Recovering Leader

Keeping a "Healthy Distance" Isn't Leadership at its Best

The stronger your relationships with your team, within the boundaries of professionalism, consistency and fairness, the more innovative, creative, and truly outstanding results you can achieve together. Read more →

Perfectly Positioned: 5 Habits of Great Rainmakers

Great business developers, also known as "Rainmakers" have identifiable habits in common. What are they? Let's take a look ... Read more →

Great Leaders Know a Good Fit means Good Chemistry

Seeking good "chemistry" / a good fit is a great way to hire, acquire, resolve issues, and promote – and ignoring or glossing over bad chemistry usually comes around to bite us, sooner or later. Read more →

Land Critical Conversations Right the First Time

Many key discussions end with one or more people in a holding pattern. Unfortunately, it's often after the fact that we realize something was missed or left unaddressed. Whether an interview, tough discussion, sales opportunity, executive team or board meeting—the many variables in the room (personalities, agendas, politics, etc.) can take you off course, diverting you from your main objective(s).... Read more →

3 Powerful Practices for Aloof or Distant Leaders

If you tend to be introverted, shy, too busy to be responsive, or intentionally aloof/distant, as I posted recently, approachability’s pragmatic leadership value is likely eluding you. That wall you’ve built around you, whether intentionally or not, alienates you from critical ideas, feedback, input, and your people’s higher-level motivation/engagement—needed for them to do their best work. So what to do... Read more →

Over-thinking Challenging Situations

The outcome you achieve after facing a challenging situation—for better or worse—is limited by your assumptions or “story” going into it. In fact, walking into almost any potentially difficult conversation, our understanding is at best incomplete, no matter how much forethought we’ve given it. It’s human nature to prepare for what may be difficult, particularly if we are under normal... Read more →

Excellence in Leadership Means Being Savvy in Four Systems

Achieving, Relating, Culture, and Influencing: these four “systems” silently but surely surround us in any organization. Understanding each of them is key to maximizing your own contributions as a leader. I share this because most of the feedback I hear on the up-front interviews I do about executive clients falls into one or more of these areas. If I did... 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 →

7 Leadership Strengths Are Weaknesses When Taken Too Far

Consider a few of the typical strengths a leader may have: maybe they're a good delegator, a great relationship-builder, results-oriented, decisive, etc. Interestingly, our strengths become weaknesses when we overuse or misapply them to the situation. That's why I often hear my clients' colleagues say, "It's his strength, but also weakness at times..." So it's important to know which of... Read more →

Letting Go of Lonely Leadership

“It’s lonely at the top” is not the way of leadership. If that’s the case for you, the quality of your leadership, your life at work, and your P&L, would likely be enhanced with some work on changing how you relate to others. I’ve seen this play out in my executive coaching work with clients. Their successes add up to... Read more →

When a Harsh Personality Preempts Leadership

Leadership is not—and should not be—a popularity contest. Yet a difficult personality will render ineffective even a highly talented executive. As a result, their potential contributions will go unexplored. Consider a leader with world-class talent in a specific area, yet whose lack of interest in relating well to other people is seen as arrogant and argumentative. We’ve all met one... Read more →

LeaderTip: Caring Connection

One’s ability to form caring relationships in the workplace is highly correlated with business results. While a mountain of hard data led to this conclusion, many consider warmth, approachability, empathy, and personal accountability to be the “soft stuff.” Such thinking, and the behavior that goes with it, only gets you to the table—it doesn’t keep you there. Developing a more... Read more →

LeaderTip: Permission to Disagree

Fostering candid debate is critical for effective leadership. Many leaders think of themselves as open to being challenged or contradicted. Yet in practice there are two issues: 1. a significant portion of people simply tend to avoid conflict and “yes” the one in charge, and 2. the supposedly open-minded leader may have a blind-spot tendency to go on offense or... Read more →

Are You a Manager or a Leader: Complete Analysis of Survey Results (Final)

In June, 2009 we started taking a sharp look at the distinctions between manager and leader. I developed a 20-question online survey (“Are you more of a manager or leader?”) that's so far received 139 responses. Given the volume of info, I broke my analysis into several blog posts that cover all 20 questions. Previous posts had analyzed the results... Read more →

New Role? 10 Things You Need to Know About Your New Boss

So, you've gotten that great leadership job, or promotion, or move into a new role you've been seeking. Congratulations! You’ve heard various things about your new leader—or maybe not, and/or maybe you have a theory or two about them. But what do you REALLY need to know? Starting off day one asking your new boss a barrage of questions may... Read more →