The moment you take on a leadership role, you’re giving up some privileges you might not even realize you possess. A distance inevitably grows between you and your team members, one which can make leadership much harder and lonelier than most people realize. In recent posts for the Fired-Up! blog, we covered some of the [...]
Passing the buck is the flavor of the day. The news cycle is filled with stories of powerful people blaming subordinates who somehow “let them down,” “did not measure up,” or were “disloyal and incompetent.” Leaders throw their team members under the bus as a show of strength, when doing so actually demonstrates quite the [...]
There’s a famous management quote that says you “get what you inspect.” This quote has its roots in the hierarchical and positional history of what once passed for leadership. Within this history, leadership was about giving orders, publicly admonishing low performers, inspiring angst and fear among workers, and applying pressure to see who was left [...]
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” — Albert Schweitzer, theologian, doctor, humanitarian, and more At any dog park, there’s normally an eclectic mix of dogs. There might be hyperactive puppies, calm older dogs, playful golden retrievers, expressive beagles, and intense bulldogs. If you observe for a while, [...]
“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein Have you ever felt tempted, when initially facing a problem, to grab a tool and start working away? As the quote above demonstrates, that’s not always the most effective [...]
As leaders, we need to keep an eye out for team members who might be going through hard times in their lives, at work, or at home. These are the most important times for us to be aware and act, not only for our own sakes, but on behalf of those we have the opportunity [...]
Does it ever feel as if you’re constantly being swept up in an unrelenting series of cyclical timelines involving reports, financial statements, production figures, and updates on current initiatives? Then, the feeling is compounded by the pressure of project deadlines and the need to be responsive to team members, clients, and customers. All these things [...]
A person arriving or transitioning into a new leadership role might feel excited, hopeful, and slightly overwhelmed. These emotions can also be accompanied by a sense of having reached a goal or “arrived.” For many new leaders, getting promoted to a position of authority is an object of attainment they’ve held for months or even [...]
One common practice in business and non-profit work is the act of placing a new leader into a challenging role and providing them with nebulous expectations and little direction. Instead of adequate support, the new leader is given a mandate to fix whatever is ailing the team and the parting words, “Be great! We’re all [...]
Has anyone ever ordered you to do something? Perhaps they handed you a list of instructions and walked away, uninterested in your perspective. In such a scenario, many people are inclined to do only what is asked of them and no more. An environment of compliance is a place where orders and mandates take priority [...]
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