Last week, I wrote about how in-your-face Covid has been for all of us. Not equally, of course. Some of your families may be right now threatened by the disease itself. Yet it confronts us all. Last week, I invited you to hear Anne Zehren our Thursday resilience speaker. Anne has dealt for a decade … Continued
Today I begin a writing partnership with Greg McBeth. Greg’s an engineer, co-founder with his wife Falon, consultant to entrepreneurs, and great writer. He’s also a gambler. While I limit Read2Lead to a page’s length, Greg lets himself go into greater depth. We chose a topic, gave ourselves a little guidance, but then went off and … Continued
It’s a painful irony that we share both our deepest and ennobling love, yet also reserve our worst behavior for those who are closest to us. And “closest” these days takes on a new and literal meaning. When his 97 year-old father fell sick after exposure to Covid-19 and was left alone by his regular … Continued
From Laura Andersen of LX2. “So… what should we have for dinner tonight?” For the past two years, I’ve wanted to ask that question more often. My husband commutes an hour each way so we usually get dinner together once per week at best. Of course, this mandatory shelter-in-place is not how I ever … Continued
When I say “leader,” you likely see a speaker. You likely see someone separated from the crowd, perhaps facing them. That was me in my lecture last week to 80 non-MBA graduate school students. But add a couple elements to the picture. Before I began speaking, I asked for a couple volunteers to take careful … Continued
Over 20-plus years of teaching and coaching leadership, I have increasingly come to love and strive for simplicity. And today I offer three tools that a leader always has at their disposal. . Aim the telescope. The telescope points to destination or, in leadership lingo, vision. Help people see clearly through it to where we … Continued
With two weeks to go in the year, most of us face the choice of getting IMPORTANT things done . . . or not. The “not” result can easily happen when on the one hand we feel pressure(d), and on the other we feel a mix of “there’s just no way to get it all … Continued
I have been exclusively coaching pairs, almost always the top two in their organizations. Typically I begin by “onboarding” them in the sense that the two will retreat with me for a couple days – after they have been working together for just a few months, or sometimes right from the get-go. I help them … Continued
“I am a really good teacher, and as so, I hold people’s attention.” That’s what I tend to think. But when I watch others teach, I realize, “OMG, it’s so easy in the audience – even without technology – to drift off!” And when I allow myself to sneak a peak at my phone, well … Continued
If you’ve been reading Read2Lead over the past few years you’ve tracked my decided shift into two territories you might call micro-leadership: leading yourself and leading in dyads. They are profoundly connected. And here are the two primary reasons why they are, and how they form a virtuous cycle: lead yourself by increasingly leading with and … Continued