I have a confession to make: I was a brat.
There are a lot of us around, so odds are you probably work with one or are one (c’mon, I confessed; you can too).
The damage a brat can do
I’m talking about young (mostly), headstrong employees who know everything. In the presence of strong leadership and a […]

I’m obviously a big fan of not doing more than you need to do to get the job done (and also not doing less than you need to do).
When I got my first big gig leading people I went from leading a team of 2 to leading a team of 100. I needed a lot […]

It is inevitable that when you are following up, looking for successes to recognize and reward, you will sometimes find problems.
Fix them swiftly
When you find problems, take swift but appropriate action to correct them. Just as rewards and recognition must be delivered close to the accomplishment in order to reinforce the behavior, corrections must also […]

Speaking of following through, when you find success, recognize it. It always surprises me how effective recognition is, and there is tremendous variety in how you can give it.
I have a hierarchy of recognition that I use depending upon the magnitude of the accomplishment.
The “Everyday”
For the everyday attaboy, I’ll try to run into the […]

We touched a little bit on part of this concept already when we discussed the need for everyone to perform. If you do everything we’ve talked about so far just right, have your teams set up, and take the time to empower them to make decisions, but you do nothing else, all your work will […]

Right, so now you’re convinced that you shouldn’t create a vision by committee. That’s a good thing. You’re ready for the risk of failure. But you also know that it’s your team that’s going to have to bring your brilliant vision to life, and if you aren’t writing by committee, then how do you get […]

When you mention that you are working on a vision for your organization, it is almost inevitable that some helpful wag will say that you need buy-in on the vision and that the only way to get that is to have a committee help you form the vision. This sounds like a good idea.
The case […]

So you’ve taken your time, built up a big picture, and now you have a vision you’re ready to share throughout your organization (inform and infuse).
Butterflies in the stomach? Palms sweaty? Yeah, me too.
This is your job, and you’ve got to do it or your organization will never grow or change, which means it will […]

In general, people hate to change.
Changing the big picture, and then changing the fundamentals of what they are doing and why, is something you want to do only occasionally, and usually only in ways that in some way relate to your previous directions.
Change infrequently, or you’ll confuse everyone
You want people to see a […]

Obviously in order to inform and infuse your vision you have to have a vision first. It is an integral part of being a leader, and is in fact one of the things that separates leaders from managers (and sheep herders). So as you’re developing your leadership skills you might be a little freaked out […]