Strategy

Today’s Tuesday Reading, Mastery, is an essay by Josh Lawrence, Manager of Technical Services at Washington University in St. Louis. The essay first appeared as a program reflection last year.   When I returned from my first MOR workshop, my mind was buzzing with concepts and tools.  My excitement was quickly overshadowed by the usual, day-to-day work […]

Resolutions.  Along with the arrival of the New Year come New Year’s Resolutions.  This is neither new nor all that unique.  Babylonians made New Year’s Resolutions 2500 years ago.  And, since then everyone has followed.    In a typical year about 40% of all Americans make resolutions to improve themselves in some way.  Popular past […]

I grew up in a home where apologizing for my wrong actions, for example, taking and hiding my brother’s toys, was required.  All that it took to trigger the apology was a stern look from my Mother.  As I got older and didn’t have the prompt from my Mother, I want to believe that I […]

In the November 1, 2016 Tuesday Reading, Always on Stage, readers were invited to respond to the question  What’s the most important, or effective, way you lead by example?   Some 39 readers replied with 139 responses.  All of these responses can be found here.  I’ve included a group of responses below that I found to be […]

As the leadership communities grow across our client organizations, we’ve witnessed several effective approaches in leading other leaders.  We’d like to share a few, as we are also aware that they can be quite different from those that helped us earlier in our careers.  For each approach, we have included practices that you can work […]

In last week’s Tuesday Reading, Triggers, Once Again, I pointed to a set of questions Marshall Goldsmith asks at the end of each day.  These 20 questions include ones such as: · Did I do my best today to make progress on each of my priorities for the day? · Did I do my best today […]

Last year, shortly after Marshall Goldsmith’s book Triggers:  Creating Behavior That Lasts, Becoming the Person You Want to Be was published, I focused – in the August 11, 2015 Tuesday Reading, Triggers – on a practice he discussed there that has brought significant discipline into his life.  (Goldsmith is one of the best-known executive coaches in the U.S., if […]

Always on the Stage We say over and over again “Leaders are always on the stage.”  Why?  Because someone is always watching.  Someone is always taking the leader’s behavior to inform their impression of her or him and as an example of how to behave.  Good or bad, it’s OK.  We think, if it works […]

Before the winter break, I spent some time considering who would make a great example of leadership for my reflection. I kept coming back to the idea of describing my friend David, who was once a colleague of mine at another university. Over the years, we’ve kept in touch on a regular basis, and kept […]

Last week’s Tuesday Reading, Toxic Staff Members, provided a set of steps a leader might take if she or he has a toxic staff member.  In outline form the advice was: Face, not ignore, the situation. Collect specifics about the behavior. Be direct in your feedback. Develop, with him or her, an improvement plan. Be extremely […]