Sitemap - 2022 - Admired Leadership Field Notes
The MacGyver Method for Creative Problem Solving
Those Who Retire a Decade Before They Retire
Candid Review Feedback Requires Anonymity
Top-Down Decision Making Is Old School
Connecting the Shared Passions of Team Members
Leaders Don’t Always Take Yes for an Answer
The Successful Routines of Your Team’s Elite Performers
Team Members Who Excel Most at Managing UP
Stop Arguing With People Who Already Agree With You
When Your Leader Is Most Influenced by the Last Conversation
The Strategic Humor of Ronald Reagan
Leading Those Who Can’t Tolerate Ambiguity
Support the Personal Goals of Those You Lead
Encouraging Referrals From Customers and Clients
Build Something From Every Project
The Optimism of Relentless Pursuit
Teasing People to Send a Message
The Defensive Attribution of Poor Performers
How Do I Get a Seat at the Table?
When a Disgruntled Colleague Infects the Team
Why Are the Smartest People Such Poor Listeners?
What’s Taking You So Long to Decide?
Why Incompetent People Are Promoted in Organizations
When Disagreement Creates Trust
Leaders Who Hold the Floor Too Long
You Suffer From the Verbal Virus, Am I Right?
Are Good Leaders Equal or Fair?
Moving the Set Point of Happiness
It’s What You Don’t Say When Giving Feedback
Inoculating the Team Against the Threat of a Downturn
The Gap Between How You Feel About Others and How You Make Them Feel
Where Does Willpower Come From?
The Chilling Effect of Strong Reactions
Colleagues Threatened by High Performers
What Leaders Do First in a Crisis Defines Them
Are You a Lamp, Lifeboat, or Ladder?
Teaching Others How to Compete
Deciding the Desired Outcome of Meetings Before They Begin
When Leaders Withdraw an Existing Reward
Increasing the Odds of a Windfall
I’m a Good Person on the Inside
The Recency Bias of Performance Reviews
Embracing the Paradoxes of Leadership
When Someone Benefits From the Problem
Should We Encourage Lame Duck Colleagues to Stick Around?
How Will This Decision Make Me Look
The Abilene Paradox or Why False Consensus Is a Problem
Proactive Strategy or Self-Defeating Prophecy?
Colleagues That Shop Decisions
Colleagues Who Leave Because of High Expectations
Versatility Is Required for Mastery
The Best Way to Learn Is to Teach
Some People Avoid You Because They Owe You an Apology
Wickedly Predicting the Unintended Consequences of Decisions
Not Responding Is a Loud Response
The Distinction of an Inquiry-Based Conversation
Deleting Information Often Draws More Attention to It
What If Your Goal Was Learning and Not Performing?
Communication Design Gets More Important Every Day
You Can’t Talk Yourself Out of a Problem You Behaved Your Way Into
Answering a Question With a Question
Getting a Word In When Senior Colleagues Present
What Shape Is Your Conference Table?
Giving Up at Precisely the Wrong Moment
A Closet Full of Bad Paintings
Surround Yourself With People Who Have It
The Power of a Shared Leadership Experience
The Disproportionate Influence of Quiet Leaders
When Aspirations Don’t Line Up With Skill
Breaking Down Organizational Silos
What Are Your Non-Negotiables?
Excellence Through Persuasive Persistence
Our Greatest Fear Is Looking Bad in the Eyes of Others
The Invitation Says You Count, Not the Going
Grateful People Learn Differently
We Most Support Change That We Co-Create
Rekindling a Relationship That Has Gone Cold
Receptivity to New Ideas Is the Real Problem
What Is Your Favorite Emotion?
Ignore Competitors When Setting Strategy
Are Your Greatest Weaknesses Also Your Greatest Strengths?
Open Communication Upward Relies on a Balance of Power
Extracting the Promise of Accountability
Parallelism and Making Ideas Memorable
Doing Your Homework About How the Business Works
We Like Leaders Who Amplify Our Strengths
Divide and Conquer the Knottiest Problems
Giving the Proverbial Kick-in-the-Pants Pep Talk
Innovation Requires Irreverence
The Real Reason Good Leaders Take Vacations
A Formula for Leadership Optimism
The Difficult Marriage Between Trust and Respect
When Fire Drills Happen Every Day
Dilemmas Are Problems That Never Get Resolved
One of the Greatest Sports Broadcasters of All Time
Great Cultures Are Prideful Cultures
The Myth of Respect Through Fear
The Secret Decoder Ring and Strong Cultures
The Secret Sauce for Promotion Decisions
Getting Others to Ask for Help When They Need It
Excuse Me, But I Wasn’t Finished Speaking
Build the Plane While Flying It
Expand Your Crystallized Experience
Reading People When You Have Limited Information
When an Audience Makes Matters Worse
Too Far Is Just as Bad as Too Close
The Personal Urgency to Achieve
The Best Revenge Is to Prove Them Wrong
What Senior Team Members Want But Won’t Ask For
Please Stop Multi-Communicating
Why Good People Act With Malice
Servant Leadership Is a Great Idea That Doesn’t Really Work
Recommitting to the Fundamental Practice of Listening
Fight Bureaucracy Wherever You Find It
Creating Extraordinary Followership
When Making Excuses Becomes a Problem
Use Checklists to Ask Team Members to Grade Themselves
Sometimes Leaders Get Tossed From the Game on Purpose
My Criticism Is the Highest Compliment I Can Pay You
Why Are Job Titles So Important to People?
Does Extraordinary Success Require the Ultimate Sacrifice?
Where Does Self-Confidence Come From?
Working Backwards to Solve a Hard Problem
It’s Not About the Team Dinners
When the Winning Strategy Is Not to Play
When a Team Member Carries Someone Else’s Complaint
Forgetting Is an Essential Skill
When a Conflict Is Intractable
The Command-and-Control Hangover
Avoiding Backhanded Compliments
Be Reluctant to Offer Delicate Feedback
What Relationships Do I Need to Invest In?
If You Need an Answer Right Now, the Answer Is “No”
Should Leaders Seek Certainty or Clarity?
Evaluating Talent on a Bell Curve Has Always Been a Bad Idea
Credibility Depends on a Consistent Style
Never Admonish the Entire Team
Buried in an Avalanche of Helpfulness
Leaders Need Both Dashboards and Scorecards
The Fine Line Between Confidence and Arrogance
Postpone Disagreement About Feedback
To Listen Better, Try Slow Understanding
No One Will Train Harder Than Me
Overcommunicate Until People Roll Their Eyes
A Team Roadmap to Catch Up New Team Members
Would You Re-Hire Your Team Members?
Do You Run Away From Conflict?
When a Negotiating Weakness Is Really a Strength
Colleagues Who Perform But Are Toxic Must Go
I’m Not Good at the Workplace Politics
Why Less Competent Peers Get Promoted
Don’t Confuse Personal Development With Performance Evaluation
The Dreaded Meeting After Lunch
When We Ask Others to Sacrifice
Back-Channel Communication Can Be Toxic
Over-Coaching Creates Poor Execution
When Others Don’t Speak Up, It’s About You
Stop Telling Other People’s Stories
Who Are You When the Wind Is in Your Face
The Difference Between a Mentor and a Sponsor
When You Need to Reset Your Thinking
Get on With What You’re Good At
Honesty Doesn’t Guarantee Integrity
Talking Politics in the Workplace
Do You Find Passion or Does it Come With You?
The Time Has Come to Work on Your Stage Presence
Give People a Choice Between Two Yeses
Practice for the Novel Situations
Providing Examples Says You Own the Problem
Avoid the False Negative at All Costs
Should You Create a Learning Culture?
The Pleasure of Jotting Things Down
Uncertainty Favors the Status Quo
Avoid Over-Reliance on a Single Source
Upset the Right People With Your Decisions
Taste Your Words Before You Spit Them Out
Does Your Email Begin With a Request for Action?
Showcase the Skills and Talents You Do Not Possess
Leaders Are Always a Work in Progress
Seek Commitment, Not Compliance
Exaggeration Makes a Powerful Point
Restating What Others Should Have Said
I Received the Same Feedback as You
Relax by Doing Something Intense
Sharing a Risk Together Builds Trust
Develop People or Deliver Results
The Push and Pull of Promotion
Leaders Clarify the Criteria of Success
Asking Questions Others Want to Ask
Consider a Needs Exchange Instead of Feedback
Avoid Torturing Your Underperformers
Tracking Potential Must Be Continuous
There’s a Wrong Way to Share Wisdom
The Laziest People Can Be the Hardest Working People
Am I the Smartest Person in the Room?
How Many Direct Reports Can I Have?
Praise Requires a Tricky Balance
Advocates Determine Our Future
Reading the Situation Requires Understanding the Context
The Negative Symbolism of Small Acts
All Leaders Are in the Hospitality Business
When Loyalty Becomes a Liability
Invite Expertise Into the Conversation
Use Data to Inform Decisions, Not Make Them
Too Much Transparency Can Be a Bad Thing
Attribute Your Ideas to Those You Want to Persuade
Creating More Urgency When You Need To
The Need to Be Liked Can Be a Fatal Flaw
A Four-Letter Word to Describe Bad Leaders
Feeling Gratitude Is About Your ‘Get To’
Seek Excellence Not Perfection
A Vulnerable Leader Is a Courageous Leader
Do You Have a Plan B for That?
The Medium Might Be the Problem
Stoke a Healthy Fear of Failure
A Modern-Day Rorschach Test for Teams
Don’t Blindly Follow Innovations
Being Effective Beats Being Right
The Trap of Work-Ethic Suspicion
An Exercise to Strengthen Team Understanding
Time Is More Arbitrary Than We Think
Pre-Decide Before a Situation Unravels
Positively Violate Expectations
The Sunk Cost Fallacy Applies to People
Available Leaders Remove the Door Locks
Masterful Work Permeates Culture
How Not to Throw Colleagues Under the Bus
Inject New Information Into Troubled Relationships
Show Gratitude in Ways That Don’t Decay
Reject the Trap of Reflected Glory
Keys to Influencing Without Authority
State Weaknesses in the Past Tense
Informal Conversation Is Not Optional
What a Player-Led Team Really Needs
The Artful Creation of Appropriate Distance
Retain Talent With the Glue That Binds
Preach a Reverence for Details
Two Words Will Elevate Your Accomplishments
The Dichotomy Between Truth and Harmony
You Need to Disrupt Team Disrespect
Real Strategy Beats Parlor Games
Leadership Differs From Management
Old Structures Can Suffocate Execution
Suffer the Rejection Personally
Track Your Incremental Progress
Turn Values Into Everyday Companions