This time of year brings out all the pundits and so-called experts who espouse their insights and ideas in the form of blogs, articles, podcasts, and other assorted media, predicting the future and providing business leaders with prophesies to base their decision-making on during the coming year. Among the many things you will read and hear about are the painfully obvious including the continued emergence of artificial intelligence, the endless expansion of ecommerce, and of course the ever-present geopolitical issues that lead the news headlines every day, yet seem to have very little impact on the health of the global economy in 2017.
Read More >
This week I had the pleasure of working with a group of Emerging Leaders from a large company in the high-tech space. One of the many reasons why it was such a pleasure was how enthusiastic and thirsty for new leadership skills this group was during this business simulation-centric learning journey. The multi-day session – that includes pre- work and post-work reinforcement - focuses on fundamental business leadership skills including understanding personality styles, coaching and providing feedback, and emotional intelligence. One of the interesting conversations that came up as part of debriefing the interactive business leadership simulation workshop scenario was the topic of “empathy” in leadership.
“That’s it. Enough of this trying to figure it out together! The collaborative problem solving mumbo jumbo
isn’t working and I am going to pull rank and solve this today, right now! We need to replace those lazy poor performers and make things right again. It’s time for the grown-ups to show the kids how to do things around here. Tell HR to start posting jobs!”
In the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous 24/7 business world of 2016 and beyond, one of the most difficult challenges leaders face is the loss of employees, subject matter expertise, and focus because of the constant and disruptive changes occurring in every market.
Read More >
When business organizations go through significant change – and most of the business organizations in the world are going through major changes these days – leaders must work extremely hard to set and manage expectations through the change process. Last week while leading a Business Leadership training program for a group of Mid-Career leaders, I had the chance to listen to an executive leader share his expertise and wisdom with my participants about how to lead effectively during times of significant and disruptive change. What I found most interesting about his dialogue was that the theme was different. It wasn’t about how great he is, or what are things everyone needs to do to be a great leader. Rather, he shared his insights about how critical it is to create an organization where leaders feel comfortable and are enabled to “lead up” in an organization going through change.
Read More >