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
Vic Granholm, my wife’s dad died on Tuesday past, January 21, 2020. His body was cremated, and he was memorialized at church. In many traditions,* the soul leaves the body at death, yet remains for a time. What’s next – whether an after-life, in heaven, in the body of some newborn creature, or not … Continued
“Bias creeps into you as a child without your permission, like the cold on a wet foggy day.” Where I grew up, “we” was a weird and sloppy mess. We lived in Inkster, Michigan; about 35,000 of us. (We knew people called us Stinkster, but we called their towns of Garden City and Westland – … Continued
I’ve been away from writing for a month. I return: back to basics with two stories and an invite. On Wednesday, Jennifer and I found ourselves on a bucket list hike to the top of Machu Picchu in Peru. Our guide, Marcilino has led over 500 hikes of a day or four-days length. He’s had … 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
What would you say is the #1 leadership characteristic? Not necessarily what will gain recognition from others, but what you should focus upon to achieve greatness? And in particular what would you focus on NOW – in the waning days of November? For me, the answer is easy: Perseverance. In January, I’d say: do the … Continued
One of the enormous joys of teaching at a university is that students appear with passion to learn, grow, and become. I can sense it in my classroom of 65 and in the mega-class that holds 700. But I especially feel it during office hours or my weekly lunches with students. They are wisdom seekers, … Continued
Today’s Read2Lead is different than nearly anything I’ve written. I REALLY want feedback and have one supposition and one question for you. I would like to write more about this (here but also in wider forums), and I am looking for you to help me think about this. Supposition: We all know and would hide … 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 was asked by the Berkeley Women Leaders in Business at Berkeley Haas to kick off their evening Manbassadors session, convening a conversation with men and students of all genders next month. That came on the heels of presenting to an affinity group of people of color at a large corporation. I must be an … Continued