Imagine for a moment that you’re sitting in on a focus group of new leaders. They begin to discuss the parts of leadership they’re most looking forward to. You listen as they explain how much they’ll enjoy assigning the most unpleasant or challenging tasks to the team members they oversee. This approach might not seem [...]
Ask yourself, “What type of leader would I choose to follow?” When you think of a person in a position of high authority, what qualities come to mind? Do you imagine bombastic words, unsubstantiated claims, or shameless self-promotion benefiting off the work of others? Too often society seems obsessed with the outrageous and absurd personalities [...]
There’s a moment in the popular 1995 movie Braveheart where William Wallace is running across a mountain range in Scotland. Everyone is counting on him, but he’s all by himself as he travels through the cold rain and wind. As a leader, have you ever felt that way? Have you ever had the sensation of [...]
The Fired-Up! Culture team is thrilled to announce the release of our new eBook, How Executive Coaching Grows Leaders, Teams, and Organizations. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to partner with a Fired-Up! coach, this free resource provides an in depth explanation of our process, philosophy, and results. It also shares some of the [...]
Say that one moment you’re a highly skilled member of a team, performing a critical role. Then, you transition into a leadership role, one where you’re now in charge of leading that same team. You’ve moved from a place where you’re confident in your abilities and have clarity in your station, to one where you’re [...]
The medical office was buzzing with drama. The second doctor in two weeks was loudly disparaging Katie, a new medical assistant, to the office manager. “Yes, yes,” he said, “she has the basic skills, but I need someone to prep my charts in the way that works for me. They need to notify me of [...]
Perhaps you’ve wondered, “If everyone is doing the same thing, reading the same books, and taking the same training, how am I going to differentiate myself?” Herd mentality can create inertia, but there’s a simple and straightforward way to emerge from the group and ensure you’re seen. On Differentiating Yourself People collectively assume major events [...]
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 [...]
