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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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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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,...
Creating Safe Teams
Contact Us 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...
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...
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...
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...
Definition of Organization Development
Not too long ago, I was having dinner with a client during a project that was going well. At some point my client looked up at me and said, “I’m glad you’re not one of those...
Quick and Easy Consensus Decision-Making
Consensus decision-making has the reputation of being very time-consuming. It needn’t be if the steps outlined below are followed. The failure of most supposed consensus...
Sustainable Interventions
You used all of your skills to move your team from being dysfunctional to one with a high level of productivity, full engagement of all team members, and they even had some...
Six Ways to Cure the Dysfunctional Team Blues
The CEO was at wits end! She is the CEO of a major health care organization and, like many other organization leaders, believes in teams. She has project teams, functional...
The Why, What, & How of Organization Development
An upated and restructured definition of organization development
Understanding Teams as Human Systems, 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 furious! She...
The Appeal and the Problem of Being an Authority Figure
As leaders, we all have had to deal with people who see us too much as authority figures. Such people automatically defer to us, whether we want them to or not. There are...
The Joys of Leadership: A Journey beyond Power and Prestige
For the holidays, I thought an article that explores the less-discussed aspects of leadership that bring joy and satisfaction to leaders would be in order. How much time do...
Managing the Stress and Distress of Leadership
Stress is our normal reaction to possible threats in our environment. Faced with anticipated danger, stress enables us to fight, flee, or hide if necessary. When the threat...
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...
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...
Data-Gathering, A Cornerstone of Organization Development
Data gathering is not seen as glamorous part of organization development. Many practitioners think of it as the precursor to the exciting things that practitioners do that...
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...
Creating Possibility, A Core Skill of the Organization Development Practitioner
The best organization development practitioners are possibilists. "I am neither an optimist nor pessimist, but a possibilist," wrote Max Lerner, summing up how he saw...
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....
For quick video explorations of leadership please go to Videos for Leaders.