Leading with Empathy

People want an empathetic leader. Many managers strive to be one. But ask someone to define the term, and you’re likely to be met with silence. Let’s start with the definition. According to Merriam-Webster, empathy means “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of…

Restoring Trust During the Pandemic

Trust is the foundation of success, and the pandemic is putting enormous pressure on it. COVID has created a historic amount of stress and anxiety, which is testing the bonds of trust we have with each other. Making things more difficult is how seldom leaders and team members meet face to face these days, combined…

Embrace The “And” in 2022 – A Simple Truth Most Leaders Miss

“Relationships And Results.” Which of those three words is most important? I posed that question to over 100 participants in a series of workshops I recently conducted for a client. As you might suspect, about half the people thought relationships was the most important word. Their rationale essentially boiled down to people are the ones…

Real Talk About Leading Hybrid Teams

Many organizations are embracing hybrid teams (a mixture of onsite and remote employees) as a model of working in the post-COVID19 world. Hybrid teams are not new, but this model of working is new to many organizations and leaders. I’ve been leading hybrid teams for over 15 years, so I have a pretty good idea…

3 Areas to Address When Restoring Trust

Trust is often one of those things we don’t think about until we don’t have it. Much like oxygen, we take it for granted, but once it’s gone…YIKES! We suddenly realize how critically important it is and we’ll do just about anything to get it back. The good news about broken trust, if there is…

The Great Trust Experiment – Will Organizations Build or Erode Trust In The New World of Work?

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to have their employees work remotely, it launched what I have come to call The Great Trust Experiment. Literally overnight, organizations extended massive amounts of trust to their employees to do whatever it took to keep their businesses afloat. By most business metrics, The Great Trust Experiment has been…

Who’s In Your Circle of Trust?

If you’ve seen the movie Meet the Parents, you probably remember “the circle of trust.” Robert De Niro’s character, Jack, a former CIA agent and overly protective father, is obsessed with making sure his future son-in-law Greg is a trustworthy and honorable husband for Pam, his only daughter. From his point of view, a person is…