When discussing with clients how to lead subordinates, one question that arises often is, how much initiative should my people show? In their classic HBR article, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? Oncken and Wass lay out a five-level scale of managerial initiative (1 – 5 in the figure). My clients’ staff are more [...]
... helping leadership emerge
Category Archives: team
Further thoughts on “Burning MBTI Questions Answered”
Sandy McMullen has started a series “Burning MBTI Questions Answered” on her Personality Plus in Business blog. The current question deals with a conflict between two team members. Given the level of information in the question, Sandy does a great job of offering a framework in which to think about a solution, rather than trying [...]
Give the other person a chance to do some of the work
In a recent leadership team-building workshop, we practiced giving clean feedback. Later, Jane asked me during a break for a chat about how to deal with another participant who had blocked her attempt at giving feedback on a behaviour causing a lot of friction between them – during shift handover, Mary reacted to improvement suggestions [...]
Why You Need The No Asshole Rule
McKinsey offers an excerpt entitled Building The Civilized Workplace (you need to register in order to read this) from Robert Sutton’s new book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace And Surviving One That Isn’t. The article includes a checklist for the most common behaviours as well as what jerks can cost your business, [...]
Developing goals together
A commonly held misconception is that the boss must set the goals. It is helpful is they know in which direction they want to move their team. However, involving their staff in developing the goal, helps to bring a different spirit into the organisation.
Through this involvement in formulating the goal, staff are prepared [...]
