When leaders operate under the illusion of control, it’s a sign that their ego is running the show. Sometimes this is a good thing (it reminds them to get to a meeting on time), sometimes it leaves no space for a good way to emerge to meet their current challenge.
However, this show running comes with [...]
... helping leadership emerge
Category Archives: tools
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 7
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 6
In Part 3 of “The Leadership of Letting Go” I touched on the role of trust in leadership. People want to be able to trust, and be trusted by, their leaders. This demands that leaders be authentic. One roadblock on the road to authenticity is that what we say may not match what we really [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 5
Leadership is increasingly challenging: more demands in less time. Upping the number of hours doesn’t help either since the time to recharge and be fresh for the next day’s challenges gets eaten away. During the rest of the week, we look at some simple tools that leaders can use to help them let go of [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 1
The Leadership Think Tank group on Linked In has been discussing the difference between leadership and management for several months now. The discussion shows no signs of running out of steam.
One fundamental difference between leadership and management revolves around (the need for) control. The tools of management benefit from control over the situation or the [...]
What Type of Leader am I?
I came across an online Enneagram test today; it pegged me correctly as a 9w8. Looking around the site, I noticed a Famous Leader test, which comes in different sizes. When I took the nine question version of the test, my style came out to be Albert Einstein.
What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com
With [...]
How much initiative do you want?
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 [...]
No Agenda = No Meeting
Seth Godin recently distilled a great list about getting serious about your meeting problem. It highlights the problem that many people in companies face: being in meetings all day. If you’ve wondered when the work gets done, for some people the answer is that they have forgotten what work involves. The day is taken up [...]
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 [...]
A Basic Equation of Leadership
In his inner game work, Tim Gallwey distills coaching to the equation p = P – i. In longhand: performance = Potential – interference. In working as a leadership sculptor I’ve come to see the i as standing for imbalance. A lack of life balance — as Klaus Linneweh pointed out several years ago — [...]
Putting things in perspective
Over the past few months we have been renovating the house we bought last Autumn, so that I and my partner can have our own practices on the ground floor. Last Sunday our architect passed away suddenly. There’s been lots of speculation about how and why. That’s not helpful at this time. Some comforting thoughts [...]
