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Leadership and the Win/Lose Game of Power
Conflict is behind every dysfunction in our teams, organizations, and other human systems. Conflict that is openly hostile or a passive aggressive power struggle. Conflict over some difference. We turn differences into dysfunctional conflict whenever being right, or...
You Can’t Lead 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 first successful,...
Leadership & the Imposter Syndrome
The leader of a portion of a major museum complex in Washington, D.C. desperately wanted to be a better leader, but his behavior consistently defaulted toward wanting to be liked. The leader of a major television station in the same city spent much of his time...
Revisiting Servant Leadership: The Secret Ingredient for Retaining Top Talent
So many leaders today bemoan the difficulty of finding and keeping good people. Those same leaders rarely consider doing something about their leadership style as a remedy. It’s time for them to revisit servant leadership. Servant leadership, a concept first...
Managing the Discomforts of Leadership
I'm often asked to work with smart but underperforming executives, whose justification is that taking certain actions would be uncomfortable. They also cite that they don't want to cause anyone else discomfort (which they find discomforting). Leadership is a role rife...
Leaders, Are You a Part of Your Teams Or Apart from Your Teams?
Human beings have two opposing and powerful pulls: to be part of and to be apart from. When we are ‘part of,’ we belong. We want to belong to groups of others that accept us, appreciate us, and support us. In fact, we only survive and thrive in communities with...
The Value of Being Unproductive
“I feel like I’ve always got to be productive,” a client told me. She continued, “I feel on the edge of burnout though.” I ask, “Do you ever take time off?” Then I add, “I love days when I’ve got little or nothing to do. In fact, I often plan my week to be sure I’ve...
Worthlessness Is a Worthless Fiction We Were All Taught!
I grew up with a humiliating stutter. I was asthmatic and puny. I saw myself as pretty worthless. I had a friend, a psychologist, who used to say that everyone has their “core of rot.” We all have some aspect of ourselves that we consider worthless and unworthy. Thank...
Energy Sponges! Ways Leaders Waste Their Time and Energy
Time is a resource. And leaders never have enough of it. There are goals that must be met, staffs to be managed, customers to coddle, finances to figure out, superiors to satisfy, and the partner and kids at home wanting their attention. The list goes on and on. There...
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 and the Pain of Independence
An article by Doreen Stern, Ph.D. from "The Stepping Stone," March 2016, Issue 65. ~~•••~~I consider myself a straight shooter. Firm handshake. Excellent 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....
A Question of Loyalty
I was consulting with a significant part of a large aerospace company. I was interviewing a very senior vice president. He was complaining about how hard it had become holding on to top employees. Of particular concern to him was what he saw as the lack of loyalty of...
Alone Does Not Mean Lonely
The holidays are done. Christmas and New Year's Day having followed Thanksgiving less than a month before. Times to be with family and those you’re close to. But for me, I’ll dined alone. I’ve had folks tell me how sorry they...
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...
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....
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....
The Three Keys to Self-Mastery
Self-Mastery and conscious use of self have a broad purview. We use ourselves with everything we do, think, feel, and believe. Most of the time our automatic behaviors and thoughts serve us well. No mastery is needed. However,...
Leadership and the Win/Lose Game of Power
Conflict is behind every dysfunction in our teams, organizations, and other human systems. Conflict that is openly hostile or a passive aggressive power struggle. Conflict over some difference. We turn differences into dysfunctional conflict whenever being right, or...
You Can’t Lead 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 first successful,...
Leadership & the Imposter Syndrome
The leader of a portion of a major museum complex in Washington, D.C. desperately wanted to be a better leader, but his behavior consistently defaulted toward wanting to be liked. The leader of a major television station in the same city spent much of his time...
Revisiting Servant Leadership: The Secret Ingredient for Retaining Top Talent
So many leaders today bemoan the difficulty of finding and keeping good people. Those same leaders rarely consider doing something about their leadership style as a remedy. It’s time for them to revisit servant leadership. Servant leadership, a concept first...
Managing the Discomforts of Leadership
I'm often asked to work with smart but underperforming executives, whose justification is that taking certain actions would be uncomfortable. They also cite that they don't want to cause anyone else discomfort (which they find discomforting). Leadership is a role rife...
Leaders, Are You a Part of Your Teams Or Apart from Your Teams?
Human beings have two opposing and powerful pulls: to be part of and to be apart from. When we are ‘part of,’ we belong. We want to belong to groups of others that accept us, appreciate us, and support us. In fact, we only survive and thrive in communities with...
The Value of Being Unproductive
“I feel like I’ve always got to be productive,” a client told me. She continued, “I feel on the edge of burnout though.” I ask, “Do you ever take time off?” Then I add, “I love days when I’ve got little or nothing to do. In fact, I often plan my week to be sure I’ve...
Worthlessness Is a Worthless Fiction We Were All Taught!
I grew up with a humiliating stutter. I was asthmatic and puny. I saw myself as pretty worthless. I had a friend, a psychologist, who used to say that everyone has their “core of rot.” We all have some aspect of ourselves that we consider worthless and unworthy. Thank...
Energy Sponges! Ways Leaders Waste Their Time and Energy
Time is a resource. And leaders never have enough of it. There are goals that must be met, staffs to be managed, customers to coddle, finances to figure out, superiors to satisfy, and the partner and kids at home wanting their attention. The list goes on and on. There...
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 and the Pain of Independence
An article by Doreen Stern, Ph.D. from "The Stepping Stone," March 2016, Issue 65. ~~•••~~I consider myself a straight shooter. Firm handshake. Excellent 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....
A Question of Loyalty
I was consulting with a significant part of a large aerospace company. I was interviewing a very senior vice president. He was complaining about how hard it had become holding on to top employees. Of particular concern to him was what he saw as the lack of loyalty of...