Today’s blog covers the promised Part Two from last week’s blog post. If you missed it and want to see the whole letter and the context, click here. Here’s the part of the letter, signed Paralyzed, that I am addressing today: “I asked my manager to tell me what she thought the most critical thing…
Dear Madeleine, I am in a high potential program at a large global company and am being considered for fast track promotion. As part of the program, everyone did a battery of assessments. I have learned all kinds of things about myself, my strengths, my preferences, how others see me, etc. It has been enlightening…
Dear Madeleine, My boss recently left the company. It was very sudden—I can’t tell if he left on his own or if he was fired. We had a good relationship, so I would have thought I would be more in the know. Anyway, my boss’s boss asked me to fill in until they find a…
Dear Madeleine, I am a ruminator. I second-guess everything I do. My wife is tired of me spending hours every night going over and over the events of the day. I work in finance and have a lot of technical expertise in my field. My organization counts on me for their reports, budgets, etc. I’m…
Perhaps, like me, you suffer from the inability to say the word no. As soon as I hear “You are so good at…” or “We really need you…,” I am captured in the web of overcommitment and the stress that often accompanies it. As I analyzed the various commitments, projects, and requests that I have…
“Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one is watching – even when doing the wrong thing is legal”. – Aldo Leopold * * * Ethical adjective Avoiding activities or organizations that do harm to people or the environment. * * * Examples of non-ethical behavior in business and leadership are all around…
It’s December – not only is it peak Christmas shopping time for some (I am completely unprepared!), it’s also when leaders are formalising their strategic planning for 2016 and beyond. Organisations are thinking about strategic change; whether this is incremental or a larger scale transformational change. If your organisation needs to make some difficult choices…
A few months back, I asked a group of leaders for a show of hands on who had experienced either oversupervision or undersupervision. Almost every hand went up. But then I asked how many had themselves oversupervised or undersupervised their direct reports. Only one or two hands shyly peeked out from the crowd.
So what’s going on? Well, leaders can sometimes be unaware of what they should and should not be doing. And this lack of awareness separates good leaders from great leaders. Great leaders know that leading is a never-ending journey that can be filled with treacherous obstacles.
So what do you need to know to become a great leader?
On a daily basis, we are all faced with making yes or no decisions that lead to certain consequences. With today’s many distractions and demands, it is easy to react quickly without first thinking through the implications. Are you making conscious responses that align with your commitments and goals? For example, one client I was…
I have spent the last two years of my life completing my Masters in Business with an Emphasis in Strategic Human Resource Management. I spent on average around 15 hours a week studying, writing essays and completing exams. If anyone has completed an MBA part time whilst working full time you will appreciate how tough…