Out of the Comfort Zone: Recent Episodes
Wanda Wallace
There is no growth in comfort and no comfort in growth. Business today typically values and promotes leaders for their subject expertise. Leaders who have command of the details and execute based on knowledge and experience are highly respected. However, to grow as a leader you have to get out of your comfort zone – that means learning to lead without just being the expert. Learn to gain the trust and respect of a team that might know more than you do. Get comfortable with ambiguity and with not having all the information. Develop the skills and confidence to lead in a different way.
For female leaders, subject expertise is usually the source of their confidence. Learning to lead outside your comfort zone is one step for breaking through the glass ceiling.
The show’s purpose is to give you tips on how can you develop the capability to lead – to get out of your comfort zone?
No doubt you want to make a positive impact on the world and no doubt you have issues or causes you would like to see solved. How can you use your money to create change without having huge amounts to give away? Listen in for surprisingly accessible ways for most anyone to invest in a cause or a company they care about.
What do spies learn in their trade that leaders can apply every day? Turns out that spies are not as the movies portray them and they have incredibly skills in connecting with people – even with people they don’t necessarily like. Intrigued? Listen in for fascinating stories and impactful insights.
Change and uncertainty – something everyone is trying to cope with and if you lead people probably something that is easier said than done. Despite all the many books on the subject, we are still missing a key ingredient – the human at the center of change. What does that mean for you as a manager, how can you work better with middle managers, what can you do that will make a difference in how your organization activates a change vision.
Understanding how our brains work provides valuable clues on how to be more persuasive, particularly when marketing a brand, conveying your message or pitching an idea. Listen in for an update on what we now know about how the brain functions along with great advice on tapping instinct and being more persuasive.
So many times, men and women have whispered to me that they are afraid of speaking in public. They know they need to get over the fear, but somehow the idea still paralyses them. As a leader, speaking in public is part of the job. There is hope! You can overcome your fear with some tools and some practice. You might come to enjoy it as well. Listen in for advice, to know you are not alone and to understand what sparks the fear in the first place.
Remote working and hybrid teams are a reality whether you are managing individuals who prefer not to be in the office or ones that are many time zones away. What does it take to lead these teams effectively? How do hybrid teams stay connected? What is different about managing remote or hybrid teams? Listen in for insights and practices.
You are responsible for managing your career. But, what does that mean you should be doing? Or maybe you have been doing a reasonable job but now you feel stuck. How do you get unstuck and what you can do to keep your career on track? Listen to this episode from veteran HR leaders.
Profile, brand and reputation matter for your visibility, what roles people consider you for, what opportunities come to you, how people prep to meet you. And they matter just as much internally as externally. You might be surprised how many internal leaders check LinkedIn before they meet with you. Organizations are starting to say to top talent that they need an external profile to be effective at the next level. How do you raise your profile on LinkedIn in the most effective way possible? Listen in for new, sound advice that normal people can execute without a huge amount of time.
If you want to make better decisions or if you want to have a set of diverse perspectives around you to guide thinking, then this discussion is vital. How do we frame and then re-frame our points of view to get better results? What keeps us from re-framing? Why is this a unique human skill when so much of what human’s do can be done, eventually, by machines? Listen in for insight and tools.
Getting out of your comfort zone is ultimately about embracing uncertainty. Innovating, recognizing disruptions before they wreak havoc requires some comfort with uncertainty. Why is uncertainty so uncomfortable? Why do we work so hard to eliminate it if that’s where growth lies? What would happen if we allowed more uncertainty into our work places or our lives? More importantly, how can you become more comfortable with uncertainty regardless of your level of intolerance for uncertainty? Listen in for solutions and actions as well as a lively conversation.
When it comes to achieving extra-ordinary results, we have a few myths that don’t match reality. For one, we tend to focus on “the one” person who single handedly accomplished a goal. Or, two, we tend to focus on the larger team involved in delivering a goal. What if neither are correct? What if it’s a small team or two or three that work closely together while others float in and out at different times. Looking at historical accomplishments, e.g., Wright Brothers, Gilbert and Sullivan, Apollo 13, we see exactly this pattern. Furthermore, they don’t always like each other. Listen in for a fun discussion about big achievements from small teams along with implications for how you lead your team.
Your personal brand is your reputation – it is what people think about you. And I will argue it exists whether you shape it or not. From a master marketer and a CEO, what constitutes an authentic personal brand? How do you position that brand for your team and for senior leadership so that it is credible to both? How do you prepare to communicate with your senior most leaders? Listen in for lots of real-world examples and great advice on personal brand as well as managing your career.
Relationships are are greatest asset at work and outside of work. So why do we know so little about how to form good ones and maintain them? What do all the psychological experiments of the last few decades have to say? If you want to know how to build stronger connections with anyone, listen in for critical insights and advice.
We want our leaders to be ethical and to consider the “greater good” in making decisions, particularly big ones. How do you identify ethical leadership and how can you develop it in yourself and in your organization? Listen in a very important debate.
Coaching is everywhere. Everyone, at every level, seems to want a personal coach whether the subject is career, leading or life. While no doubt one-one coaching can be effective, there is a growing interest in a different coaching format: peer-to-peer or even one coach with several coachees. Does this model work? Why? And How? What does it say about how you lead and develop your team? Can these models help us do a better job of building a hybrid team? Listen in for the debate and some solutions.
Based on latest research, a lot of people are feeling lonely, unmotivated and lacking a sense of joy. No, it’s not depression or burn-out. It’s languishing. There are 5 vitamins for flipping the switch back to flourishing. Listen in to hear what languishing is, why it matters to you and to the success of your team along with what you can do about it.
Emotional intelligence is an essential ingredient for great leadership and there is nothing new in that statement. What is new is recent study showing a steady global decline in emotional intelligence – across generations, cultures and industries. If you are leading people, this has big implications for how you manage people, particularly younger talent. And, it has big implications for each of us in being our best selves for all the people that matter in our lives. Listen in to hear the data and a conversation about the implications along with potential actions you can take.
Leaders faced with decisions often ask if they made the “right” call. Winning athletes and coaches make a constant series of calls. What can we learn from studying how they make the “right calls’? What does it tell us about how to be a better leader? Tune in for fun stories and brilliant insight.
I have been saying for a few years that leaders expect themselves to perform like Olympic athletes but do none of the preparation and practices that make today’s athletes competitive. In this episode, don’t take my word for it. Listen in to hear the story of a medal winning Olympic athelete. Learn what she did and how the same practices can apply to you.
Science has given us a window into what the best performers do that sustains and propels their performance. What distinguishes the best from the rest? What practices do you need to adopt for yourself and your team? Listen in to hear the latest advice on the skills you need.
This is a wide-ranging conversation with an entrepreneur. We talk about her big career moves, maintaining confidence, staying centered, taking risks and of course the impact of Generative AI. Listen in for a fascinating exploration of one leader’s career and how she thinks about the future.
Your career matters to you and therefore you are the only one who really cares, who can make the choices that will make a difference, who can define what you should do and when. Listen in for advice about really winning, making mistakes and how to know when it’s time to leave.
Being persuasive, convincing others is tough especially when the people you want to convince are over-scheduled, distracted and have a thousand things going on at any moment. Hostage negotiations and crisis communications have a many good insights for navigating the day-day challenges of persuasion. Intrigued? Listen in to understand 4 skills you can add to your repetoire that will be game changers.
Growth mindset, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks, perseverance, willpower are all adages we hear every day about how to succeed. What if we are thinking about these in the wrong way? How can you think about risk? How do you know if you should preserve at something or change course? How do you keep from burning out? Listen in for how one leader navigates his challenges and what he has learned about success from establishing over 100 companies.
There are many disruptors on the minds of business leaders today. A.I. and automation may be at the top of the list. However, A.I and automation enable something bigger such as a drastic change in when goods are made available to customers making it possible for customers to have anything they want, anytime they want it and anywhere they want it. This is the proximity revolution. What does it mean to you and your business? Listen in insights and steps you can take.
Having great impact is a worthy goal. In fact, I think it’s a better goal than striving to reach a particular title. And it forces you to ask some of the most important questions a leader needs to address like: Where can I add the greatest value and where do I put my efforts to have the greatest impact. What do impact players do that sets them apart? Listen in to find out and stay with us to learn why this is creating a lot of controversy in a “quiet quitting” world? What has happened to our relationship with work?
Conflict is inevitable if you are working on complex challenges. Learning to manage conflict well will be a game changer for success as a leader and in your career. What do you say in the moment? How can you make your point without offending the other party or sounding defensive? Listen in for phrases that help you say no, manage the matrix, deal with complainers, increase accountability and much more.
In almost every aspect of business, great teams outperform individual efforts. Yet creating a ‘dream’ team isn’t as easy as it sounds. What does it take to create a winning team and how can you turn your team into a winning team?
Have you ever wondered about the essential skills for being a leader that inspires people and that people want to follow? What really sets great leaders apart from the rest? Wondering what you need to develop to increase your leadership? If you answered yes to any of these, then check out answers in this episode.
This episode addresses one question: How do you come to understand who you are and what matters to you so that you can live the life you want to live and feel satisfied with your life? To answer that key question, we dive into how to define what matters, how to understand your core values, how to understand who you are and who you are not and how to define success for you. Listen in for exercises that will help you answer those questions for yourself.
Most of us avoid getting things done either from fear or self-doubt or lack of time. Regardless what you need to get done or your temperament on planning, this episode will give you fabulous tips for how to get things done and get over the inner critic.
Stress comes from the big events at work and outside of work as well as in all the small micro moments. Managing stress levels may well be the most important thing for leaders to do to keep from over-reacting, stressing their teams and amplifying negative energy. Breathing is the best way to manage your stress in the moment. But there is more to breathing than just taking in a gulp of air and letting it out. Science is showing us the power of specific breath exercises. Listen in to hear about the latest and the impact it could have on you.
If you are leading a team, you probably spend a lot of your time solving problems with or for the team. And, perhaps you spend more time than you like persuading others, especially senior most leaders, that those solutions are good or that change is necessary. Is there a better way to solve problems – one that encourages innovation and that fosters transformation? That is the focus on this episode.
Taking time to explore is one of the things that we need to do more of but that is out of the comfort zone for those that are task focused and time starved. Yet exploring is a precursor to being strategic, to spotting opportunities, to growing and even to being innovative – whether that’s big innovation like a new service or small innovation like a streamlining process. Listen in for why you should explore, what you might gain if you tried and how to do it.
This is part of the motivation series. In this episode, we turn to science to ask what research tells us about motivating ourselves and others.
One of the most common questions I get is about how to motivate a team, and yourself as a leader. In this multi-part series, we address that question with the best in research and in practice. In this episode, we are asking what really motivates and drives people and how is that related to personality. Then we will talk about the practical implications in the workplace. Listen in to hear some of the best advice on how to keep yourself and your team motived.
This is part of a series on motivation where we explore what you can do to motivate your team and yourself. The focus in this episode is incentives. What does the research say about incentives as an means of motivating and driving change? What does experience say about how to use incentives to create change? What works and what doesn’t work? Listen in for significant insights.
This is another installment in the series on motivation, a key concern for many leaders. This episode focuses on the lessons of experience from a leader who has lead in many countries across many groups. Listen in to hear an on the ground perspective of what it takes to keep your team and your organization motivated.
Communication is the means for inspiring, motivating, persuading, transforming, sparking innovation, developing and nuturing a talented team. This episode focuses on transformation and how to use communication to get the outcomes and engagement you are seeking. Listen in for great advance on leveling up your communication.
Which leaders do we gravitate to in time of stability versus in time of crisis? Are leaders changed by events or not? What does that say about how you should think about your leadership and situation in which you are leading? Listen in for a fascinating, extremely relevant perspective from history and answer the question of whether events make the leader or vice versa.
Do you feel that you are stuck in mire and can’t get things done? Is your organization wasting a lot of time with inefficiency? Are seemingly simple actions overly complicated? Tune in to understand the causes of friction and what to do about them.
Being a people leader has never been more important and never more difficult at the same time. Demands, expectations, work load, burn out, complexity, hybrid working, quiet quitting to name a few have altered the landscape for leaders and employers. What does it take to succeed and to win in this climate? Tune in to hear the 10 truths you need to master to be an effective people leader.
None of us, regardless how competent or cautious we are, are immune from being fooled. If you doubt that you can be deceived, then tune in to hear how it happens. If you know you can be deceived, then tune in to hear how to navigate without becoming hyper cynical. How do scams work, how do you get fooled and what can you do about it?
Those giving you advice about how to improve your leadership typically start with the advice to “know yourself”. But have you ever stopped to think about what constitutes your sense of self? How do you define your self? What does that say about how you can change yourself or can you change? How does this help us understand how we find meaning? How does this help us understand identity and conflict between groups? Listen in to hear what the latest thinking has to say about how you understand who you are.
One way or another, every leader is trying to create change. However, organizations are extremely slow to adopt change even when the logic for doing so is compelling. We are missing something. Tune in to hear what we know about when and how change happens, what you need to do as a leader and how you can best cascade the change your organization so desperately needs.
Regardless where you sit in an organization or the part of the world in which you reside, I think we can all agree that the quality of our conversations has declined in the last few years. Time is in precious supply, the task list is unending, the coordination burden is high and the channels have multiplied. All of which put pressure on our ability to talk. There are four ways to engage with someone else but we are not using all four effectively. Listen in to hear what the four are, how to develop capability and thus, how to have better conversations.
No doubt you have heard about mindfulness and may have attended a workshop at your organization. If you are not yet a devotee, tune in to hear why mindfulness has such a powerful impact for leaders given today’s workplace challenges. If you want to start a practice without devoting hours, we will show you how.
What holds you back? Most of us create our own traps that keep us from stepping out of our comfort zone. What are the common mindtraps? How are they created? How do we find the courage and wisdom to make a change? Tune in to learn how.
Great leadership involves a complex set of demands – often ones in conflict with each other. In this episode we begin with the eight biggest paradoxes leaders must learn to balance to be truly exceptional. Then we turn to a more recent paradox – that of trying to understand and manage multiple generations in the workplace while being fair to all and still driving performance. Tune in for insight and tactics.
Getting out of your comfort zone means learning to cope with mistakes and set-backs – in other words being resilient. In fact, senior leaders often give the feedback that people in the organization need to be more resilient particularly given the change, uncertainty and chaos around all of us. But, what does that mean – being resilient? Why? Beyond sleeping well, what else can you do to develop resilience? Tune in to find out.
Nothing seems to raise concerns like pay and benefits. If you think you should be paid more or if you want to ask for a pay increase, this session provides information need to know about how pay systems work.
Advancing your career today is harder than ever for many reasons from economic pressures to competition, uncertainty, changing expectations, leadership commitment – the list is a long one. How do you tackle the problems that plague individuals such as perfectionism, exclusion, aspiration and confidence? And as a leader, how do you navigate the changing expectations of what you should be doing? Tune in for great advice based on an extensive data base analysis.
Respect, being valued, feeling like you belong, appreciating your contribution – these are things all of us want from our employers. Some of us get that respect, too many don’t particularly if you feel like more of an “other”. Why is respect such a key component of motivation? What do you need to be doing as a leader? What should you do if you get it wrong with someone? How does respect create a more inclusive environment? Tune in to learn how to do the right thing.
Who doesn’t want more confidence, especially when you have stepped out of your comfort zone and are trying to do something you haven’t yet mastered! That’s when most of us begin feeling like an imposter. Today’s episode is focused on the 8 confidence super powers – the mindsets that make all the difference to sustaining confidence. Tune in to hear how you can build more confidence.
Do you struggle to frame your thoughts in meetings? Do you avoid speaking up? Do you dread speaking in public? If so, this episode is for you. Tune in to hear the tricks and tactics for managing anxiety, for what to do when your mind goes blank as you are about to speak and for saying what’s on your mind in the moment.
At some point in our careers, all of us have to work with a co-worker or a boss who is “difficult”, from our point of view and who ultimately drains the joy out of work. These are complex situations but there are strategies to help. Tune in to hear about some of the typical challenges and what you can do to make work more satisfying.
You have probably been told that you need to raise your profile or do more self-promotion in order to get the opportunities you want to have. And you probably haven’t done much about it. If so, this episode is for you. How can you brag in a better way – one that is effective as well as true to you and your style? Tune in for very practical advice.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to become truly skilled, an expert, in a new area – that is when “we become the Master of It instead of us being mastered by it”? In this era of change, the ability to learn, to master a topic, has never been more important to all of us throughout our careers in order to stay relevant. Listen in to hear what it takes to develop mastery.
Getting people to listen is step one in persuading them to take an action. That is true whether you are giving a big speech, making a pitch, presenting an idea to your boss or lobbying for a new responsibility. What we used to advise doesn’t work so well today. So, what do you need to do? How can you improve your ability to communicate and persuade even if you don’t like speaking in public? Tune in for practical advice.
Power and influence – two words that are critical in a world that is vastly different from a decade ago even. We often think about hierarchical power as the most important – sometimes the only power we see. While, it’s not to be ignored, that’s insufficient for the way we work today. Our focus today is on what can you do to influence decision making. Listen in to hear more.
Digital transformation, data analytics, AI, ChatGPT are the current headlines. What does it mean for you as a leader? What do you need to know? What do you need to do? How do you lead your team through these transformations in practical terms? Listen to find a path forward.
In the project driven work of today, the ever ominous matrix and the need to manage stakeholders, influence is critical, perhaps more so than ever. How do you influence without manipulating? What are the key steps to influencing? What are the essential ingredients? Listen in to hear how you can expand your influence.
Questions are the most important tools in a leadership toolkit. Questions help you coach effectively as well as delegate, learn, innovate, engage, motivate, cope with uncertainty … well just about everything. What makes a great question? What sorts of questions should you be asking? How do you ask better questions? Listen in for advice from one of the best question askers.
Hear from a leader who has stepped out of her comfort zone and learn what she has done to be successful in those moments, how she prepares for the next level, how she has found the courage to make bold moves and how she stays motivated.
Many writers and consultants have an opinion about what makes for great leadership – usually focused around their main theme. This episode takes a wholistic view by talking to a Chief Human Resource Officer about what key mistakes he sees in leader, the outstanding qualities of the best leaders, what he wish people would do for their development and how to idenitfy great talent for your team. And, we are going to talk about how you can think about the next step in your career and get out of your comfort zone. Listen in for an on the ground perspective.
Some skills are and will be essential in the coming decades and if you want to stay relevant regardless the latest technology or content developments, you should invest now in learning those skills. One such case is design thinking as a way to see the whole system. Listen in to learn what design thinking is, how it will help you do your job and keep your job and what you need to develop in order to master it.
Most of us don’t love self-promotion but we know we need to do it – or rather we think we are supposed to do it. Finally, there is advice on how to bragg without coming across as egotisticial or boastful. Listen in to learn more.
Regardless where you work or how empathetic and caring you are as a person, everyone eventually needs to work with someone where the relationship is less than ideal – where there is tension, diasgreement and maybe even a bit of dislike. How do you work through those occasions without giving up too much of yourself in the process? How do you structure the critical conversations? How do you prepare yourself? Tune in to hear what to do.
When we think of well-being, we usually think of mindfulness and relaxation. Being free from pain is just as important. What you do today to your body, particularly your spine, can greatly affect your long term well-being, experience of pain and even your executive presence. Tune in to find out how and what you can do to make a difference.
If you are struggling to hold people accountable, then this podcast has the solution for you. It turns out that both compassion AND accountability are needed to drive performance. Tune in to hear why and what you can do about both?
Do you admire leaders who have courage and who seem to make bold moves without enormous stress? Do you wish you had more courage? Or, do you wish your team had more courage? If so, we have good news for you. Courage is a developable skill like any other skill. The secret is in understanding the components that lead to courage. Listen in to learn about those skills and how you can increase your levels of courage.
Perhaps you have been asked to be a mentor or to be part of a mentoring program. Perhaps you have mentored before and probably had a couple of great mentors. Most likely you haven’t thought about the many different ways you could mentor. And if you are looking for a mentor, perhaps thinking about the different roles mentors play would help you find the ideal mentor for you. Tune in to hear about the 13 roles mentors can take: The secret sauce of each along with the pros and cons of each role.
Leaders faced with decisions often ask if they made the “right” call. Winning athletes and coaches make a constant series of calls. What can we learn from studying how they make the “right calls’? What does it tell us about how to be a better leader? Tune in for fun stories and brilliant insight.
Do you wish you worked in an organization with no hierarchy – where each employee determined their path to achieving stated goals? Are you debating about the ideal organizational structure for your business? Or, do you wonder what you most need to do as a manager that truly helps your team? The debate about hierarchy versus agile or bossless organization is not new. Tune in to learn the pros and cons as well as how to determine the essential role for you as a manager.
No doubt you have heard about mindfulness and may have attended a workshop at your organization. If you are not yet a devotee, tune in to hear why mindfulness has such a powerful impact for leaders given today’s workplace challenges. If you want to start a practice without devoting hours, we will show you how.
Do you think you are good at multi-tasking? Do you wonder why you can’t stay focused and what to do about it? Do you really need to take breaks and for how long? Tune in to hear about the research on the how our attention spans are decreasing and what we need to do to reclaim our well-being?
How you think about a situation impacts how you feel about the situation and ultimately how you interact with people. The problem is that you will only see part of the data, confuse data and judgment, and ultimately act on your beliefs and feelings, leaving you feeling out of control. Changing your understanding, gives you more power than you might appreciate – power to show more confidence, have less anxiety and be more optimistic. All of which ultimately impacts your ability to be persuasive. Tune in to see why and what to do about it.
If you are looking for an inspirational story on the power of one or two words of encouragement, this is the episode for you. We talk about facing intense adversity, controlling your mindset, surrounding yourself with people who celebrate you and whom you celebrate and focusing on the next tiny step. And, there are a few ideas on how to find mentors and build those relationships. Tune in to hear more.
Neuroscience has a lot to say to us today about how our brains default to habits that are not conducive to productivity, motivation, thinking, resilience and ultimately to our reputation as a leader. What does the latest science say? And what practical changes can you make that will increase your performance and that of your team? Tune in to hear more.
No doubt your organization has a diversity and inclusion effort and it may go by any number of acronyms: DEI, IED, DEIB, etc. What do you need to understand as a leader? More importantly, what do you need to do to ensure you have a team that has diverse points of view, that values those differences and that creates an inclusive culture where everyone has a fair shot and an equal voice? If you want to break away from the pack, tune in.
Changing the culture is among the top plans for many leaders whether they lead a large organization or a small team. Yet few really succeed. What do leaders get wrong when they think about culture? What are they missing in the steps? What can be done to more effectively shift a culture? How do generational differences affect culture and culture change? Tune in to hear more.
The impact of stress is not a new topic. However, have you stopped to think about all the tiny, almost unrecognizable things that happen in the course of the day. They hardly register as typical stress but they do add up. The phenonmenon is called “Microstress”. Tune in to hear what you can do about it.
Diversity matters for innovation and performance at a minimum. Why do so many who are part of a minority group within the organization feel so disenfranchised? What is happening that we need to understand as leaders? What can you do as a colleague or a leader that will make a difference? And, if you are part of a minority group, what can you do to build a strong career path? Tune in for a lively discussion and great advice.
Regardless of what you have done, when you get out of your comfort zone to do something new, your confidence will take a hit. How do you claim your confidence? How can you learn to accept change, take things less personally and not obsess about what other people think? Tune in to hear more.
Millennials will make up 75% of most workforces by 2025 and Generation Z is right behind them. The differences in perspectives between the four generations at work today can be frustrating to say the least. What do you need to know about Gen Z and millennials? What can you do as a leader to truly develop the next generation? And if you are a young talent, what do you need to know about the other generations? Tune in for a lively discussion.
What if you had a methodology for looking into the future, drawing implications and taking actions that matter today? Tune in to hear how to apply Future Back in general. Then stay tuned for how we apply that process to think about the future of your office place.
Whether you are talking about your brand or your big idea, being able to show a specific measure of success helps others invest in you and helps you be persuasive. But, where do you start? How do you build a great metric? And, how do you use the process to sell others on you or your project? Tune in to hear the process and learn how to use this process to define the value you add.
Building a culture where diverse opinions are heard, debates happen in the room and people feel comfortable saying what they think in a constructive way generates better communication and better results. For decades we have talked about how to foster diversity and build inclusive cultures without a great deal of progress to show for the efforts. What do we need to do next? Tune in to hear a lively discussion on what actions you can take and how we can all rise together.
Debate, disagreement, different perspectives, different priorities and even different sets of facts make persuading others extremely tough. In addition, when the outcome matters a great deal, emotions always run high. What is needed to win an argument, how can you persuade someone else of a different point of view? Tune in to hear master tips from a world champion debater.
Conflict, tension and disagreement are part of every team and every organization. Those that can navigate through the tension can achieve superb results. However, too many of us aren’t comfortable with conflict and either over react to conflict or avoid it totally. And of course, when the conflict really matters, it does feel personal. There is a way to get more comfortable with conflict and disagreement. Tune in to hear the steps you can take.
How often has you questioned whether your team was accountable? How many times have you told someone on your team to hold others accountable? Accountability may be as important as trust and integrity. But what do you need to do as a leader to drive accountability? Tune in to hear what you need to do.
How do you find the courage and the strategy to persuade people in positions of power to do something different? So many people have great ideas and can’t get leaders to listen to the ideas let alone consider them seriously and even adopt them. So many also give up on their ideas too quickly - they fail to understand what the process of change requires and how to stick with the message in order to see success. Tune in for a real example of substantive change and allow with an approach that might work for you.
You know you need time to think and to plan, you know you have a very important future-focused task to work on in the next 6 months, and you probably are so busy you have no time to do what matters for long term success. Tune in for fabulous tactics and advice on how to change that pattern for yourself for good.
How can you motivate others, and by implication yourself? That is one of the most common questions I hear from leaders and for good reason. The research on motivation is complicated and unclear. Tune in to hear the latest highlights and insights on how to motivate yourself and others.
Far too often, new leaders are not prepared for the leadership role and thus are frustrated, disillusioned and ineffective. This is a fixable solution. Tune in to hear what you need to know about leading effectively whether you are a new leader or a seasoned one.
Resilience, adaptability and agility are becoming even more essential skills for leaders. But, in the face of change is it better to stick (i.e., persist, persevere, show grit) or to switch (i.e., change course, adapt, flex)? Turns out it is a critical question that gets to the heart of what it means to be agile. Tune in to here what the science is saying about how to develop your own resilience and make wise choices.
What do you need to do to experience more happiness? It turns out there is strong link between a finite amount of discretionary time and happiness. Beyond mindfulness and mediation, what else can you do? Tune in to find out what research says about this link, how to have more happiness in your life without quitting your job.
Whereever you work, you probably interact and collaborate with people from a range of cultures. What do you need to do to insure that you are being culturally aware and helping people “save face”? Tune in to learn what this concept really means, what it doesn’t mean and what you can do be a great colleague, fabulous leader in all cultures.
When most people prepare for a negotiation, they worry about how high to start the “bidding”, what information to withhold and who is taking advantage of whom. As a result, most people don’t produce a great outcome that feels fair to all sides. There is a better way. We will talk about a radically different way to think about negotiation – one that emphasizes fairness to all and reframes the pie that we should split. Tune in to hear how.
Our minds are always in high gear - interpreting events, watching for blockers, protecting us and more. That activity can make destressing extremely difficult and often leads to poor sleep and more. How can you quiet your mind? Why should you try? Tune in to hear more.
How effective are you at influencing people? Do you ever wonder why people do not appear to take your ideas seriously? Tune in to learn about who we listen to and why along with how to have greater influence.
The questions we ask ourselves as well as the questions we ask our team ultimately drive our thinking, our engagement, our sense of satisfaction and our results. How do you ask better questions to get a stronger learning mindset? Tune in to hear what works.
Of course as a leader you strive to give feedback to your team and to develop them. But, are you coaching enough? Or are you instructing? What does coaching mean to you as a manager? What should you do to coach effectively? How do you create a coaching culture? Tune in to hear more.
Nothing seems to raise concerns like pay and benefits. If you think you should be paid more or if you want to ask for a pay increase, this session provides information need to know about how pay systems work.
Curiosity – gentle curiosity – is an essential skill for leaders and teams. Whether it is the curiosity to ask why before leaping to a conclusion, to try to understand where someone else is coming from, to ask what if or to explore new territory; curiosity fuels so much of performance. How do you develop it? How do you nurture it in your team? What is curiosity and why does it matter for human connection? Tune in to hear more.
Tune in to hear one leader’s experience inspiring people in his organization to do more, make change and reach a higher level of performance.
So many books to read and no time to read them – listen in for insights from some of the best leaders and authors. What is their key message? What is their insight? And, what’s the one question you should be asking yourself?
While anxiety has always been a part of the human condition, today more and more people are talking about anxiety in themselves and in their team members. What is a normal level of anxiety? How does anxiety work in the brain? What can you do about it as an individual and as a leader? Tune in to hear.
While anxiety has always been a part of the human condition, today more and more people are talking about anxiety in themselves and in their team members. What is a normal level of anxiety? How does anxiety work in the brain? What can you do about it as an individual and as a leader? Tune in to hear.
You have heard about the need to change, the coming potential disruptions to your business and the risks you need to take in your career. Yet, if you are like most leaders, you hesitate to take the risk of abandoning what has made you and your business successful to date. How can you prepare to take a risk? How do you get yourself out of your comfort zone, personally and business-wise?
You have heard about the need to change, the coming potential disruptions to your business and the risks you need to take in your career. Yet, if you are like most leaders, you hesitate to take the risk of abandoning what has made you and your business successful to date. How can you prepare to take a risk? How do you get yourself out of your comfort zone, personally and business-wise?
Who doesn’t have more tasks than there are hours in the day to get them completed? Or more emails than you can possibly read and respond to? Or double and triple booked meetings? How do you get control of your time and focus on what matters most and be efficient? Tune in for tips from a leader who has put the concept into practice.
Who doesn’t have more tasks than there are hours in the day to get them completed? Or more emails than you can possibly read and respond to? Or double and triple booked meetings? How do you get control of your time and focus on what matters most and be efficient? Tune in for tips from a leader who has put the concept into practice.
Have you been identified as a high potential talent in your organization? What does it take to be seen as high potential? What do high potentials do that other don’t do? How do you identify the high potentials in your team? How do you help them develop? If you are concerned about your career or the careers of people who work for you, this episode contains critical information.
Have you been identified as a high potential talent in your organization? What does it take to be seen as high potential? What do high potentials do that other don’t do? How do you identify the high potentials in your team? How do you help them develop? If you are concerned about your career or the careers of people who work for you, this episode contains critical information.
With the “Great Resignation”, most leaders have renewed their focus on finding, hiring and keeping great talent. Are you doing the right things to be sure you have found the best talent and can keep them? Tune in to hear what you need to know about creating a talent magnet.
The stories of how individuals overcome extreme adversity are widely told and lauded. They emphasize personal grit, perserverance, growth mindset and mental toughness. What if that popular narrative is wrong? Scientific research says it’s not that simple. The ability to deal with adversity and come out the other side involves three things. Tune in to hear why our narrative needs adjusting, what is a better framework and how to get there from here.
Do you find yourself struggling to keep up, to make the impact you know you can make? What choices do you need to make to get out of quicksand and stay out? How do you make choices that let you have an even greater impact? As it turns out, there are 4 key choices. Tune in to hear more.
What makes a great leader today? No doubt you have your own experiences with leaders you thought were truly inspirational and admirable. What are the common elements and behaviors for those leaders? What do they do? How do they develop agility? What has changed about what we expect from our leaders? Tune in for a fascinating discussion.
In this episode, we begin with a story of a newly hired leader who is overwhelmed, not fully backed by the team, not getting the support expected from her manager and at risk for not delivering. Through this story we will explore why she is in this situation and what she can do about it. How can she (or you) advocate for herself when others haven’t done so, cannot do so or are too overwhelmed themselves to do so. Tune in for a exciting and enlightening episode.
All leaders need to create greater leverage by delegating more effectively. That isn’t news; yet most leaders struggle to delegate effectively and consistently. What does it take and how can you get better at delegating? Tune in for answers.
Leadership is about leading change whether the change is to get better performance, better teams, better cultures or better client/customer reactions or even to correct a misstep or anticipate a market shift. For something that is so fundamental to leadership, most get change horribly wrong for the people that are being asked to make a change. What are we missing? What really happens to people when they are asked to change? How can we lead change in a more effective manner? Tune in the hear a different way to lead change.
Stories – no doubt you have heard that to capture your audience you need to tell a story. Yet, most executives don’t use narrative well and most are trained to understand its power let alone how to master it. Why are stories so powerful? How do we think about stories that make a difference for our organizations? Tune in to hear how.
Who do you find irritating at work? Chances are they are not very much like you – they may be from a different generation or background, hold different values or even think about work differently. Tune in to here why we generalize as human beings, what we find most irritating, how to alter work dialogues and more.
If you are looking for ways to inspire your team, we have a process to follow that will lead to inspiration, engagement and better decisions. It all begins with your ability as a leader to engage individuals in a conversation about the purpose of their job. Tune in to hear how to make this conversation work with you team.
What is the secret to changing your behavior and changing your habits? What about changing the habits of your team? Tune in to discover a methodology that works.
We often get feedback about a behavior that is too much – such as being too direct, too quiet or too assertive. However that same behavior is a core quality and it has generated great results. When does a strength tip into a liability? How do we think about these “flaws” in a way that is more productive? How does this help us boost confidence? Tune in to discover a fascinating approach.
In honor of fathers and mothers around the world who are working and struggling to keep all the aspects of their lives together. First, Josh Levs offers his experience and perspective on why we must give fathers the same parental rights we give mothers. Second, Stew Friedman introduces his framework for how to integrate all the parts of your life. It works just as well for any leader whether you are a parent or not. Tune in to be inspired.
Growth is a key focus today whether that is expanding the company’s footprint or expanding product and service offers. How can you better understand the go/no-go decisions your company chooses to make? What culture and leadership behaviors impede growth? What can you do about it? Tune in for wisdom on how to grow your business.
72% of global workers report feeling lonely. If you are feeling disconnected from people at work, you are not alone. And, as a manager if you worry about how disconnected, or lonely, your team members seem to be, you are not alone either. Why should you care and what can you do about it? Tune in to find out more.
If you are a functional or technical specialist who is wondering what it takes to get promoted to the next level, this is the episode for you. What keeps you from getting the roles you think you deserve? How do you become more strategic? How do you think about collaborating across boundaries? Tune in to hear how one executive did it.
Hearing from leaders who have built and led organizations and then stopped to reflect on what worked and what didn’t inspires us. Tune in to hear experiences about navigating conflict, creating alignment, having tough conversations, expanding into unknown territory and boosting confidence – all essential for executing.
The pandemic has created a massive experiment in how we could work; however, it has also offered few roadmaps for how to work going forward. Do we go back to the office, in what proportion of time? How do we use technology more effectively? How do we foster human connection? How do we accommodate individual needs and preferences? While we do not yet have answers, we do have some guidelines for how to redesign work in your organization. Tune in to hear a model for evaluating what work at your organization looks like in the future.
If you are looking for practical advice as a leader - something simple, straightforward and immediately actionable that has survived the test of time - tune in for sound advice from two leadership gurus.
Trust and inspiration – we know both matter a great deal. Who wants to work for a leader who doesn’t trust you and who isn’t inspiring? Yet, knowing what to do to create a culture of trust and to inspire those who work with you is not so simple as saying the words. Tune in to hear how to shift from controlling to inspiring.
Frustrated with your lack of growth in your career? Or, as a manager, are you frustrated that your team is constantly complaining about their lack of growth? Maybe, we need to think about growth with a new lens – one that affords more than two dimensions. Tune in to learn a new framework to think about your career – or the careers of your team members.
Have you ever failed to get your message across in say a year-end performance review, a job interview or an introduction to a key stakeholder? If so, we have a solution for you. Tune in to hear what to prepare, how to prepare and what to do when you get an unexpected question.
Although, we know the world is changing rapidly, most of our business processes are designed to create stability and incremental change. How should your team be thinking about disruptive forces? What forces should we pay attention to? And how? Tune in to learn how to spot the next rogue wave and how to build a culture that is resilient.
Your company and your team are succeeding; performance is good all around. Now is the time to be vigilant. Why? And how to keep your team alert, vigilant to signs of change before things go wrong? Tune in to hear the answers to both questions.
Do you think you understand the power of your company’s brand? Do you know how to manage the sales cycle? Do you believe your customers are not buying on social media? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then tune in to have your perspective challenged.
What are the next rules of how organizations work and how do you prepare yourself to lead in this new world? Innovation, growth, hybrid work and new ecosystems require leaving behind old skills and old mindsets and becoming increasingly more agile. In effect, the next world of work demands more out of the comfort zone moments. Tune in to hear the rules and how to lead in that world.
The pandemic has caused a lot of pain for a lot a people. Unlike traditional traumatic experiences that appear as horrendous headline news stories and involve a select set of people, this time the trauma has been shared and therefore more easily ignored. What do you need to know as a leader about trauma and how do you help your team heal? Tune in to find out. It is easier than you might expect.
How do you go up against a giant in your industry and win? How do you spot the next disruption in your industry? The answer lies in thinking about competitive forces in different ways. And that ultimately comes down to understanding and constructing the real ecosystem. Tune in to here why this matters and what to do as a result.
If you need to learn to have greater impact in your communication, this episode is for you. Tune in for great, practical advice regardless your comfort level with communication, influence and impact.
Have you ever received the feedback that you need to learn to “read the room” or that you need to improve your “presence or gravitas”? If so, this episode is for you. We focus on body language – what your body language is saying to others and what others are saying to you. And, we will show you practical tips to have the impact you want to have. Tune in to hear more.
If you have more work than you think is reasonable, you need to put yourself forward or you have a topic that is difficult to talk about; then today’s episode is for you. How do you stand up for yourself and when? How to you say no? How do you talk about topics that we are not supposed to discuss but that matter?
As a leader and manager, you want new ideas and new approaches. Yet, perhaps your own mindset is limiting the creativity you get from your team. What can you do? Why should you care? And how does creativity impact the culture? Tune in to learn how.
You want your team to tell you the truth and you want to create a space of psychological safety. What does that mean you need to do? How do you know if you are doing a good job or not? Why do people trust you? Tune in for practical advice that will make a difference for your organization.
Collaboration is expected in business today. Real collaboration and powerful teamwork requires partnership – a term we use often but rarely analyze. What does it mean to create a meaningful partnership particularly within a team and with your manager? How do we most effectively create partnerships that make a difference? How do we avoid the dreaded 4 D’s? Tune in to learn more about how you can foster strong partnerships with your team, your manager and your peers.
Leading when the team knows more than you means that you must change the nature of your relationship with your team members. Because you are no longer the hero who can fix things or solve every technical problem, people come to you for other reasons. Unless each team member feels you care about him/her as a whole person, there will be no innovation, engagement, sense of purpose and receptivity to feedback. How do you convey that you care? Tune in to hear simple, executable tactics.
Have you found yourself defending yourself, saying “my intentions were good”? In your quest to support diversity, do you find yourself wanting to help but not quite succeeding? Tune in for a solution on how to move from being a believer to a builder. Hint, the answer lies in how you frame your intentions.
If you want to know what it takes to create and sustain a high performance team a winning culture, tune in to learn how some of the best in sports, Formula One racing, achieve exactly that. How do they keep the entire staff committed, engaged and innovating? How do they think about change and transformation? The solutions will surprise you.
Collaboration is how we solve complex problems, innovate, serve customers and ultimately do great things. At the same time, collaboration consumes precious time and adds to the overload. How do you balance competing demands? How do you buy back time? And, what should you do with that time? Tune in for more.
Stress for office workers seems to be everywhere – at home, at work, with family, away from family, and even on vacation. We have been told stress is bad for you and that we should eliminate or avoid stress. But is that true? What can you do to manage stress and build resilience? Tune in to learn from an expert who trains first responders.
Do you find yourself a little intimidated when you have to talk to the CEO, whether that is at your company, at a client or at a networking event? Do you wonder what you need to say and what the CEO wants to hear from you? If so, that’s not unusal. Tune in to hear how from someone who has a lot of experience talking with and connecting with CEO’s, C-suite executives and board members.
Everyone complains about the number of meetings and the ineffectiveness of meetings. What if you had tools and processes that would help you lead more productive meetings? What if those same processes helped make all conversations more effective? Tune in to find out how.
Often there are people who have an influence on our lives, our thinking and our careers. We call these people mentors whether they know their impact or not. Interviewing leading thinkers on a weekly basis means that you meet a lot of mentors who leave you with key insights. Tune in to hear the mentors my guest has met and the lessons he has abstracted from a few key individuals.
Conversations are ultimately essential for business – maybe for life as well. Some conversations are exciting and inspiring, some are difficult and others cover a whole range of emotions. Ineffective meetings, where most conversations happen, cost $37 billion a year. Tune in if you want to know how to have better conversations, breakthrough conversations and effective meetings.
Your job as a leader is to inspire and engage people. Communication is the means of accomplishing those goals. What do you need to do differently to inspire and engage more? Tune in to hear how.
In history, leaders have achieved incredible goals usually in spite of a lot of public criticism and strong oppositon. The advantage of looking at history is that we know the results, often decades later, had the impact the leader had hoped it would, perhaps even more so. For example consider the building of the Panama Canal. It was a near disaster and it costs lots of lives, but the ultimate impact has been enormous. How did the leader perserve, what kept him going and what really led to success? The lessons are powerful for today.
Whether you manage a team or not, you are leading when you influence people and outcomes. How do you become a spark in your organization regardless of your title and seniority? How do you create a culture of accountability and feedback? How do you create alignment? Tune in to hear these are more.
Have you stopped to think about how much fun you have at work or how much fun your team would like to have? What would be the impact on productivity and engagement if you increased the amount of fun? How can you do so even if you are not a funny person? Tune in to hear why and how.
This is the second in a two-part series on influence. You have decided what needs to happen; now how do you “sell the idea” or even yourself? Tune in to hear what research and experience says are the key factors in your ultimate outcome.
This is the first of a two part series on influence. We begin with looking at the toughest cases of influence – those that put pressure on you to go against your core values whether that’s because everyone else is doing so, because no one else has spoken up or because a person of power is applying pressure. How do you think through these situations? What do you do? Tune in to evaluate your approach to your ethics.
Everyone at some point deals with team members, peers and even bosses who act “crazy”, irrational and even hostile. It’s the biggest source of stress at work. What can you do to talk to someone who is acting crazy and without becoming crazy yourself? Tune in to hear insightful tactics.
In this interview with an entrepreneurial leader, we focus on the leadership journey, the transition from being the expert to leading at a larger scale and the experiences and insights along the way. Tune in to be inspired about your own career.
When there is tension and conflict, what can you do to facilitate a better conversation and reach a breakthrough? Tune in to hear more about why facilitation is essential for managing conflict and how you can get better.
Regardless where you work or what your level of responsibility, everyone has to have a tough conversation occasionally from finding the courage to ask for a raise to saying no or dealing with a difficult peer. Tune in to learn how to have these difficult conversations in the best way possible.
In challenging times right now and in months ahead, leaders need better insight on keeping motivation within their teams. What better example than Antarctic explorers who faced enormous adversity, kept the team moving and lived to tell the story. You may think you know these stories, but do you know the secrets to their team spirit? Tune in to learn how their tactics might apply to you.
What if you knew that four social signals would improve your ability to win a sale, negotiate salary, bring a team together, been seen as a leader or even get a date? They can. Tune in to hear what the signals are and how they work.
Where ever you work, whatever you are trying to accomplish in your business, culture comes first. Tune in to hear why that is true and to learn what to you can do to foster a better culture.
Whereever you work, you probably interact and collaborate with people from a range of cultures. What do you need to do to insure that you are being culturally aware and helping people “save face”? Tune in to learn what this concept really means, what it doesn’t mean and what you can do be a great colleague, fabulous leader in all cultures.
As a leader, you know the value of hiring great talent – talent with diverse experiences, perspectives and backgrounds. The power of the team you have assembled now depends on your ability to create an inclusive culture which balances uniqueness with belonging. What does that look like? What do you need to do? How can you take steps today to move in the right direction? Tune in to hear more about the latest research and advice.
Many leaders talk about changing the culture of their organizations. Few succeed. Tune in to learn about best practices of the companies that do succeed along with advice on how to return to the office and not destroy your culture.
There are so many forces shaping the future of your business. What are they? What’s unique today? How are they impacting you as a leader? What does it mean for how you interact with customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders and the larger community? Tune in to hear more.
Increasingly, headlines are noting the impact of the last year on mental health. Employees are quitting in record numbers. Every level within the organization seems to be experiencing higher stress than the year before. What is happening? What can you do about it as a leader? How do you build a culture that minimizes anxiety and supports mental health? Tune to hear more.
The current corporate trend is to articulate a purpose statement as a way to provide a sense of meaning and purpose for employees, to create pride in the company and to connect with customers. Having a sense of purpose does seem to be an important part of feeling connected to and having a sense of fulfillment from the work you do. From a comprehensive study, we can now identify 10 principles that are important for making work meaningful. I think you will be both surprised by the results and not surprised at the same time.
Whether you are a salesperson, a leader or an individual contributor, you are selling something all the time – a product/service, your capability, your idea or even your personality. And in these times, all of that “selling” is happening virtually. We have no option but to master how to convince people in a virtual setting. Tune in to hear how and learn the secrets from the experts?
Why is history so important today when you are leading a team? Given the social justice concerns, what do you need to know to be an effective ally and leader?
Inspiring and engaging your team, ultimately delivering great results, begins with having the people on your team believe you care about them as whole human beings. At our current pace, too many leaders say they have lost the time to have a meaningful conversation. How do we get compassion and caring back into the day-day fabric of our leadership without losing track of everything else? Tune in for simple ways to make a difference with your team.
Loyal customers generate greater returns and even more powerful word-of-mouth advertising. Loyal employees drive customer loyalty. Regardless what industry you are in, loyalty should be on your radar screen. How do you measure loyalty, why should you, and what can you do to foster it in your customers and in your employees, even in millennials? Tune in to hear this and more.
How much is your image and appearance holding back your career? As much as you may want your knowledge and expertise to drive your career, you may be limiting your impact. Human beings decide to listen, trust and perhaps believe based in part on the image of the presenter. Whether you identify as male or female, tune in to learn what matters most and what you can do about it.
The job of the leader is to lead change; otherwise the leader is managing the status quo. But leading change is not about running a change process, it’s about winning over hearts and minds. Tune in to hear how to do this as a leader as well as how to get more comfortable with changing yourself.
Being able to persuade others to buy your products and services as well as to buy you; meaning to trust you, back your idea or promote you has never been more important regardless what role you are in. So what do we often get wrong? Hear about the big mistakes and the best fixes.
During the pandemic, some leaders have excelled and changed what they do. Who are those leaders? What did they learn after reflection? What does it say for all of us leading teams and organizations? Tune in to hear more.
Obsessive personalities are those people who pursue excellence at all costs; sometimes to the detriment of relationships on the team and in the organization. When is this obesssiveness helpful and when is harmful? If you are working with or leading such a personality, how do you get the best of that person and avoid the worst?
There is no doubt that work has changed – the way we work, the actual work we do and the pace of work to name a few. Three significant trends should be in the foreground for everyone from employees to leaders. Those are humans working with machines in new ways, multiple models of what it means to be employed and the rise of the super-team. Those trends have significant implications for the capabilities each of us needs to thrive as well as for how leadership needs to shift and how the culture will change. Tune in to hear more.
What will be the future of our office work? Some miss the office and some don’t. Some have been more productive at home, some think they haven’t been as productive. Will we return to a central office and presentee-ism culture? If not, what will we do? What are the implications for work, location, hours and connections? Tune in for a lively debate.
During times of uncertainty, keeping ourselves and our teams motivated, healthy and less stressed is essential work for leaders. We talk a lot about mindfulness and sleep. But we miss the importance of our sense of identity – who we are, what value we bring to our work and why work matters. Most people are hungry for a better sense of meaning and identity. Why does this boost performance, why should you care as a leader, and what can you do about it? Tune in to see how to have a better sense of peace in yourself and your team ultimately drives performance.
Leaders need to be great coaches. What do the best sports coaches have to teach business leaders about coaching for performance, to win and to build a strong team? Tune in to hear what John Wooden believed and practiced as one of the all time best college basketball coaches.
As a leader you know that trust is essential. How do you lead from a basis of trust versus a basis of control? How do you increase trust? And how does trust tie to inspiration and a sense of purpose. Tune in to hear more.
Regardless of the type of business you are in or lead, you are probably finding that you interact more and more with technical people – engineers, programmers, data scientists, artificial intelligence experts. How well equipped are to ask the right questions, bridge the gaps in communication and have confidence in your understanding? And as a technical specialist, how effective are you in communicating key decisions to business leaders? Tune in for advice for both.
Having a team that performs consistently requires having people that are maximizing their performance every day – they achieve peak performance. Olympic class athletes are obsessed by sustaining peak performance. They measure it and they monitor what impacts it from sleep to food to mediation. But as leaders, we expect to perform like an Olympic class atheletes every day but we do nothing to assess our “peak” and to understand how to sustain it. Plus we spend little time assessing what our team members need to be at their peak performance every day. We can change that with science and methodology. Tune in to hear how.
Drawing on her military experience, her engineering projects and her broad leadership experience, Jenn shows what it takes to truly do great things. Three steps make all the difference: Getting to know the team, building trust, and taking it to the next level. Easy to say, tune in to hear how.
If you think your career is stalled or you think you have been sidelined for whatever reason, this episode is for you. What are the signals that you have been sidelined? How can you turbocharge your career? How should you network? What if you can’t get another role?
As a parent or as a leader, you have probably thought carefully about the maternal leave policies at your company. But have you stopped to consider the impact on working fathers? Tune in to challenge the mythology around fathers and to consider why a full parenting policy benefits everyone and your bottom line.
Agency is an unusual word for business and we are not talking about hiring an “Agency”. For our purposes, agency is the ability for an individual to act independently and make their own choices. It turns out this concept is central to our ability to manage uncertainty, to adapt and probably to inspire others. What is it, how does it work, why does it matter for uncertain times and, most importantly, how can you have more of it? Tune in to hear more and learn what you can do for yourself and your team.
Compassion and accountability are secret ingredients for leaders. How can you be compassionate and hold accountability particularly in the face of disagreement, contention, conflict and drama. Tune in for more wisdom on managing drama, navigating conflict and having an amazing team.
Being part of an unstoppable team sounds like an amazing place to work. The question is how to create that environment – how to build a team that is unstoppable. Tune in to hear the key ingredients.
Tune in to hear the perspective and wisdom of one of the great thinkers, observers and leaders. What are we missing today? Why does it seem that we have so little leadership today? What do we need to think about for the future?
If you stop to think about the leaders you respect the most, the ones you have enjoyed working with and for, you will probably find that they are less about ego and more about integrity and openness. They probably leave you with a sense of dignity. They probably saw you as a human being not just as an output machine. There are three key questions we want leaders to answer. And it all takes humility. What is it? Why does it matter? And, how can you do more of it?
In a climate of change and uncertainty, the ability to personally adapt and to get your team to adapt is central to success. Adapting means learning a new way. In fact, getting out of your comfort zone is ultimately about learning – learning a new way to lead. We often say that the ability to learn and stay curious is a core competency. What makes for a great learning culture? What works and what doesn’t? How do you develop this competency in yourself and in your team?
Teams in which people are not afraid to speak up, to challenge, to risk saying a wild idea are teams with the best performance. Google has found that psychological safety is a key component of their best teams. Yet, people are afraid of causing trouble, looking foolish, not being promoted and more. How do you create a team, and an organization, that is not afraid?
Tune in to hear how one leader has managed several big transitions: The tactics used and the surprises along the way. We’ll talk about mistakes, globally dispersed teams, personal brand, building networks, confidence, trust and much more.
Culture is what every leader aspires to change or create. Yet, it is very elusive. We are going to de-bunk some common myths about changing culture such as “culture starts at the top” or “one company, one culture”. Want to know how to change the culture – or the habits and routines of your organization? Tune in for practical tactics.
Grief is something all of us deal with – whether it’s expected or unexpected loss of a loved one or the loss of a job or a relationship. Sometimes it’s the loss that comes with getting out of your comfort zone. By some accounts 5% of the workforce is experiencing grief at any one time. Do you know how to recognize grief? Or what to do if an employee is grieving? And, how well prepared are you for the grief in your own life? Tune to learn more about this taboo, but highly relevant topic.
We need more resilience – more adaptability, agility and grit. But how? Tune in to hear from the experiences of one of the first female helicopter pilots in the US Army and the experiences of people she has worked with plus how to develop more grit in your own career and in your life.
What does it really take to get people with radically different perspectives and beliefs to collaborate? Hear from someone who has spent years getting people to collaborate when they don’t like or trust each other.
Work is changing in ways we know and in ways we haven’t even begun to appreciate. What are the key trends? What will be the role of humans given the upcoming technological advances? What generational changes do we need to make? What does it mean leaders, companies and you as an employee should be doing now?
With virtual meetings as the new reality, what can you do to increase your presence, impact and confidence? Learn tips from someone who has mastered being in front of the camera.
Strategies rarely work as planned. However, strategies that are thorough, constantly evolving to changes and that are intricately tied to the culture and expected behaviors can and will get executed. Sound impossible? It’s not. There is a system to accomplishing exactly that. And, it requires a leader who has intelligence in systems and in emotions. Tune in to hear more.
Neuroscience is increasingly popular when it comes to understanding how humans behave, react and lead. And, there is increasingly good evidence from neuroscience as well. What does all of this work say about how to communicate more effectively? Tune in to find out.
If you are an introvert, you may feel challenged by some expectations of you as a leader like speaking up. If you have introverts on your team, you may wonder how to get the best out of them. Introverts have real strengths if all of us learn to tap them. Tune in to learn more.
Most people say they are overwhelmed by all the things they have to do. Regardless how much progress is made, there is always more, more and then still more. The impact is seen in our health, our emotions and our sense of satisfaction with life. There is a way to thrive but we have to be intentional about our choices. What does that mean? Tune in to learn how to thrive.
Most leaders encourage their teams to speak up, to give feedback and to offer new ideas. They have open door policies and at every presentation they will say they want to hear from people. Yet very few of the team have the courage to speak up. Why? What are you doing to kill the courageous culture in your organization? What can you do to change the culture?
Have you stopped to notice how many subscriptions you have for things like news, music, entertainment, photography and digital services? In fact, it seems that the membership economy is everywhere – and it is. Tune in to hear what this is about, how it works and how you can apply the concepts to your business.
Curiosity seems to be the buzzword of the year. We are told that curiosity is the seed of innovation and well being. Why is there an increased emphasis now? Why is curiosity good for business? And, most importantly, how can you encourage curiosity in yourself and in your team? Tune in to find out.
When you think of selling – a product, a service or yourself – you probably conjure up unflattering images and conclude “that’s just not who you are”. However, in this day and age, sales is really nothing like the image you have in your mind. It’s time to unsell selling. Tune in to learn more and how you can be more effective at “selling” your ideas or yourself.
If you have worked for a manager who seems to elevate your intelligence and bring out the best in you and others, then you were probably working for a multiplier. These leaders attract talent, challenge people to do more, encourage debate and ultimately make everyone smarter. Tune in to hear how you can be more of a multiplier as opposed to a diminisher.
Race is a important topic. Many people are reading, watching movies and trying to understand something they may not have considered before. There are important conversations to have in life and at work. We are going to talk about how to talk about race (and other challenging topics) at work.
With so much uncertainty around us, how does a leader create an organization that can thrive. The answer lies in understanding how to be vigilant so you can see soon and act faster. Sound impossible? Tune in to hear practices that enable you and your organization to survive and even thrive in uncertain times.
If you want to know what it takes to create and sustain a high performance team a winning culture, tune in to learn how some of the best in sports, Formula One racing, achieve exactly that. How do they keep the entire staff committed, engaged and innovating? How do they think about change and transformation? The solutions will surprise you.
In leading and influencing people, having a better language to describe individual styles helps get the best out of yourself and others. Better understanding leads to better conversations and better conversations ultimately drive performance. Tune in to hear the 5 leadership archetypes, the 4 devils of people stuff and how to keep your composure under pressure.
In challenging times right now and in months ahead, leaders need better insight on keeping motivation within their teams. What better example than Antarctic explorers who faced enormous adversity, kept the team moving and lived to tell the story. You may think you know these stories, but do you know the secrets to their team spirit? Tune in to learn how their tactics might apply to you.
80% of managers have at least one person who works in a remote location. Tune in to hear the best tactics for managing remote team members as well as learn what to do if you are working remotely.
It is easy to say that you should give power back to your employees, that is until things turn upside down. If you are like most leaders, the tendency is to take back control and try to direct things to a productive outcome – all with the best of intention. What else should you do instead? Tune in to find out.
Stories are compelling. They are memorable. They are far more persuasive than facts. They capture culture. The power of story and narrative is all around yet we don’t know enough about what stories to tell and when to tell them, neither do we understand enough about own narratives. Tune in to hear more about how to raise your influence game.
Do you struggle with “imposter syndrome”? Have you been told you need to increase your confidence? Do you dislike faking it? Maybe the problem isn’t your confidence as much as it is your definition of confidence. Tune in for a new perspective and new practices.
Why do so many incompetent people become leaders? Why are charisma and confidence so highly valued? What’s broken in our selection processes? How can we better manage the dark sides of our personality to be better leaders? Tune in to hear more.
Rather than talking about the concept of multicultural teams and managing chaos and complexity, we are going to talk instead about one leader’s experiences and lessons learned.
Who doesn’t want more joy from work? At times, work feels out of our control and thus joy seems impossible. How do you manage time, decisions, networks, meetings and digital life to create more joy? Tune in to hear more about the Kondo method at work and why de-cluttering more than just your desk increases joy and productivity.
How effective are you at influencing people? Do you ever wonder why people do not appear to take your ideas seriously? Tune in to learn about who we listen to and why along with how to have greater influence.
How well do you understand what motivates you let alone what motivates your team? Tune in to learn the secrets to motivating and inspiring along with insight on how to bounce back from setbacks.
Do you ever wonder if you were cut out to be a great leader? Have you had a tough start leading a new team? How often to you question whether or not you are doing the right things as a leader? If so, welcome to the challenge everyone faces in leading. Tune in to hear a few tales of the messes one leader has made and hear tactics for getting on a better path.
Working hard is important. Sometimes others have more of an edge or advantage that your hard work alone just cannot overcome. How can you create that edge for yourself particularly when you feel disadvantaged? Tune in to learn how.
I am getting a lot of questions from leaders about how to keep their teams motivated and focused through all the uncertainty of coronavirus. At the heart of those questions are really three elements: 1) how can we live with the uncertainty about our future and the lack of control over so much, 2) how can I best help myself and my team cope with the broad range of emotions we are experiencing and 3) how do we strengthen resilience in ourselves and in our teams. Tune in to hear what studies of leaders in various crises have to say about all three.
70% of the important innovations come from employees who are inside the organization. How can leaders increase the opportunities and success of employee innovations? How can employees increase the speed and acceptance of their innovative ideas? Tune in to hear more.
Most companies are keenly aware of the need to build an inclusive culture. Senior leaders know the critical importance of strong mentors and sponsors for any talented person coming through their organizations. When the talent is a different gender, mentoring isn’t as easy as it should be. What do you need to know to be a strong mentor and sponsor of talented women? Tune in to hear what separates the average from the great.
Agility and adaptability are at the heart of real collaboration. However there are so few ways to truly practice being more adaptable, more collaborative or better communicators. Improvization work is probably the best laboratory that’s available – but we need proper alignment with business practices. Tune in to learn more about a unique approach.
Leaders, seeing a problem in their organizations, develop a strategic plan, announce it to the organization and watch it fail to deliver. This happens over and over. There is a different way to realize the gains of a strategic initiative. Tune in to hear how.
Given how important relationships are for getting anything done, trust thus becomes a key factor in success. However, we know too little about what to do to quickly create trust with teams, co-workers and clients. Tune in to hear the 4 facets of trust and how to do each more effectively.
Uncertainty is all around and expanding, it seems, by the day. Each of use reacts in habitual ways to the unknown that comes with change and uncertainty – and the complexity of the problems we have to solve. Tune in to learn what else we can do to live with the unknowns.
No doubt you have heard how important emotional intelligence is for leading and motivating people. Do you know what derails you and your team? Do you know how to motivate yourself and your team? If you want to raise your game and improve your emotional intelligence, tune in for some practical tips on how to do just that.
If data, and going digital, are seen as the future in your business, then this is the interview for you. Whether the focus is on data science, machine learning or AI, the messages are highly relevant. What are the pitfalls and how do you avoid them?
Many of us feel overwhelmed by work and by life outside of work. All of us have to make choices about how we do those things that matter most to us. Join us for the latest research on leading as a parent and learn how to think about your role as leader and as parent in a different way. If you don’t have children, tune in because the methodology applies to everyone.
Playing to your strengths is always part of any leadership strategy. But is it enough? Can you afford to just emphasize your strengths? What should you do to excel and to advance your career?
Conflict, disagreement and debate are a routine and necessary part of business. Most people tip on one side or the other around conflict - either trying to avoid it or being too confrontational. Either way, execution suffers. Tune in to hear how to think about conflict, how to break out of conflict traps and free yourself.
Engaging your whole brain is a good strategy particularly when you can gain a different perspective in doing so. New metaphors, new angles and new experiences give leaders a different lens on the path ahead. Tune in to hear about a new methodology and the experiences of one executive using that methodology.
VUCA is everywhere: Volatile, uncertain, chaotic and ambiguous. An organization somewhere in the world seems to fail about every week because of a factor that in retrospect seemed obvious – it wasn’t at the time to them. Why are we so poor at seeing and anticipating the changes ahead? Has the pace of change outpaced our capability to cope with it? More importantly what can we do about it?
Being remarkable is a worthy goal whether you are leading a team, leading a project or leading yourself. What does it take to be remarkable? What do remarkable teams do that is unique? What creates remarkable conversations and remarkable meetings? Listen in for insight on how you can be more remarkable.
We see everyday that the world is changing – more chaos, volatility, mistakes, uncertainty. But, do we really have enough tools to spot the right signals before it’s too late? If you want to think more strategicially, prepare your business for shifts in the marketplace and anticipate what’s ahead; tune in to learn how to see around corners.
Feeling that you are being or will be marginalized and that you are losing your base of power is no fun. It happens to many people – of different ages, genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds. What can you do if you feel marginalized? What can you do to minimize people feeling marginalized? How does all of this impact aging in the workplace?
How do you give feedback without being too harsh or too kind? How you can create a team culture where people are more candid in giving feedback to each other? The secret lies in being personally caring while being directly challenging. Tune in to hear why that makes a difference and how to do a better job of being candid without being inhumane.
Collaboration is listed as a core cultural value in many organizations. Yet, many fall far short of creating a truly collaborative culture. Where is your organization and your team? What can you do the foster greater collaboration? One of the highest downloaded podcasts, we are diving deeper for more advice and greater insight.
What is the secret to changing your behavior and changing your habits? What about changing the habits of your team? Tune in to discover a methodology that works.
Being a newcomer is daunting – whether it’s a new group, a new team, a new boss or a new company. There are relationships to build from scratch, people to remember, questions to ask and work to be done. What should you do when you are new? How can you build relationships with strangers? How do you manage all these new people if you are more of an introvert than an extrovert?
We know we need a network, but how do you know how effective your network is? What distinguishes the top performer’s networks? When do networks and collaboration become overly taxing? How does a network enhance a sense of purpose?
For years, the most out-spoken and often the most extroverted people end up being the leaders. Given market dynamics today, we need different types of leaders to step up, stand out, be influential and inspire teams. If you are more of a beta character, how can you lead? If you are an alpha leader, how do you foster more beta qualities?
Purpose, meaning and fulfillment seem to be what everyone wants - that feeling that gives clarity and direction to the decisions we make . But how do you get there? Tune in to hear why purpose matters, where to begin your own journey and why it’s worth the effort.
Asking great questions is a powerful way to engage your team, motivate people, create inspiration, delegate, innovate… Just about anything you need to accomplish as a leader will have better results if you ask great questions. What questions are best and for what purpose? Tune in to here from the expert on asking questions.
Asking great questions is a powerful way to engage your team, motivate people, create inspiration, delegate, innovate… Just about anything you need to accomplish as a leader will have better results if you ask great questions. What questions are best and for what purpose? Tune in to here from the expert on asking questions.
If leadership is about preparing for the future, then learning about what’s ahead in the future and being agile enough to adapt to changing times must be central to success. How do leaders become better learners and better adapters? Tune in for a deep perspective on that topic and more including what it takes to take the next step as a leader and how do you provide meaning for your team?
How can you use social media to build your brand and network? What are the key ingredients for a powerful on-line presence? How does on-line pair with off-line? Tune in to hear advice about what you should be doing?
As a leader, you know you need to be strategic, think ahead, set priorities and anticipate the changes that are about to strike your business before they hit you. As the headlines will show in any week, leaders are not so great at these. A key set of skills in critical thinking is missing. The solution lies in changing your mindset in 6 situations. Tune in to hear what those are and what to do about it.
The hope of every leader is to get their team committed to the team’s goals/mission/vision so that the team is enthusiastic, willing to give discretionary effort and wants to stay with the company. What’s the secret to achieve this outcome? Tune in to hear the 5 things that research says make people love the company they work for.
Whether you were a devoted fan of Game of Thrones or you never watched an episode, tune in to hear how one leadership expert views the characters, their successes and mistakes and the implications for leadership in the real world. We will be talking about shifting alliances, courage, resilence, flexibility and what it takes to be a player.
Working with different cultures has become a norm in most organizations. One of the fundamental differences in cultures and in people is about preferring a tight culture versus a loose culture. Tune in to hear what that means, why these have evolved, which is best, how it impacts performance and how to transform your team to achieve it’s potential.
Companies usually post their values somewhere – on the walls or in brochures. Employees usually say the leaders don’t walk the talk. As trust erodes, we become jaded about the role of values in business. Values do work and they do transfer to the bottom line. Tune in to hear how one leader has succeeded in using values to drive business success. Hear what you can do to transform your business and your life.
How do you calm your stressed-out body? We will talk about the nature of stress today, why it matters that you calm your body before you begin significant conversations. And then, we will focus on how to structure a challenging conversation and how to work with personalities that are “difficult” for you. Tune in!
Well-being at work at work is a hot topic lately, usually because companies what a more engaged workforce who has less burn-out, fewer illnesses and sticks around longer. To that end, companies have launched a variety of programs from mindfulness to mediation. Do they work? What should each of us be striving for? How do we know if we have good emotional health or not? What does it mean leaders of teams need to do? Tune in for answers and much more.
Have you every felt that you were psychologically held hostage at work? Do you watch others become hostages in one way or another? Or, do you hold people hostage as a leader? Tune in to hear the experiences of true hostage negotiator and the implications he has to offer for employees and leaders in building strong, positive cultures at work.
Many companies are asking how best to manage millennials and which programs will best attract and keep millennials. We have heard from experts and researchers. Now, lets turn the tables and hear from a few millennials. What do they think? What do they want?
Innovation and sustainable growth are on everyones mind whether you run a company, an emerging economy or are just trying to manage your own life. It turns out our current solutions often compound the problem. What questions should we be asking instead? Tune in to find out what those are.
With rapid pace of change, new technologies, new procedures and even new approaches to leading people, keeping up with the latest has never been more criticial. Companies seek employees who are agile who can learn and change. But how? What works, what does not and how can you maximize your ability to learn with the least amount of time.
All organizations, regardless of the size, have conflict – meaning one person or group wants to go in one direction, another person or group wants to go in another direction. Learning to manage conflict in a constructive manner is thus a core skill for leaders. But managing conflict does not mean having the best intellectual argument and “winning” the case. It is much more complex than just being right. Craig Runde, a recognized expert on conflict, will join us to talk about what goes wrong, what to do and how to manage emotions in the midst of conflict.
Mission, purpose and engagement seem to promise great gains for the organizations who get these right. More and more employees are voting with their feet in search of a greater sense of purpose and a mission that is more inspiring than just increasing shareholder returns. However, there’s a lot of buzz and not a lot of guidance. What does the latest research tell us about how to find purpose and feel more fulfilled either as a person or as a leader?
The ability to influence is a survival skill in organizations of all sizes. We know it matters but few seem to be very skilled at it. Richard Shell is a true expert on the art of influence and the research that supports best practices. He will be talking about what creates effective influence as well the barriers that get in our way. In addition, we will be talking about how to successfully pitch an idea and how to insure you have genuine commitment.
Tune in to hear the real experiences of being out of the comfort zone, transitioning from one role to the next and the insights gained along the way.
Getting the best out of people is the art of leadership. We learn what to do, largely based on what works for us and what doesn’t work for us. Not everyone is captivated by the same tactics. The smarter strategy is to look at science – what does the data say is most likely to work? Tune in to hear more about the science and the implications.
There is a professor who has been studying meeting for 20 years. Tune-in to learn about this surprising science and learn evidence-based ways to make your meetings truly work.
How many ineffective, boring talks and presentations have you listened to? How many have you given? You can change the status quo for you and your listeners. This is not just the realm of a few “natural” speakers – anyone can do it. Tune in to hear about a few principles that make all the difference.
Teams in which people are not afraid to speak up, to challenge, to risk saying a wild idea are teams with the best performance. Google has found that psychological safety is a key component of their best teams. Yet, people are afraid of causing trouble, looking foolish, not being promoted and more. How do you create a team, and an organization, that is not afraid?
How many times do you say to your team, challenge me? And how many times do people really challenge and speak their mind? Or, how many times do you try to challenge your team members only to find that it doesn’t work so well? How can you more effectively challenge your team? How much trust do you need first? Is there a better way? Tune in to find out.
If you want to engage your audience or your team, there is nothing as effective as a story. Tune in to hear why and how to make story-telling an effective tool for you in your business team.
If “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, as has been said, then it’s time to tune in to how to create a winning culture. What does it look like? How do you create it? How can you transform your team and company?
The question for leaders isn’t if a crisis will happen to your company but when. How ready are you as a leader and how ready is your organization? Tune in to hear what the latest work is showing about crisis, change, the turbulence they create and how to prepare your organization to navigate through the storm.
Performance appraisals, year end reviews, bonus payments, grading take a lot of time and cost a lot of money. Yet, they produce frustration for almost everyone. Why do we keep doing them? Should we change the system? And, what’s a better solution other than team bonuses?
How many times have you said “work is crazy”? How many people do you know who think that crazy busy is the only option? How many people seem to wear a badge of honor based on how busy they are? It doesn’t have to be that way. Tune in to hear how one company, Basecamp, has changed the game and what you can do to change the game in your company.
What should you do if you are fired? What should you do if you have to fire someone? And, what’s the best practice for managing a cross-cultural team? Tune in for advice on these questions and a few others.
Improving communication is key for every leader. Regardless how good you are at it, you still need to improve. What’s the secret to better communication regardless of the format, the occasion or the number of people present? Can you become a great public speaker even if you don’t like crowds? The answers might surprise you.
Do you find generational differences at work to be a challenge or a benefit? Are you like many who think the other generations don’t get it, have poor work habits, don’t understand what it takes or are self-centered? Whatever your view, multigenerations in the workplace are here to stay. We need a way to cope – starting with a new metaphor and new tactics. Tune in to hear more about how to lead and succeed.
Have you found yourself defending yourself, saying “my intentions were good”? In your quest to support diversity, do you find yourself wanting to help but not quite succeeding? Tune in for a solution on how to move from being a believer to a builder. Hint, the answer lies in how you frame your intentions.
Tune for advice on having greater influence with peers and with your manager. Hear why grace is a so important for powerful leadership.
When you are leading a business, generating results and driving growth are paramount. What if there was a better way to think about organic growth? What if you discovered that the conventional wisdom didn’t always work? Would you change your behavior? Could you convince others? Tune in to find out what to do to drive growth in your business.
How do leaders create strong, positive cultures and what do they need to do to prevent creating a toxic culture? What is it about truly great leaders that is unique? Where is leadership headed in the coming years? Finally, what is radical self-responsibility and why does it matter for leadership and culture?
What if you knew that four social signals would improve your ability to win a sale, negotiate salary, bring a team together, been seen as a leader or even get a date? They can. Tune in to hear what the signals are and how they work.
Conflict, tension, disagreement are common events among colleagues – not that people are wrong in some way but that we all have competing points of view, different experiences and contradictory criteria for success. When is a fight a good thing? Why should we fight? What happens if we don’t fight? How can we fight without creating an unhealthy environment? Tune in for more.
Drawing on years of experience both working with leaders and interviewing people for the show, your host will talk about her views of what the best leaders do, why it matters, what’s changed and how it all impacts culture and inclusivity. Davia Temin will be the interviewer.
When we track how ideas move through organizations and thus ultimately get accepted and implemented, we find particular types of people are critical for that movement. They are not the experts. Tune in to hear who is key, why and how as well as the implications this insight has for expertise and innovation.
Everyone has someone at work who is “difficult” for them to deal with. Having a difficult colleague is one thing but what should you do if you feel the behavior has moved into harassment and bullying? How do you recognize the signs?
Have you ever felt the need to reposition your brand, such as with a new boss or after a merger or with a new strategic focus? Tune in to hear step by step how to re-position yourself and how to create an elevator pitch.
In every organization, there will be people that you find to be “difficult”. The question is how to navigate these people in a productive way and that doesn’t cause excess stress for you or your team. What can you do? What you do say? What do you ignore?
Leadership is an art form. To do it well, you have to constantly adapt, stretch and transition. Tune in to hear the experiences, perspective and advice of a senior executive.
What does it really take to get people with radically different perspectives and beliefs to collaborate? Hear from someone who has spent years getting people to collaborate when they don’t like or trust each other.
Listening – all of us know it’s important and all of us don’t do it well. Between multi-tasking, meeting team needs along with manager expectations and preparing your message let along doing the day-job, we don’t feel we have time to listen. However, have you ever thought about what you lose by not listening properly? If you trying to improve engagement, influence or emotional intelligence, then listening becomes more mandatory than you may have appreciated. How do you know you are listening well enough? That’s the topic for today – when does listening really matter and how can you get better at it.
When people focus on expertise and assume that depth and experience are sufficient to progress their careers, they limit career opportunities. What workplace habits are most limiting? What can you do to change? Tune in to find out.
When we look at companies we admire and value, we find they do more than deliver profits. They improve people’s lives in some way. Does doing good really lead to corporate strength? How does this citizenship work and why does it matter? Where and how does trust enter the equation? How can the culture change from me to we? Tune in to hear about the research that underpins “brand citizenship”.
“Persuaders are irreplaceable.” Being able to convey your ideas and reach the minds of others is a valuable asset. Tune in to hear what the new science of persuasion tells us along with insights gleaned from some of the best leaders in a variety of fields.
There is no leading if people are not following. What does it take to inspire people to follow you? What is it that encourages people to willingly abandon their immediate agenda and follow your agenda, maybe even taking a “hit” for you? Tune in to learn what distinguishes the best from the rest as well as to learn how you can improve your ability to inspire, regardless of your current level of responsibility or competence.
Most of us, at some point in time, find ourselves struggling with a co-worker. Either the style doesn’t suit us, the values are inconsistent with ours or the behaviors are not what we expect from others. Learning to navigate these situations is just part of managing your career. But what do you do when the behavior tends towards bullying? How do you recognize bully versus other annoying behaviors? What can you do to keep your sanity? How do you win against a bully? Can you? What if the bully is more senior than you? Join us to hear practical, tested solutions.
Have you noticed that some leaders seem to take big risks and make bold moves with their careers? Ever wonder how they navigated those transitions? How have they managed the “impostor syndrome”? What have they done to develop their leadership capability? Tune in to hear one person’s journey from one role to a dramatically different one along with his view about leadership.
Tune in to hear how one leader has managed several big transitions: The tactics used and the surprises along the way. We’ll talk about mistakes, globally dispersed teams, personal brand, building networks, confidence, trust and much more.
Digitalization, automation, robotics, driverless cars and the internet of things are becoming routine topics for discussion. Have you ever stopped to consider what all of these are doing for cities and thus for employers? Tune in to hear why cities are gaining power, what it means for all of us in terms of work and moving around.
Companies often list “being entrepreneurial” as a key competency. Yet, in a large global company, that is often easier said than done. Tune in to hear two stories about corporate entrepreneurial efforts in two different large global organizations. Find out why each succeeded and what you can do to be more of an entrepreneur where ever you are.
Teams have a long history of being highly effective sometimes and a waste of time at other times. How do we use teams most effectively? How do we organize them for success, especially given new models of working? How do we build trust and cohesion within the team? What do leaders of teams need to do? Tune in to hear these and more.
Sleep deprivation has become an epidemic and a more costly one that we realize. Science is proving that lack of sleep impacts health in every way and more importantly undermines performance. Tune in to understand just what we know about sleep, performance and health along with what you can do to improve your sleep or convince your boss that you need more sleep.
Setbacks happen to most people. What distinguishes people who ultimately succeed and those who don’t? Tune in to hear the 9 specific practices of those who ultimately succeed.
In the day-day mode of execute, get it done, push forward, we take very little time to think about the future state of our organizations or our leadership. What will be the impact of AI on our work and our leadership? How do we stay relevant as leaders? Take a few minutes to tune in and think about the future.
This is the story of one millennial’s step into the unknown to create a new business and offer a new service to his peers. It is also a big insight into millennial thinking and how the rest of us can get the best from this generation.
Do you ever feel that you are imposter? Do you think it’s just a matter of time before people find out how unprepared or incompetent you really are? Do others reassure you but the doubts still linger? Turns out you are not alone – almost everyone has this experience. Tune in to learn more about the imposter syndrome and what you can do to manage it.
Being strategic is such a key skill that when it’s lacking, careers fail to advance. But, being strategic isn’t just about creating a plan. It’s about understanding an opportunity in the marketplace, seeing the implications and then putting a plan in place to execute. All of which requires insight. How do you get insight? How do you lead a team to systematically think through data to reach insights? Tune in to find out.
We hold a number of beliefs about what it takes to become a leader or a CEO, most of those turn out to be incorrect. What distinguishes the careers of great leaders? What unique qualities do they exhibit? What do I need to do to prepare myself for any significant role? Whether you aspire to be a CEO or not, tune in to hear the insights from interviews with 2,600 leaders and what you can do to be a better leader.
In the era of #MeToo, less and less silence surrounds cases of sexual harassment. Companies and leaders need to know what to do to prevent the problem in the first place as well as how to respond to accusations whether the case can be proven or not. Tune in to hear the experiences and advice from someone who counsels boards, companies and leaders on how to manage their reputations especially in times of crisis.
There seems to be a new corporate crisis every week somewhere in the world, if not more often than that. A major problem is uncovered and we, the customers, wonder just how no one managed to see the problem before now. Take Volkswagon as an example, or Facebook, Hollywood, pharmaceuticals or the financial crisis of 2008. Some people knew, so how could they have remained silent? What happens in a culture when people stop speaking up? What causes that to happen? More importantly, what can you do to break the culture of silence? How can you insure your culture is healthy?
Brands are still as highly relevant today as they were decades ago to build reputation and growth. What makes a great brand and how do brands evolve? More importantly, how can you take this framework for brand management and apply it to your personal brand? Tune in for answers to both your company brand strategy and your personal brand strategy.
Change is all around us all the time. Leaders expect to create change. Staff are tired of yet another change. And, everyone believes change initiatives don’t work. How we think about change is part of the problem. Typically, leaders inadvertently frame change as an us versus them challenge – us the leaders and the change champions and them the resisting employees. As a consequence, leaders create enormous barriers to success, to creative solutions and to collaboration. There is another way. Tune in to learn how to create real, substantive change.
The challenges of leading multiple generations at work is top of mind for most leaders. Between the supposedly retiring Baby Boomers, Generation X waiting in the wings, the new entry Millennials and now Generation Z on the horizon, organizations are struggling with how to navigate the different needs and expectations of all generations. As a leader, what do you need to know about Millennials and the new Generation Z? What do you need to know and do to keep young talent engaged? Tune in to find out how.
Want to hear how a senior leader experiences and manages transitions from a zone of expertise to a totally new area and succeeds? How does the leader gain the team’s support or add value? Tune in to hear two examples.
Adversity is a fact of life. However, not all of us cope with the challenges as well as others. Even fewer develop the ability to be agile when things do not go as planned. So, how can you learn from adversity? What are the secrets of those you succeed? How can you become more agile? Tune in to hear how.
We have so many assumptions about how our minds actually work whether or not we are making a decision, defining a sense of purpose or understanding our biases. Rarely do we look at the underlying assumptions. Are our minds constructing meaning as we go or is meaning something we just uncover from the sub-conscious? And, why does any of this matter for leading people? Tune in for a fascinating discussion.
Companies and numerous individuals seem to be making public apologies more often than in the past. The truth is that things go wrong. Sometimes you are disappointed by other people and sometimes you disappoint others. What’s the process for forgiving when a commitment has been broken or pain has been created? Can we truly forgive? Can we re-build trust? What can we do if there is no apology? Tune in to hear more and by the way to understand what to do if you need to offer an apology.
When you work for an inspiring leader, you know what a positive impact he or she has on you and everyone around you. Motivation is high, engagement is high, and the mood is infectious. However, it is hard to replicate that impact when you step up to lead. What do inspiring leaders do that makes them so inspiring? How can you become more inspiring?
Leading a team or an organization where everyone has a sense of purpose isn’t just for the non-profit sector nor is it an impossible task. Tune in to hear stories of CEOs who are leading their organizations with a sense of purpose and getting astoundingly positive results. Learn how you can begin to lead your team with purpose.
Top athletes need to be physically and mentally fit. But how do they prepare mentally? How do they sustain the endless hours of practice, work through injuries and bounce back, face wins followed by losses and focus on the next event not the loss. The insights from sports training have a lot to say about leading a business. Tune in to hear both the state of the art in coaching athletes and the implications for business leaders.
Leaders typically take on a new role knowing that change is needed. However, the journey from concept to reality does not form a straight line. Today we are going to drop the frameworks and models of change and instead look at real cases of how leaders made change happen whether that is a change in habit, a change in mindset or a change in the culture.
Imagine you have a message you want the world to hear – whether that’s about a new business or a product or an opinion. So, you turn to the press to generate publicity. What do you need to know before you speak to the press? How do you prepare? How do you answer tough questions? How do you make sure the press will be interested in your message? By the way, the same insight applies to presenting to key stakeholders as well as to the press.
Have you noticed that some of the most creative minds, as well as the critical experts in your organization, are a little quirky. They work in different ways. Working with them and managing them can be a challenge unless you understand the secrets. How does all of this insight help us have be more creativity in general? Tune in to learn more.
We know we need a network, but how do you know how effective your network is? What distinguishes the top performer’s networks? When do networks and collaboration become overly taxing? How does a network enhance a sense of purpose?
As human beings we tell stories – stories about who we are, what we have learned, what to do and not do. We are fascinated by each other’s “stories”. We remember stories better than facts. Stories convey emotion and intent. The success of TED Talks is based on telling compelling stories. Yet, we don’t think systematically about how they impact work, engagement, culture and leadership. Tune in to hear where stories are most significant and how to lead with stories.
Stepping out of the comfort zone and doing things you are not skilled at doing is never easy - whether that is networking, speaking in public, working outside your culture or taking a role without knowing much of the content. The myths we hold about how easy it is for others to step out of their comfort zone do not help. And, we have numerous ways to avoid stepping out of our comfort zone. Tune in to hear how to make it all work for you.
Influence may be the one of the top three most critical skill for leaders, especially those who are not leading as an expert. Rarely does one have the luxury of being able to decide unilaterally. Influencing people to do something different, to change, is essential to execution of any great idea. Yet, as human beings, we are terrible at influence, unless of course you already agree with me. We need a better framework for understanding influence. Tune in to hear how to influence more effectively.
Engagement surveys are now common place and the results are typically discouraging. Despite much effort, results barely move. There is another way and it’s not about chasing survey results. Tune in to hear how.
Getting out of your comfort zone, taking on larger and larger roles, means increasing your power within the organization. However, dark sides come along with increased power which can become stumbling blocks. Tune in to learn about the challenges of breadth, power itself and self-doubt along with what you can do about each.
Those who know how to navigate the organization and get what they need to excel in their career. They seem to have inside knowledge on what to do. What is the inside knowledge you need to know? What can you do as a result? Tune in to hear how.
The leader of the future will need to be comfortable in a totally new paradigm – one that provides purpose and meaning at work. When organizations have a sense of higher purpose, not only are people more engaged and more committed, profits also follow. Then, organizations can achieve true collaboration. Doing so requires new ways of making decisions and resolving disputes – new rules of the road. Tune in to learn how.
Are you ready to get out of your comfort zone? Do you have an idea that you want to sell to your organization, to the board or to the marketplace? We will show you how. My guest listens to many new product pitches every month and selects the ones he thinks will lead to marketplace successes. Tune in to learn how to make a great pitch to anyone.
Strategy and leadership go hand in hand. You can’t do one without the other. Tune in to hear why you need both, why they are joined and how to get more of each.
If you want to be inspired to achieve more than you can imagine, to conquer your own fear about taking action or to attempt to inspire others, this show is for you. Tune in to hear what one person has done and the advice that keeps him going the extra mile.
Asking great questions is a powerful way to engage your team, motivate people, create inspiration, delegate, innovate… Just about anything you need to accomplish as a leader will have better results if you ask great questions. What questions are best and for what purpose? Tune in to here from the expert on asking questions.
Most successful leaders attribute some part of their success to luck. Is it possible to prepare to have good luck? What’s the role of luck anyway? And, ultimately, can you really plan your career? Tune in to hear more.
Getting people to do what you want them to do is a never easy. We have talked on past shows about how to influence people and to bring them along mostly by changing their perspective, beliefs and attitudes. Those techniques are hugely important. Today, we are going to talk about a different technique called behavioral design, that focuses on creating change by changing the environment. Tune in to hear one more tool for your tool kit.
Your team needs a sense of direction, so you toil alone in your office to create a vision for the team. However, it leaves the team uninspired. Tune in to hear what you should do instead to create a vision that gives a sense of direction, unites the team, builds collaboration and inspires people to truly deliver.
After researching over 200,000 companies, Jason Jennings has discovered a surprisingly small number of things that all the best, authentic leaders do. Tune in to learn about three of the five key findings.
Today is a different type show. My guest is not a typical corporate type or a corporate speaker – nor has he written a recent business book. Instead he has his own story of transformation from scientist to leader. He has great experience getting people to do what he wants without using any hierarchical power. And he has good advice for life.
Rarely do we get the opportunity to hear how one person embraces difficult feedback, tries to understand what it means and engages in the process of changing behaviors. Tune in to hear a live coaching session as our guest grapples with his actions and how those have been holding him back.
We will cover three marketing topics. First, are consumers, and employees, entitlement? How can we tell and how can we respond? Second, what does it mean to be strategic? Third, what can you learn from the US presidential address about marketing yourself?
Are you clear about your career goals? Are your direct reports clear about their goals? Are you thinking about a career move? Or, do you need to coach a team member on making a career move? If so, tune in to hear some of the things to be thinking about (and coaching your team on) from creating a mission statement to identifying opportunities.
Having executive presence in a meeting, in a talk or in a sales pitch involves how you craft the message plus the way you deliver that message. If you need a way to work through exactly what your message is and how to say it, tune in for a brilliant road map.
New Year’s resolution to get organized… best advice I have ever heard about how to get organized. There is never enough time and you can’t manage time anyway. So how can you get the most out of your day, be as productive as possible and focus on what really matters? Tune in to hear tips and an approach that can revolutionize how you approach work every day, with greater productivity, less stress and more satisfied teams.
In our packed, chaotic, stressed lives, many long for a sense of purpose and meaning. What truly creates meaning for each of us? What can we do to find a greater sense of meaning in work and in life in general? Tune in to hear the secrets uncovered by the research of today’s guest: Emily Esfahani Smith.
Given the pace of change today, companies need to innovate just to stand still. Whose job is it to drive innovation? Where does it happen? What does it take to innovate as a company? What does innovation mean about how we lead? What should you be thinking about as a leader? Tune in to find out how to drive innovation in your company – and it’s probably not what you are doing now.
Whether you are networking, dining with clients or senior leaders, making small talk or just trying to leave others feeling more comfortable in your presence, the way you interact leaves a lasting impression. How can you make small talk with anyone? How can you graciously except a conversation at a networking event? What is appropriate etiquette? What are the skills for leaving others more comfortable in your presence?
In a world driven by performance, to perform at your best, you need enough sleep with particular qualities. Contrary to popular myth, recent research shows that all of us need 7 to 8 hours of sleep to be at our optimum level of performance. Tune in to hear what you can do to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep so that you feel more relaxed and refreshed and can achieve your best performance.
People are regularly asked to lead teams where members are located in different countries, to work on a task force with peers from different countries or to take an ex-pat assignment in a different country. While you may be an expert in some of the content of your role, you won’t be an expert in the subtle ways of working in an unknown culture. What are the common mistakes to avoid? How can you understand what other cultures expect from you? What can you do to get the best from your colleagues around the world?
Given how important trust is for business, collaboration, partnerships and leading, we spend far too little time thinking about how trust is created. It turns out that being a “trustworthy” character, doesn’t matter as much as you might think it does. Tune in to learn what really makes a difference in building trusted relationships and in getting people to take your advice or follow you when you are not the expert.
Typically, somewhere in your career, a boss will say you need to raise your visibility and value, your profile, to get to the next level. Most people don’t know what to do – if they did they would be doing it. How can you raise your visibility with key stakeholders? How can you think about the value you bring to your organization and insure others see that value? Tune in to hear about 7 accelerators for your visibility and 3 areas of value.
Organizations often say our competitive advantage is our people. According to my guest, the competitive advantage is the relationship between people – and that is what defines the culture. So, how can a person improve the relationships between people? Tune in to here a few of the top 15 things you can do.
Corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability are currently hot topics. Millennials are choosing to work for companies that care about the greater picture, not just the bottom line results. What is sustainability, really? How can you be more sustainable without breaking the bank? Why does it matter anyway? What can you as an individual leader do, even if your corporation doesn’t have a big program or a big budget? Tune in for the discussion.
What defines and creates culture in an organization or even in a team? How can you as a leader impact – or even change – the culture of your group?
If you want to engage people, be seen as authentic, improve your communication, pitch your ideas or lead without being the expert, we have the answer. Tune in to learn a simple method that allows you to say less and get people to listen more in any situation.
As you reach the point in your career where you have been promoted to a role that requires you to lead outside of your expertise, your success depends in part on how well you learn to work with differences and how open-minded you can be to different perspectives. It’s a point of discomfort and it’s the point at which you have to stretch beyond the ways you have worked up to this point. How should you think about differences in styles, work patterns and perspective? How does emotional competence impact your ability to be open-minded? How can you think about and even assess differences?
Innovation can involve big ideas, whole new products and totally new processes. Equally, innovation happens in the many small things we think about, improve and question every day. As it turns out, both types of innovation matter a great deal to an organization’s success. So, what can you do as an individual or as a leader within an organization to be more innovative? How can you think about the future in a more productive way? My guest believes anyone can learn to be innovative. Tune in to hear some of the 63 small things, the nuggets, you can do at any level to be more innovative, more future-oriented.
The challenges of leading multiple generations at work is top of mind for most leaders. Between the supposedly retiring Baby Boomers, Generation X waiting in the wings, the new entry Millennials and now Generation Z on the horizon, organizations are struggling with how to navigate the different needs and expectations of all generations. As a leader, what do you need to know about Millennials and the new Generation Z? What do you need to know and do to keep young talent engaged? Tune in to find out how.
How do you connect with people who just are not “easy” conversationalists? How do you have a conversation with someone, especially when it’s a “tricky” subject, like politics or something else that bothers you? How do you stop avoiding those topics without damaging relationships? What can you do to be more persuasive with people? Tune in to find out how.
There is no leading if people are not following. What does it take to inspire people to follow you? What is it that encourages people to willingly abandon their immediate agenda and follow your agenda, maybe even taking a “hit” for you? Tune in to learn what distinguishes the best from the rest as well as to learn how you can improve your ability to inspire, regardless of your current level of responsibility or competence.
Listening – all of us know it’s important and all of us don’t do it well. Between multi-tasking, meeting team needs along with manager expectations and preparing your message let along doing the day-job, we don’t feel we have time to listen. However, have you ever thought about what you lose by not listening properly? If you trying to improve engagement, influence or emotional intelligence, then listening becomes more mandatory than you may have appreciated. How do you know you are listening well enough? That’s the topic for today – when does listening really matter and how can you get better at it.
Brands are still as highly relevant today as they were decades ago to build reputation and growth. What makes a great brand and how do brands evolve? More importantly, how can you take this framework for brand management and apply it to your personal brand? Tune in for answers to both your company brand strategy and your personal brand strategy.
My guest this week says that work-life balance is dead …. But we have to live well anyway. So how can we do just that given all the competing demands on our time and attention? Part of living well is the ability to be able to confront people and situations. What’s the formula for supportive confrontation? And, finally, what can we do to cope with stress?
These are turbulent times – with uncertainty, volatility, instant access to information and chaos just to name a few driving forces for leaders today. Most of this is outside of your control. How then should you think about leading through such times? What are the key skills that will get you through the turbulence and to the other side? Our guest calls these skills “artful leadership.” Join us to learn that that means and how to develop your capability.
If you don’t have a clue how to think about your career, your interests, what you should do or should do next, this is the show for you. Tune in to find out how to define your purpose, create a strategy and build a plan to land your ideal role. The process works for anyone: someone just starting their career, someone who is mid-career and someone who wants to shift careers.
Given how important trust is for business, collaboration, partnerships and leading, we spend far too little time thinking about how trust is created. It turns out that being a “trustworthy” character, doesn’t matter as much as you might think it does. Tune in to learn what really makes a difference in building trusted relationships and in getting people to take your advice or follow you when you are not the expert.
The better the relationships you have throughout an organization the better for your career, for your team, for the organizational culture and ultimately for the group’s performance. But, some people are a challenge to work with. Tune in to hear how to work with people who have big egos, what is required to build trust and what to do when trust has been broken – namely the process of forgiveness.
When managing super high-performing teams made up of highly-educated, highly-accomplished subject experts, what can you do as a manager to drive performance? Rupert Jones managed the number-one ranked team for equity research team in Europe for more than a decade and has quite a story to tell about his experience as a manager. Tune in to hear about his experiences and insights.
Organizations recognize that millennials will soon account for 50% of their employees. However, most managers are finding millennials frustrating as employees because from the manager’s point of view, millennials seem entitled, unwilling to do the detail work, not putting in their “time” and lacking loyalty, among other things. Millennials, however, have a different point of view about what it takes to build a career and what they will be loyal to. Tune in to learn more about how millennials view their careers, what they expect from their employers and what that means employers can do to get the best from this generation.
Why do some teams do so much with so little, while others have so much but accomplish very little? It turns out that people perform better with constraints. As a leader, what’s the best way to get your team to stretch – to do more – without feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? How can you do more with what you have? How can you inspire others to stretch? Tune in to hear the secrets of stretch and how to get more with less.
My guest is someone who has led in a lot of different circumstances – from the Navy, to sports teams, to university faculty and students and to business. What does it take to win a team over to you as the leader, particularly when they know more than you do? How does one build a team and keep everyone motivated? How can leaders manage strong personalities on the team? What are the lessons learned from observing a master coach?
In our packed, chaotic, stressed lives, many long for a sense of purpose and meaning. What truly creates meaning for each of us? What can we do to find a greater sense of meaning in work and in life in general? Tune in to hear the secrets uncovered by the research of today’s guest: Emily Esfahani Smith.
Creating the best team and generating the best results requires a team with diverse experience and diverse perspective. For most companies the push for diversity is mostly a push for more women on teams, on promotion lists and on top talent lists. However, that isn’t the only need. We will focus on how to increase the talent among African Americans and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME). What are the experiences of people in this group? What can you do as a leader that will make a difference?
There is never enough time and you can’t manage time anyway. So how can you get the most out of your day, be as productive as possible and focus on what really matters? Tune in to hear tips and an approach that can revolutionize how you approach work every day, with greater productivity, less stress and more satisfied teams.
Do you ever wonder how to get more of what you want, whether that’s from a colleague, a boss, upper management or even your kids? Being successful in any role means getting other people to agree with you, help you out, participate and allocate resources. And, that means you have to be able to negotiate – but not in the old formula of using power and leverage. Instead you need a new framework for a new, multi-cultural, emotionally intelligent world. Tune in to hear how to get more of what you want whether that’s at work or with your kids.
Do you ever wonder what it takes to make it to the executive level or even to the next level? If you have asked that question and haven’t gotten a clear understanding, tune in to the hear the experience of a corporate veteran, who has been part of the selection discussions for decades. We will talk about the unwritten rules, the selection factors, the critical skills and the things that block career progression.
You have done all the work, completed the analyses and now you are going to make the presentation. How do you present the brilliant work you have done to have the impact you hope for? What should we think about before the big presentation? What are the mistakes to avoid? Tune in to find out how to have greater impact, even if this isn’t your natural strength.
Global teams are everywhere. The global environment means among other things that leaders are less in control and far less of an expert than ever before. How can you get your head around what the global context really means for you as a leader? Practically, how do you lead a global team? What can you do as a leader to still insure your team is on track for success? Is it possible to go beyond thinking about managing the matrix to something that’s more effective? And, how do you insure that you have an inclusive culture when the team is geographically dispersed with different expectations? Join us to find out.
Communities and organizations are confronting increasingly complex, adaptive dilemmas—challenges that defy our practiced responses. We can imagine a better future but can’t yet create it. Now more than ever we must evolve beyond what we already know, and learn together how to access a deeper wisdom—collective wisdom—in support of profound change. Join us to explore how organizations and communities can learn how to access this deeper wisdom and achieve remarkable results.
Working 24/7 has become new standard. Managers, teams and clients expect us to be available always, enabled by technology. The result is that we have little capacity to adjust to change or to recover, re-new, re-generate as human beings. What do we know about peak human performance and what we should be aiming for? What can you do to cope with the demands of 24/7 working? What does the latest research suggest?
Radical collaboration. What would that look like on your team? What if you could bring down defensiveness and increase true collaboration – which means more dialogue, openness, risk taking, cooperation, support, trust and optimism? Sound impossible on a limited time and budget? It isn’t, tune in to see what you can do as a leader, even as a colleague, to create radical collaboration.
Resilience is the ability to face adversity and to bounce back from set-backs. Some individuals show enormous resilience in the face of adversity – such as first responders, Navy SEALs and top athletes. Leaders who instill resilience inspire us to do things we never thought possible, encourage us during a crisis, help us adapt to change, guide us through adversity. They are leaders we admire. What distinguishes people with great resilience?
Tune in to hear the insights gained from individuals who survived enormous adversity (e.g. Boston Marathon bombing and those who led during major crises (e.g., Hurricane Katrina). Learn the latest insight about resilience from neurology.
The way we work is changing. What we expect of our employer is changing. “Hot-desking”, where you no longer have a permanently assigned desk at work, is becoming more and more common. Millennials are increasingly satisfied with freelance, temporary employment because it gives them greater control of their time. Robots are being considered for far more jobs that you would expect. How realistic are these trends? What other trends will change the way we work? More importantly, what are their implications for how we lead teams? Tune in to find out.
Everyone complains about the number of meetings and the ineffectiveness of meetings. What if you had tools and processes that would help you lead more productive meetings? What if those same processes helped make all conversations more effective? Tune in to find out how.
As a leader, you want creative ideas. You know that without creative solutions, business stagnates and competition gets ahead. At the same time, people, including leaders, resist change – particularly creative change. Those two statements work against each other in ways that are counterproductive to the bottom line, to engagement and to teams. How can we reconcile the two? More importantly, what can you do about it as a leader or as a creative solution provider? Tune in to hear how.
Truly great leadership doesn’t just happen. Great leaders, the ones we admire, know the value of taking time to reflect on their own beliefs and patterns. While the outer work of leadership – looking at behaviors – is critically important; equally, the inner work of leadership is critical. The inner work is about examining ourselves, our beliefs, our expectations and noticing how those impact the outer image – the behaviors. Great leadership is more of a yin and yang process – looking at the inner and the outer, being versatile in what is required of you. Tune in to understand 4 mental models of leading and to see why just playing to your strengths isn't the best course of action.
Managers who coach their people get better performance, greater loyalty, higher engagement and stronger brands – to name just a few of the benefits. The great news is that coaching can be done is 10 minutes or less and anyone can do it. What to know how? Tune in to hear the five best questions to ask in any situation and more.
Collaboration and collaborative leadership are hot topics in the business press today. However, practical realities today also expect leaders to control risk, meet targets and manage the performance of the team. Most of us have a deeply ingrained view that our role as leaders and managers is to be in control of the team we lead, make decisions and drive the team to success. This view leads to a hierarchical perspective of leadership instead of a collaborative one.
There is another way and it’s called the Collaborative Operating System. Are you ready to break out of your hierarchical mythology and see the world of leadership in a new, totally different way? Do you want to challenge your thinking and your approach? Do you want to know how to lead in a different way even if your boss is very hierarchical? Tune in to find out.
Are you curious about the experiences of people who successfully navigate career transitions? And, interested in knowing what it takes to create a truly diverse and inclusive culture? Tune in to hear Jennifer’s personal experiences and the insight she has gained.
Everyone wants to know how to have more influence. So many roles require cross team, cross functional, cross divisional or cross border coordination where the leader is accountable but has little formal authority over the resources that are needed. Or, if the leader does use formal authority, reactions are not usually very positive. What is the secret to influencing without using or having authority? How can you influence upwards? What if the influence is through virtual channels only?
Often I talk with authors and consultants about their advice to leaders. In this show, I will be talking with a leader about his experiences - particularly those that involve a transition into unknown territory. Tune in to hear his experiences, insights and advice on influence and politics.
The more successful you are and the more responsibility you take on, the messier the problems that you face. All the “easy” ones can get solved in the layers beneath you. The “tougher” one get escalated – and now that’s you. So how can you manage the areas of gray more constructively? What’s the role of reflection in a world that’s packed with to do’s? How should we think about our view of the leader as the hero? Tune to hear more.
Given the pace of change today, companies need to innovate just to stand still. Whose job is it to drive innovation? Where does it happen? What does it take to innovate as a company? What does innovation mean about how we lead? What should you be thinking about as a leader? Tune in to find out how to drive innovation in your company – and it’s probably not what you are doing now.
Curious about your host? Want to know about her experience and perspective? Tune in to hear why expert leadership is such an important phenomena today along with the key barriers for expert leaders to overcome in moving to the next level, the secret to building dream teams and what it takes to build strong business relationships.
For all of us, the person we do not get along with so well, who gets under our skin, presents the most difficult case for working through conflict and disagreement. It’s not just about the content, it’s also about the personality. Why are these situations so difficult to deal with? What can be done when such conflicts arise? Is mediation something to consider and how does it work? If you need advice on how to work with someone who is fundamentally different in style from you, tune in.
Have questions you want to ask? Need advice about your career? This week, we are hosting a call-in show. Call in to +1-866-472-5790 or email your questions to wanda.wallace@leadershipforuminc.com
Millenials, the group of workers just now entering the workplace, are the largest cohort ever in history and they will change by virtue of their size all of our workplaces. Yet for all the conversation, there is a lot of hype, some mythology and limited advice on what really works. We have topics for the show:
First, what is myth versus what’s reality and what does it mean? Second, what should we do on our teams and as managers that’s productive? Third, how can we meet in the middle? What’s to be gained – on both sides – from including millennials and managing them well?
The ability to spot and shrink capacity gaps is an urgent responsibility for all leaders. What’s your capacity at work? Can you take on more or are you at or beyond your limits of effectiveness? Do you even recognize when you have reached the peak of your capacity? More importantly, what can you do about it for yourself and for your team? Join us to for tips on how manage capacity.
Communication is a critical skill to lead people. However, we rarely get advice on how to do two aspects of communication effectively: Handle difficult, loaded or leading questions and interrupt a long-winded or off-point speakers to bring a discussion back on track. Our guest today says we should use all questions as an opportunity to tell our story, promote an agenda and get the outcome we need by using bridging techniques. She will show us how to use bridging to handle tough questions and how to anticipate bridging in others to interrupt other speakers politely and return the focus of a conversation back to the issue at hand. Tune in to learn techniques for doing both and improve your communication as well.
Ever wonder about how much courage it takes to be a great leader or to start a company? Tune to hear how one person quit a successful career to start a company in an area he knew nothing about – going from failure to failure and learning along the way. The Washington Speaker’s Bureau, is now a highly successful business that represents legendary leaders. speakers over the years. Don't miss the opportunity to hear the lessons learned from the leaders and the founder’s own experience.
Taking a stretch role forces you out of your comfort zone, into new territory and growth. For such times, can you practice new leadership skills the way you would practice to acquire any new skill? Theatre may hold the answer and it’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. Tune in to see how the ideas and techniques from the world of theatre helps leaders to grow, safely move out of their comfort zones, and perform in new ways that will grow you, your career, and your organization.
It seems that there is no end to the feedback we get – especially at work. While some of it may be constructive and well delivered, a lot of feedback isn’t that useful. Yet, being seen as someone to “takes feedback well” is important. And of course, without feedback, we don’t grow enough. How can you best receive feedback, get the best from the message even if the deliverer isn’t so skilled? How can you better hear, respond to, act on, and dismiss feedback? How can you take it “less personally”?
Trust has never been more important. However, our focus on quarterly returns and profits plus the lurch from one crisis to the next has eroded the trust we have in our senior most leaders. In this climate, what can you do as an individual leader in a large (or small) organization to build trust? What are the habits that make trust a fact rather than a wish list? And, how do you change behaviors? Join us to find out.
My guest is an accomplished business woman in financial services who has successfully led teams to generate great results. Tune in to hear her experiences on leading for the first time, going from being a peer to a manager on the team, wining over a new boss, persuading others, navigating politics and advice for men and women.
One of the qualities of admired leaders is their level of energy. Regardless how tough the going gets, these leaders seem to be able to keep their energy up. So what is it that they do that the rest of us don’t do? To answer this question, we are going to look at our sources of energy and at what drains energy. We will focus on what we strategies have proven successful in managing energy zappers. And, we will discuss how all of this affects a leader’s presence.
Relationships are critically important to success at work yet they are fraught with challenges. What is it that makes relationships so complicated? Where do we get stuck? What can we do to make relationships easier? Ultimately, how can we have a more positive impact on the organizational culture?
Some of the trickiest situations to navigate are ones that involve disagreement, conflict, with someone who has more power than you. So how does power alter your approach to conflict? How can you recognize the type of conflict situation you find yourself in? What can you do? Tune in to find out.
Hardly a day goes by when there isn’t some discussion on stress in the workplace. Increasing workloads, competing demands, global teams and multiple bosses are adding to stress levels. How much stress is too much? What can you do to manage stress levels? And, how do you generate greater resilience so you are less affected by stress? Join us to find out.
Today we are going to talk about how to recognize when the stress levels are in the non-productive zone for you, what to do to recover and how to have more resilience in general so demands are less taxing.
Ever wonder what successful people know that you don’t know? For one, successful leaders tend to have mental toughness – they can let things go, they don’t take comments so personally and they focus on what matters to name a few. My guest today has the answer to what mentally tough people do and discovered 13 things they don’t do. Tune in to hear the 13 bad habits you should break today along with tips on how to do that.
Most of us have heard how important networking is: but, usually we see that as a means to get a new role or a promotion, to raise visibility or profile. We want to challenge the notion of why and how you network. We want you to see networking and building bridges in a whole new light. Have you ever considered networking as a route to innovation? What mental models do you hold about effective networking and are those the most effective ones? What new tactics could you use for building bridges? Join us to find out.
Want to know how a leader actually moves to a new role, leading experts and gaining their trust without having any experience in the area? How does such a leader deliver results, decide what is most important and have impact? Tune in to hear the lessons from a successful executive and how he transitioned from role to role.
Most of us, at some point in time, find ourselves struggling with a co-worker. Either the style doesn’t suit us, the values are inconsistent with ours or the behaviors are not what we expect from others. Learning to navigate these situations is just part of managing your career. But what do you do when the behavior tends towards bullying? How do you recognize bully versus other annoying behaviors? What can you do to keep your sanity? How do you win against a bully? Can you? What if the bully is more senior than you? Join us to hear practical, tested solutions.
How do you define what gives you meaning and purpose? If it's about achieving a goal like getting promoted or being best in class, then tune in to learn how that frame undermines success and what works better. Then stay tuned to learn how to unlock change and to persuade others.
Ever since Tom Peter’s wrote Brand You, we have been talking about our personal reputations as our brands. Your reputation, your brand, is an important component of your career success without a doubt. How can you as a person define what you want your personal leadership brand to be in a way that gives you purpose and direction? Equally, how do you begin to turn that image into a reality in your organization? Tune in for an insightful perspective on what brand means and a very practical approach.
The ability to spot and shrink capacity gaps is an urgent responsibility for all leaders. What’s your capacity at work? Can you take on more or are you at or beyond your limits of effectiveness? Do you even recognize when you have reached the peak of your capacity? More importantly, what can you do about it for yourself and for your team? Join us to for tips on how manage capacity.
It seems that there is no end to the feedback we get – especially at work. While some of it may be constructive and well delivered, a lot of feedback isn’t that useful. Yet, being seen as someone to “takes feedback well” is important. And of course, without feedback, we don’t grow enough. How can you best receive feedback, get the best from the message even if the deliverer isn’t so skilled? How can you better hear, respond to, act on, and dismiss feedback? How can you take it “less personally”?
As leaders, most of our time is spent in conversation – some of it highly effective and some of it less so. Yet, the most admired and productive leaders show greater Conversational Intelligence. What is this secret skill? How can you improve your conversational intelligence?
Peter Drucker says: 'The leader of the past may have been a person who knew how to tell, but certainly the leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask.' Asking great questions may well be the secret to inspiring, motivating and engaging people. What are the questions great leaders ask? If you want to learn the secret using great questions or you want to expand your repertoire of questions, tune in.
Have you ever wondered why some leaders just manage to consistently out-perform everyone in their field? They out-produce, they transform industries and they develop great teams. Have you ever noticed that these leaders have a huge fan base of people who have worked for him/her? What makes this group of leaders so special – what do they do that the rest of us don’t do? Tune in to find out
Discomfort isn’t always pleasant but it can be a good thing if you know how to manage it. Expert leaders in particular get used to being right, having the facts at hand, knowing the work is accurate because you did it or you could verify it – in effect, being in their comfort zone. But to grow and to expand your responsibility, leaders have to lean in to discomfort. That means changing some practices like not using time as an excuse for telling versus leading, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and learning to nudge your employees into discomfort also without pushing them over the edge. Tune in to hear the tactics and advice for yourself and for leading your team.
These are turbulent times – with uncertainty, volatility, instant access to information and chaos just to name a few driving forces for leaders today. Most of this is outside of your control. How then should you think about leading through such times? What are the key skills that will get you through the turbulence and to the other side? Our guest calls these skills “artful leadership.” Join us to learn that that means and how to develop your capability.
What do you need to do to be sure you land that dream job – whether it’s inside your current company or in a different company? The interview is scheduled, you are excited, how do you make sure you are prepared and will leave a great impression? How do you negotiating the offer (including salary)? And, how do you make sure you avoid the biggest mistakes people make?
Mentoring, advocacy, sponsorship – so much has been discussed about the importance of these key relationships. How do you build a strong mentoring relationship? What is the natural cycle of a mentoring relationship? As a mentor, are you doing the best for your mentees? As a mentee, what can you do to get the best out of your mentor relationship? Join us to learn more.
Managers who coach their people get better performance, greater loyalty, higher engagement and stronger brands – to name just a few of the benefits. The great news is that coaching can be done is 10 minutes or less and anyone can do it. What to know how? Tune in to hear the five best questions to ask in any situation and more.
Millenials, the group of workers just now entering the workplace, are the largest cohort ever in history and they will change by virtue of their size all of our workplaces. Yet for all the conversation, there is a lot of hype, some mythology and limited advice on what really works. We have topics for the show:
First, what is myth versus what’s reality and what does it mean? Second, what should we do on our teams and as managers that’s productive? Third, how can we meet in the middle? What’s to be gained – on both sides – from including millennials and managing them well?
Three very important and connected ideas… How do you get things done when you are not in charge? How do you inspire people to do what you have in mind without telling them what to do, especially when you don’t have the authority to do so? It turns out, that building trust is one of the keys. How do you build trust in your team and their trust in you? All this takes time – more of our precious, highly constrained time. Actually, it’s not really about time, it’s about how we choose to spend that time. How can we focus more on what really matters and manage our selves to get the results we want?
Millenials, the group of workers just now entering the workplace, are the largest cohort ever in history and they will change by virtue of their size all of our workplaces. Yet for all the conversation, there is a lot of hype, some mythology and limited advice on what really works. We have topics for the show: br First, what is myth versus what’s reality and what does it mean? Second, what should we do on our teams and as managers that’s productive? Third, how can we meet in the middle? What’s to be gained – on both sides – from including millennials and managing them well?
If there is no discomfort you are not growing, not getting out of your comfort zone. Organizations expect leaders to have the right answer, to do the right thing and to be nice to everyone. Yet, if you don’t challenge people with discomfort, they don’t grow. How do you lean into discomfort? How can you find the courage to do things that are hard, awkward or just plain different? As a leader, how do you push your team into the discomfort zone to achieve even better results? How can you find the right balance between being too confidence and too wishy-washy? Tune in to find out.
Coaches and mentors are the key to an engaged workplace, to retention, to career satisfaction. Find someone who is being coached or mentored effectively, and you will find a positive, inspired, committed person. Take those away and performance declines. How do you mentor or coach someone? What skills do you need? How do you get the best out of the relationship as a mentee or coachee? Tune in to hear the advice.
Have you been told that what is holding you back is your visibility … that you need to promote yourself? Want to know how to self-promote in ways that actually build credibility? Tune in to find out why self-promotion matters, how to create your unique value-proposition and what you use the proposition to build credibility?
Have you ever wondered how to understand your purpose at work or how to find purpose and meaning in your work? As a leader, do you aspire to lead so that others find meaning and purpose in what they do? If so, this show is for you. It’s easy to use the words but not so easy to understand what to do – until you hear from Arthur Woods, this week’s guest.
Is your organization going through massive change? Is the pace of that change difficult to manage? Are you or your team struggling to make sense of the resulting chaos? Do you need tactics for managing increasing levels of uncertainty? Do you prefer clarity and certainty rather than thriving in the midst of ambiguity? If so, join us to learn how to manage uncertainty and chaos. Learn the habits that undermine our ability to cope with uncertainty.
My guest this week says that work-life balance is dead …. But we have to live well anyway. So how can we do just that given all the competing demands on our time and attention? Part of living well is the ability to be able to confront people and situations. What’s the formula for supportive confrontation? And, finally, what can we do to cope with stress?
Have you been told that what is holding you back is your visibility … that you need to promote yourself? Want to know how to self-promote in ways that actually build credibility? Tune in to find out why self-promotion matters, how to create your unique value-proposition and what you use the proposition to build credibility?
Everyone complains about the number of meetings and the ineffectiveness of meetings. What if you had tools and processes that would help you lead more productive meetings? What if those same processes helped make all conversations more effective? Tune in to find out how.
Being a newcomer is daunting – whether it’s a new group, a new team, a new boss or a new company. There are relationships to build from scratch, people to remember, questions to ask and work to be done. What should you do when you are new? How can you build relationships with strangers? How do you manage all these new people if you are more of an introvert than an extrovert?
What impact do you want to have on your organization? What do you want people to say about your leadership? Who do you want to be as a leader? How can you shape the culture around you as a result? How can you be more intentional – every day in every situation? Tune in to hear the answers.
How can you go from one discipline or function to a totally different one and still be effective? How can you move from one country culture to another and adapt quickly enough to be credible? How can you move from one company culture to a radically different one and adjust your approach? Tune in to find out how one executive survived several career transitions and the lessons learned along the way.
What do you need to be doing as a manager to be a fabulous boss? How can you as a manager both get results and inspire the team – what do you do and not do? What are they keys to managing up most effectively? How do you deal with “challenging” managers? In effect, how do you win well - without loosing your soul along the way?
Trust! We know it’s critical, it’s easily broken and societal trust is declining. What does it take to create a culture of trust? How can you repair trust? What’s your legacy?
My guest this week, Roy Reid, says that an average level of trust is totally inadequate – we should live our lives with OUTRAGEOUS Trust. To do so, we have to be intentional and mindful about how we earn, build and restore trust. Then, benefits will follow… economic and personal.
Are you managing people in different locations who have little chance to get together in person? Are you struggling to create a virtual team? More and more managers are having to give feedback over the phone. Telepresence is becoming common in offices. With the rise in global projects and the increase in flexible working, learning to manage, lead, build teams that are not co-located is an important skill. Hear expert advise on best practices.
Collaboration is a hot topic among leaders… so is inclusivity. However, few know what to do to truly build a collaborative and inclusive culture – especially when groups start from a position of distrust. Collin Rustin has the answer on to what to do. His process has successfully taken conflict ridden groups through turmoil and on to greater trust, authentic relationships and genuine dialogue. The focus is Collin’s wisdom and experience.
Are you not managing stress as well as you would like to do? Do you question your leadership and your contribution? Do you need to let go of some control? These are the topics for this show based on the principles of Heart-Centered Leadership. br Heart-Centered Leadership is about being more mindful as leaders – understanding the impact of self-care and authenticity on the satisfaction and well-being of the workforce and, by extension, the bottom line.
Do you manage people (or clients) who are in different locations from you? Do you end up having most of your conversations via phone or video conference rather than face-to-face? If so, this show is full of practical tips from a leader who’s clients and teams are distributed. Hear his experiences and the tactics he uses to make virtual interactions highly effective.
As an expert, how do you know if you are ready to manage on a larger scale? Are you prepared for the challenges that come with that step like navigating through customer complaints? How can you prepare to work with the top of the organization? And, how can you tell if it’s time to step back into an individual contributor role? Tune in for the answers to these and other questions.
How do you increase someone else’s receptivity to your message about influence? For starters, be clear about the purpose of your efforts to influence - are you trying to influence action, thinking or fundamental mindset? There is more to do as well. Tune in to hear how to increase receptivity, the differences in influence approaches, the structure of an influence conversation and the 9 principles of influence.
High stakes mean emotions are high, trust is less than ideal, tension is up, there is controversy and often we feel politics have come into play. In those moments how can you engage people, particularly your peers and the CEO, in a constructive conversation that gets a good outcome? What strategies can you use when a hostile question is thrown out in a meeting? What should you do and not do in your delivery? What does the CEO really want to hear from you?
Are you looking for better ways to engage your team? Do you need to change the culture within your team? Do you need to find ways to instill the right leadership behaviors? All of these are dramatically affected by one thing – the stories you and the team tell. Actually, the stories people tell may be more significant than you can imagine. Tune in to hear why and what to do.
Have you ever wondered how to understand your purpose at work or how to find purpose and meaning in your work? As a leader, do you aspire to lead so that others find meaning and purpose in what they do? If so, this show is for you. It’s easy to use the words but not so easy to understand what to do – until you hear from Arthur Woods, this week’s guest.
We know the importance of getting buy-in, getting people on board with your idea, bringing people around on a change initiative, persuading people that your way of thinking is the best way. Yet, it is never an easy thing to do.
Laurence Lewis has introduced and sold many initiatives in his career. People describe him as a master at influence. Tune in to hear his experience and his advice for getting people on board.
Negotiation is a important tool – one we typically think of as applicable to sales scenarios. But, negotiation is a powerful and effective way to influence people whether you are trying to influence the price, influence a peer to support you in a project or influence your manager. What are the best practices in negotiation? What should you avoid doing? How can you start to use those tools now? Join us to find out.
Ever wonder how to walk into a room full of people you don’t know and start a conversation – even if you are an introvert? Have you ever searched for a way to end a conversation? And, how do you follow-up with people you just met? Join us for answers to these questions along with other tips from a networking expert.
If you know you haven’t mastered the art of networking, this interview is for you. We focus on why a network is powerful and then how you can extend your network in practical ways, how to find and nurture valuable connections and how to develop sponsorship.
Most people (98%) have better ideas when they are not at work. How can you create an environment at work where ideas come forward? It’s not just about running a brainstorming session. Instead it’s much more about the culture you create and the way you as a leader grow ideas. The good news is that there are clear tips on what to do and what to avoid doing. Tune in to hear the advice.
The ability to influence is a survival skill in organizations of all sizes. We know it matters but few seem to be very skilled at it. Richard Shell is a true expert on the art of influence and the research that supports best practices. He will be talking about what creates effective influence as well the barriers that get in our way. In addition, we will be talking about how to successfully pitch an idea and how to insure you have genuine commitment.
All of us pack an enormous amount into our daily lives – at work, outside of work, with family, friends, charities, hobbies, exercise and the list goes on. Too many of us have not two but three and four jobs – or what used to be the jobs of multiple people. There is never enough time. So how can you organize yourself, not just manage time but fold time and conquer the world? Listen to Neen James’s, an expert on productivity and performance, advice.
Let’s face it, regardless where you work, inevitably you end up working with, or for, someone whom is just not easy to get along with ... recognizing that what is difficult for one person, may well be relatively easy for someone else. Sometimes the challenge occurs because of a difference in style or personality. Sometimes it’s a difference in values. Regardless the reason, you have to find a way to manage the situation. That is the focus of the show... how to cope with challenging personalities.
In our continuing series on emotional intelligence, we are turning to perhaps one of the most challenging aspects – that is, being able to stay calm in times of chaos, managing your own levels of stress particularly when things are going awry, and more importantly, regulating your own emotions. Dena Michelli, this week’s guest, focuses on developing and deploying top talent. In particular, she sees leadership as managing a series of paradoxes – being vulnerable but not too vulnerable, managing emotions but not being too emotional, handling stress and using stress effectively. Listen to her perspective on how to manage your emotions to get the best from people around you.
My guest, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an expert on emotional intelligence and personality assessment, has a distinct view on how emotional intelligence contributes to success in the current economy and to your reputation as a leader. Hear his views on whether it is possible to have too much EQ or to over use it as well as his advice on developing EQ.
What does emotional intelligence look like in action – over the course of a career? That’s our focus. Heidi Diamond, as well respected, senior executive who has been in a variety of industries will talk about how using emotional intelligence helped inspire a team through a crisis at Martha Stewart Living, how use used emotion to build the team to drive performance and finally how emotional intelligence allowed her to integrate into a corporate culture that was very different then her typical style.
Continuing in the series on emotional intelligence, we are joined by a leader and a builder of businesses to focus on how emotional intelligence is used to make a difference to team performance. Hear how Janine developed her own emotional intelligence and how it helps her drive performance in her teams.
The first in a series on developing emotional intelligence for the purpose of improving leadership effectiveness, we will be focusing on what emotional intelligence (EQ) means, why it matters and how to improve your own EQ. To lead as a non-expert, EQ becomes more of a critical skill than IQ. We will talk how EQ can be used, how to improve your EQ and discuss a case.
Communicating with direct reports is a special case. Typically this involves communicating about performance and development – which means it ultimately involves coaching, delegating and giving feedback. All three are part of this week’s discussion.
The most admired leaders are admired because of their skill in communicating. What do these leaders do and not do that sets them apart? The answer to that question is what the show is all about. We will be talking about how leaders inspire, how they convey authority and what they do when things go wrong.
How a leader communicates makes all the difference in levels of trust, understanding of the strategy, coaching employees, engaging people. The show is focused on what the best communicators do to prepare, to craft the message and ultimately to deliver it. The tactics are the same regardless whether the audience is one person, ten people or thousands. My guest, Joel Wald, has been training and coaching business leaders to be effective communicators for decades. His advice is will put you on the right track.
Tyler Durham has a perspective on what people want to hear from the leaders in terms of communication. That perspective is based on a survey of 6000 people in 12 countries plus his own experience in working with organizations. The watchword is transparency. We will be talking about what goes wrong in communication (“The Niagra Falls Effect’), what the research says people want, and the core skills leaders need to develop to be more effective communicators particularly around change.
As ‘perhaps the world’s premier management thinker’ according to Tom Peters, Henry Mintzberg, this week’s guest, has clear views on leadership and strategy. We begin with his view of the best organizations as communities of people. Leading then is about building the community – not about being the knight in shining armor with a load of followers. In this context, we turn to what it means to be strategic and then how to better develop managers for this understanding of organizations.
As a highly successful leader and a builder of brands, Kevin Gass has a straightforward perspective of what it takes to be strategic - how to set goals, define strategies and specify tactics that will lead to success. Continuing in our series on “Being Strategic,” we will be discussing Kevin’s model, his experiences and why he thinks companies and leaders fail the strategic test.
People frequently receive feedback on needing to be more strategic but have no clue how to develop that capability. This is the second in a series on becoming more strategic.
Peter Wright will share his methodology for identifying the drivers of any business. The 'fingerprint' - or the unique characteristics of one business versus the rest - is critical for understanding the strategy, making smart strategic choices and driving effective change. For business leaders as well as those in supporting functions, this method is invaluable to developing strategic capability.
When people receive feedback about the need to be more strategic, they often ask us as coaches what that means. This is the first in a series on becoming more strategic.
Liam Fahey will discuss his perspective on how to develop strategic thinking – including a number of techniques for examining the marketplace and the competitive landscape. These techniques are directly connected to generating growth.
Focusing on progressing your career, Kerrie will share her experiences in holding your own at the table, navigating through conflict, managing different personalities, sustaining your brand and building sponsorship. In addition, Kerrie will talk about how she stepped out of her comfort zone to learn totally new areas and add value to the team and leading the team.
Hear the experiences and lessons learned from an entrepreneur and leader in the technology industry. Jim Kinsella, founder of Zettabox, will share his insights on how leadership distinguishes the best from the rest in the technology industry. In his view, leadership is in scarce supply – far more so than programming. In addition, Jim will discuss his three points about how to lead effectively: Measuring so you can observe, leading from the front-line, and liking people. Finally, Jim will share his mistakes and the lessons learned about leading people – including how to work with assertive people.
To succeed on a strategic goal, as a leader you need to know more than the financial metrics – you need to track what people are really doing to contribute to the goal. My guest, Bruce Rigal, has a unique perspective on how to measure the things that make a real difference to the success of the strategy. Measurement is a critical skill in transitioning from an expert leader to a larger role because if you are measuring the right things then you can delegate effectively, give feedback more consistently and insure the right things are getting done even when you are not on top of all the details.
Most of us believe that collaboration is the ideal path forward; however, this is far easier said than done particularly for very complex problems. Typically the parties that need to collaborate do not trust each other, do not agree on the solution and do not want to talk with each other.
This week’s guest, Angela Knight, has been very successful in bringing together groups of people who have very different, often competing, interests. IN a very politically astute way, she has a method for getting these groups to agree on policy and a way forward. Tune in to hear how she accomplishes this feat.
This week’s show highlights the career, experience and lessons learned of a leader in the biotech industry. Beginning his career as deep expert in science, Doug Williams transitioned to leading companies and departments. Doug’s experiences in managing the transition, becoming more of a leader than a scientist, building teams and maintaining confidence when he was out of his comfort zone have great insights for all of us. In addition, Doug has a perspective on the role of emotions in motivating people as well as great advice on delegating and managing your time.
Many leaders are talking about coaches – either because they have one or they have been told they should have one. But, when does a coach really help? How should you use a coach? How do you select a coach (or know if the one you are working with is doing the best job for you)?
Stephen Marshall, this week's guest, has been on both sides of the divide. He was responsible for hiring coaches when he worked at Siemens and he is now coaching executives.
Tom Wilson, Chief Risk Officer at Allianz, will be my guest this week. Tom is the ultimate expert leader and he has a valuable perspective on the additional skills that expert leaders need to acquire to be most effective. Join us to hear his perspective on the mistakes deep experts make along with his advice on delegating, choosing what to get involved in and what to let go, communication and being commercially savvy.
All organizations, regardless of the size, have conflict – meaning one person or group wants to go in one direction, another person or group wants to go in another direction. Learning to manage conflict in a constructive manner is thus a core skill for leaders. But managing conflict does not mean having the best intellectual argument and “winning” the case. It is much more complex than just being right. Craig Runde, a recognized expert on conflict, will join us to talk about what goes wrong, what to do and how to manage emotions in the midst of conflict.
We will be talking about the things leaders do that stall careers – what goes wrong, the warning signs, how to prevent those mistakes. These are the actions that cause followers to loose confidence in a leader and to resist a leader’s direction. In addition, we will offer real-world, practical advice on developing leadership capability and assessing that capability – both for your self and for others. Paul Minx, former global head of talent and leadership development, and Rob Kaiser, coach, researcher and assessor of top talent, will be this week’s guests.
Elizabeth Kuhnke, my guest this week, specializes in coaching leaders on improving presence, confidence and gravitas through the way they use their physical presence. Elizabeth will be talking about the mistakes a leader can make in using his/her voice as well as body language cues that signal a lack of confidence. More importantly, she will be giving advice about what to do to improve presence, confidence and authenticity. She is the author Body Language for Dummies.
Peter Wright, my guest this week, has been under lots of fire both literally and figuratively. He was in the British army in active duty and he was at BP just after the Texas City oil refinery explosion. This list goes on - one could almost say that challenges follow him.
One of the key components, in his view, is for leaders to become more comfortable devolved leadership – meaning the willingness to let ideas come from the most unlikely places in the organization and to not have all the answers yourself.
Peter will be describing his experiences under fire, the leaders who inspired others during tough times, what makes people follow in times of crisis other than necessity and how we can better prepare leaders.
Do think leaders need to know at least as much as their direct reports? Or do you doubt how leaders can make critical decisions without full information. Then this week’s show is for you. John Murphey, former CEO of Bell Helicopter and my guest for this week, has been in the leadership seat under trying circumstances. When he took over as CEO, the company was loosing money, customers were very unhappy, he had major surgery and 9/11 happened – all in the space of about 30 days. How do you lead with confidence and integrity under those conditions when you are not in your comfort zone? We will talk about how John led when he didn’t have all the answers, what he said to the organization, how he gained credibility, how he built his team and how he made decisions.