Articles for Leaders & Change Practitioners
leadership
Conflict
Resolution
Organization
Development
Developing and Using Personal Support Systems
Charles N. Seahore, Ph.D. was the author of this article. Charlie was an exemplar of leadership and the practice of organization development. One method, of acquiring, maintiaining and demonstrating one’s interpersonal competence is to have a network of supportive...
COMMUNICATION SKILLS: What Does the Pain of Independence Have to Do With It?
An article by Doreen Stern, Ph.D. from "The Stepping Stone," March 2016, Issue 65. ~~•••~~I consider myself a straight shooter. Firm handshake. Excel- lent eye contact. Big smile. And like a Girl Scout, I tell the truth. Yet these facts are incontrovertible: I once...
Creating Agreements for Success, Part 3
Contracting for Ego Management We all have egos. To a greater or lesser degree, we all have needs to maintain and/or protect our sense of identity and self-esteem. The admonishment to leave egos at the door is fruitless. Therefore, the following three can be useful in...
Creating Agreements for Success, Part 2
Contracting for Effective Relationships How well a leader accomplishes his/her intended goals and strategies is very much dependent on the quality of the connection among the members of the system. As important as relationships among team members are in the world of...
Creating Agreements for Success, Part 1
Contracting for the Impact We Intend Effective leaders need followers to execute strategies and tactics if they are to accomplish their visions and goals. Too often misunderstandings and miscommunications hamper effective execution. Good contracting can prevent these...
Leaders and their Egos
Leaders are human and can screw-up. Their screw-ups, however, can be very costly. A primary source of their screw-ups, like all of us, is their egos. Our egos are our sense of identity, our sense of self-importance and self-esteem. They are our perception of our...
LEADERSHIP and the Importance of Connecting
Leaders cannot accomplish their intentions and goals alone. It is essential that we connect well with those whose support makes us leaders. I mentioned last month a leader who embarrassed an important employee in public. That leader weakened their connection with that...
Managing Your Intentions and Impact
A frustrated leader screams at a valued employee in public. Another talks over a subordinate while wondering why his people don’t speak up more. Both leaders have done something (with no conscious intention) that is likely to damage their effectiveness as leaders. We...
The Power of Conscious Choice
A power that the best of leaders have is the power of conscious choice. All of us have the power of choice. It’s just that the best leaders multiply it by using it consciously. Most of us make the myriad choices of daily life automatically, though expedient and...
Expanding Your Experience of Choice
From our previous article, we know that we all make many choices automatically. They save us time and energy and we don’t even notice them as choices… even when they are not saving us time and energy, when our automatic choices are actually wasting time and energy....
Two Perspectives of Power & Conflict in Teams and Organizations
“It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.” ~ Francis Bacon Conflict is the bane of organizational productivity and engagement. When done with respect and...
Team Dysfunction & the Center for Human Systems
Dysfunctional Teams & the Center for Human SystemsOn an evening dog walk, I listened to this episode of Michael Lewis' podcast https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/against-the-rules/episode-6-the-overconfidence-game and laughed out loud several...
Resolving Conflict in Teams & Organizations
A few months ago, I was working with five faculty members of a university sociology department. They were having difficulty getting along with each other. There were lots of conflicts and negative judgments were abundant. I interviewed each one....
Conflict and the Misuse of Differences
How we misuse the differences that we might learn from.
Managing Team Conflict
Cynthia Phillips, Ph.D., Guest Author Purpose of this Paper Describe the nature of conflict in teamsDefine types of conflict and describe how each manifests in a teamIdentify reasons why team members struggle with conflictDescribe how a team leader...
Managing Your Intentions and Impact
A frustrated leader screams at a valued employee in public. Another talks over a subordinate while wondering why his people don’t speak up more. Both leaders have done something (with no conscious intention) that is likely to damage their effectiveness as leaders. We...
The Power of Conscious Choice
A power that the best of leaders have is the power of conscious choice. All of us have the power of choice. It’s just that the best leaders multiply it by using it consciously. Most of us make the myriad choices of daily life automatically, though expedient and...
Anatomy of a Diversity Initiative
Meaningful interest in diversity, inclusion, and equity have waxed and waned in the United States since the 1940s and probably much earlier. World War II saw women taking an active role in the workplace for the first time. In 1948, President Truman of...
Creating Safe Teams
An important key to having great teams and organizations is their sense of safety. Their members do not fear censure should their all-too-human egos and emotions become evident. They feel free to speak, to dissent, to be radical, and even outlandish. This freedom is...
You Can’t Do It Alone and. . .
You Don't Have to Many leaders have the notion that it is lonely at the top. Like so many things, if you believe it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact is no one has ever accomplished anything of any significance alone. Think about that. I think about my...
Get to Critical Mass Support with System Mapping
Creating change in human systems such as teams and organizations is a matter of developing a critical mass of support for the change goal. Of course, developing that critical mass may involve working through whatever resistances there are and resolving the conflicts...
Resolving Conflict in Teams & Organizations
A few months ago, I was working with five faculty members of a university sociology department. They were having difficulty getting along with each other. There were lots of conflicts and negative judgments were abundant. I interviewed each one. They were all...
Changing an Organization’s Culture
Changing an organization's culture or the norms of a team is not something to take lightly. An organization's culture is the pattern of how it routinely behaves much like the personality of a human being. The analogy is apt since an organization is a human system....
The Secret Sauce for Making Teams Work
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” -- Margaret Mead She was pissed! She couldn't make her team work. As the new leader of a perennial best-company-to-work-for, she was...
Don’t Waste Your Strategic Plan
Don't waste your strategic plan. A good strategic plan serves as the focal point for how an organization toward both long and short-range success. It provides… Direction for aligning an organization's staff and activitiesCriteria for organizational decision-making....