Tag Archives: positive

July 13

If Every Day Was A New Day

This month I have had the opportunity to spend some quality time at the largest military maritime exercise in the world.  If there is anything consistent about coordinating over 50 ships from 22 countries, it is how important the ability to communicate becomes in such an operating environment. My piece of the show involves working in […]

January 13

What Kind Of Follower Are You?

This blog is about the art of leadership, and as I have said on several  occasions, is aimed at the leader, the aspiring leader, and those who are led.  Many of the topics I have covered thus far focus in on the perspective of those  first two groups. The last group, the led, are known by another […]

October 27

You Keep Using That Word – Communicating Effectively

Resolving communication problems can appear to be simplistic when written as a five-step action plan.  In the real world, the causes for miscommunication between yourself and another, or your entire team, may be a much more difficult issue to tackle.  Depending on your emotional IQ, or your teams, no one may be even willing to […]

October 17

Your Own Kobayashi Maru – Leadership in a Crisis

For the Trekkie‘s amongst you, the K-Maru scenario has been fodder for uncountable arguments. In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Maru is a training simulation every Star Fleet cadet is put through.  In essence, the decisions available to the student are all “no-win” and the entire exercise is about how you come to terms with […]

September 29

The Learning Leader

The other day, I had the opportunity to briefly chat with a colleague whom I had managed for several years, and who themself was now in a leadership position.  The general conversation was about how they had identified some key sources of leadership guidance early on and continually referred to it whenever a particular problem or issue […]

Does Management Even Matter? – Leading Your Organization

A recent piece in Slate caught my attention and seems ripe for discussion and comment. An article by Fisman and Sullivan praised the New York Passport Agency as a model of efficiency, and says the operation is in the “vanguard of workplace effectiveness”. The part that seemed out of place was that they were praising a government agency, where […]

Manage By Wandering About

Ever wonder how people “see” you in your office? If this video is any clue, they may need to see you a bit more often.   If this is how you are seen, you might consider practing a little more “MBWA”. This term was coined by the founders of Hewlett Packard and later attributed to […]

What Color is Your Marshmallow? – Lead With Maturity and Passion

Richard Bolles classic 1970 career advice book “What Color is Your Parachute?”, has provided over 40 years of job seekers with sage wisdom in the art of marketing you and your skills towards a successful job search. It is consistently listed as one of the Top 5 career advice books. In many ways, Bolles’ theories […]

The Loudest Duck Gets Shot – Valuing Diversity

Diversity is good news to any organization. Besides being reflective of organizational charters, personal value systems, it is (hopefully) engrained in procedural doctrine for your organization. Having decided that, is employment policy the only area we have to practice diversity? Are their behaviors, either individual or as an organization that we can commit to not […]

Everyone Needs a Trophy – Recognizing and Celebrating Achievement

Among the many popular researchers of the generational differences in the workplace is Bruce Tulgan. Besides well-received books on managing Generations X and Y, Mr. Tulgan has written 16 other books on a variety of workplaces issues and concerns. Along the way, Mr. Tulgan takes on and largely dismantles myths commonly held about how different […]

Starting Over With Someone – Managing Conflict

So, your boss/coworker/employee drives you crazy? Dread the email or phone call you know will come on Monday, or after you sent out a communication? Are there certain situations you avoid because of “what happened before”? Over at “Leadership Freak”, Dan Rockwell identifies the biggest obstacle to starting over with someone whom you have crossed […]