Related Posts

Leadership, Next Level Podcast, Organizational Development

What It Takes to Be a Superboss

When you think back on the best bosses you’ve ever had what stands out about those people? What do they all have in common? What makes a good boss great and a great boss a super boss? What does it take to be a super boss?

Those are the kinds of questions that have intrigued Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dart­mouth, for much of his professional career. They’ve intrigued him so much, in fact, that he spent ten years researching and conducting 200 interviews on the questions. (Audio)

Leadership, Organizational Development, Personal Presence

How to Be a Coaching and Mentoring Ninja

One of the elements I love the most about our leadership development programs like Next Level Leadership® group coaching and Developing Leadership Presence is the peer coaching. In both of those programs, the participants are expected to pair up with a peer colleague and spend 20 minutes a week coaching each other. That might sound complicated, but it’s not. What I want them to do is to take ten minutes each to ask their partner questions that get them off the dance floor and onto the balcony. One of my favorite ways for them to do that is ask each other three questions:

Leadership, Leadership Lessons, Organizational Development

How to Get Your New Team Off to a Strong Start

If you’re a leader in your organization, there will be multiple times in your career when you have to get a new team off to a strong start. One of the critical steps in that process is when you bring the team members together for the first time. That’s a rare opportunity to define the purpose, build trust, establish the ground rules and set the priorities. Like they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Make the most of it by giving some thought to that first team meeting and taking some time to prepare for it.

Leadership, Organizational Development

Consider How You Want Them to Feel

If you work in an organization with other people, this is the time of year that you’re likely having conversations about goals and expectations for the year. You may be the boss having those talks with your team members. You may be the team member talking with your boss. You may be both.

Leadership, Organizational Development, Team Building

Three of the Most Common Delegation Ah-ha’s

One of the biggest shifts that most rising leaders have to make is the shift from being the go-to person to someone who builds teams of go-to people. As you take on more and more scope in your leadership role, you can’t continue to operate as the go-to person who acts as if you’re personally responsible for everything that happens. You need to be accountable and own the results but you can’t expect yourself to do everything that leads to the results.

Leadership, Leadership Lessons, Organizational Development

Three Must Do’s for Leaders Leading Through Change

As reported in the New York Times this week, the World Bank is in the midst of a two year restructuring effort. The basic goal of the change is to shift from the Bank’s decades-long regional structure to one that is organized around areas of functional expertise. Another goal is to reduce expenses. Everyone’s world is being rocked there and the criticism and rumors are flying.

Leadership, Next Level Podcast, Organizational Development

What Any Leader Can Learn from Common Executive Succession Planning Mistakes

Ever wonder how smart people make bad decisions? That can happen in lots of situations including conversations around the board of directors table about who the next CEO is going to be. In a recent conversation with Scott Saslow of the Institute of Executive Development, I got an inside look at some of the common mistakes boards of directors make on executive succession planning. In partnership with the Rock Center of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Scott’s organization has released a new study on best (and worst) succession planning practices. (Audio)

Organizational Development

Three Tips for Pain Free Performance Reviews

This is the time of year that instills fear and loathing in the hearts of managers everywhere. The good news is that you may be planning on taking some extended time off during the holiday season. The bad news is you may also be planning to spend some of those precious hours writing up annual performance reviews for the people that report to you. If that sounds like what you’ll be doing over the next couple of weeks, I’m here with three tips to help make it at least somewhat pain free for you as you write the reviews and, more importantly, as you deliver them in the weeks to come.

Leadership, Organizational Development

Three Signs You Should Make Leadership Team Changes Sooner Rather Than Later

A few years ago I wrote a post called Three Reasons You Should Fire the Prima Donna. That one was about why leaders should be decisive in exiting high performing but totally disruptive members of their team. Consider this post the next level up companion to the Prima Donna post.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been in multiple conversations in which experienced senior leaders have discussed their lessons learned along the way. In every case, the leader said their biggest lesson learned was they should have made key changes in their senior leadership team sooner than they did.

Improving Communications, Organizational Development, Personal Presence

How to Run a Staff Meeting

One of my favorite things in our Next Level Leadership® group coaching program is when the high potential participants come together in the fourth session to debrief each other on their Executive Shadow Days. Before they show up for a day of coaching on Organizational Presence, they spend a day shadowing a senior executive in their organization. During their shadow day, they do whatever the executive does. They go to their meetings, sit in on their calls and attend their presentations. The debriefs are always full of interesting stories and insights.

Leadership, Organizational Development, Team Building

How to Keep Your Competitive Drive From Making You Lose

Longer time readers of this blog may have noticed that I don’t use political stories as hooks as much as I used to. There are a couple of reasons for that. One, is that I’m usually discouraged by the level of polarization and discourse. The other is that I really don’t want to contribute to it. With that said, one of my rules for this blog is that if I find myself thinking about something for a couple of days, I should probably write about it because there’s usually a leadership lesson there. Which brings me to Jodi Kantor’s recent article in the New York Times about how big a competitive streak President Obama has. It’s a well reported article with plenty of examples of how driven the President is to win at everything from elections to games of pool. Like most people at high levels in his profession (or any other profession for that matter), the guy is a competitor. I’m not arguing against leaders having and showing competitive drive. It can be a huge motivator for yourself and your team. Like any other strength, though, it’s helpful to think of competitive drive like a dial on an amplifier. You can dial it down or dial it up depending on the situation and what you’re trying to accomplish. If you dial it all the way to the right and leave it at 11 (as the guys in Spinal Tap used to do), it can become way too much of a good thing. In short, it can set you up to lose.

Improving Communications, Leadership, Organizational Development

3 Things You Can Learn from the Navy About Saying Thank You for a Job Well Done

Last week I had the honor to be present for a milestone in the life of a friend of mine. It was the retirement and change of command ceremony for the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Information (CHINFO), Rear Admiral Denny Moynihan. On a Friday afternoon at the Sail Loft in the Washington Navy Yard, several hundred uniformed and civilian friends and colleagues of Denny’s gathered to say thank you to him and his family for 27 years of service and to wish them all well on their journey.

Scroll to Top