I have been lucky enough to have some new opportunities come my way. I was obviously pretty excited about each of them. My first impulse was to just say yes immediately. If these were things that I had been working towards, then saying yes would have been absolutely the right thing to do. But these opportunities came out of the blue. How do I decide whether or not to take them? I have a rule that I use…
Read more
As I read the article, The Leaders Imprint by Scott Mabry, it struck me how much every decision and action we take as a leader can leave in Scott’s words, an “Imprint” on others who work for us. Being critical of our team members on a regular basis has a lasting impact on them. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, people don’t leave organizations, they leave managers. Being too critical causes people to doubt themselves, shut down, become disengaged or…
Read more
The beauty of having a diverse team is that each person brings different experiences to their unique roles. They also have different perspectives and leadership styles. As the leader, you need to find the best way to motivate the team to accomplish the goals. So how do you do that? This was my dilemma about 16 years ago. I had a team that was made up of internal employees, external contractors, differing levels of expertise and different leadership styles. Did…
Read more
When you think about your career, have you planned it all out or has it been mostly accidental? When you are asked to take on a new role, do you consider whether the role is a good fit for you or do you just agree to take it? Many people just take it. Why is that? Maybe you are flattered that someone picked you for the role, you are ready for a change, you are happy to learn something new or you…
Read more
One of my favorite quotes is “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great” by Zig Ziglar. Have you ever struggled to get started on something that was new to you or you held yourself back because it was out of your comfort zone? What causes this hesitation? Is it fear, a lack of confidence, the fear of failure, the concern about what others may think or just the uncertainty of not…
Read more