Promotion from peer to leader is a common thing, yet can be a problem for some. It's often a feeling of apprehension about what now-former peers may think, what's "supposed to be different" now that you're in charge, etc. So here are six considerations in making this transition smoothly: 1. Determine Your Point B “Must-haves:” Carve out a period of... Read more →

Leadership and Responsibility

Leadership requires the discipline to claim responsibility when something goes wrong. It may be daunting, but it’s necessary—it propels those affected by the problem from confusion to solution, enabling the right actions to be taken. Concerns about saving face, job security, and/or institutional liability are no foundation for leadership. In fact, the longer you delay, the more collateral damage you... Read more →

LeaderTip: High-Performing Leadership Teams

It’s not uncommon for an organization’s senior executives to call themselves the "Leadership Team." Yet frequently divisional self-interests drive their actions more so than teamwork—a lower-performing model for people at all levels of the enterprise. In contrast, members of high performing leadership teams watch out for each other, share resources and knowledge, trust each other, are brutally honest, embrace healthy... Read more →

The Why and How of Your Next Promotion

Suggestions and considerations to help you move up At its best, a promotion to a more senior level of responsibility can challenge, energize, and reward you, and enable you to accomplish something of greater meaning in your professional life. Moving up isn’t for everyone—it may not be important to you, and/or you may be happy with the level of responsibilities... Read more →

Be a Leader of Your Calendar

Organizational cultures tend to build up bad habits of wasting time. Griped about but tacitly accepted, it results in a tremendous and enduring drain on productivity. Leaders foster it in two key ways: 1) “perpetrators” schedule unnecessary meetings or discussions, and 2) “compliers” fail to assess and say “no” to activities that don’t add value. It’s critical to recognize the... Read more →