What Makes a Meeting Great?
Clowns. I have a good friend, Shawn, who is a professional clown. I had just finished reading a book about The Corporate Jester and I thought of Shawn, and decided to try a little experiment. The jester in a king’s court was an essential function of the kingdom. Kings knew that the pressure on their […]
How Skill Building Really Works: Part Two
In part one, we walked through the four stages of competence: And, we walked through a scenario where you (fictional), led me (also fictional) through the progression of mastering how to read a P&L. If you need a refresher, here is part one. A second model, Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model was the model that […]
How Skill Building Really Works: Part One
Every leader I know would like more freedom. Sharing leadership has provided me with more freedom. A large part of sharing leadership is developing leaders to share it with. Learning about the Conscious Competence Theory and a related model called the Situational Leadership Model (to explore in Part Two) have helped me develop other leaders […]
The Essence of Effective Feedback
Hearing and giving feedback is one of the most impactful and challenging things a leader does. When delivered effectively, feedback guides people into better versions of themselves. When delivered ineffectively, it sets the stage for others to feel hurt, to act out, or to isolate and limit their exposure, thus limiting their contribution. When feedback […]
A Game-Changing Skill for Leaders
Before I became a chef, all the chefs I knew were the masters of the kitchen. It’s one of the reasons I was attracted to being a chef, because even when you were wrong, you got to be right. As a young person just entering the workforce, that was an acceptable ambition- to be in […]
What makes a good leader?
Years ago, I attended a training called “Leadership Mastery”. The trainer opened a two-day session by declaring that the name of the course was intended to provoke thinking, and in their opinion, leadership could never be mastered. This question; “What makes a good leader?” is similar, it’s a thought provoker. When we ask a team […]