Leadership development

Flipping Complaints to Commitments (Jedi Leadership Tricks)

by amiel · Dec 15, 2014

As you spend more time watching how you interact with others, you may notice something about your conversations.

Specifically, that you bitch and moan about things that bother you. Maybe not every minute, but probably a few times a day.

What’s the problem with bitching and moaning? After all, everybody does it.

Three things:

You feel lousy. Maybe not at first, but within a few minutes, kind of like eating french fries with ice cream—something I loved doing after high school soccer games at Wendy’s fast food restaurant.
People see you differently. It’s the weirdest thing: even though we all complain, when we hear somebody else doing it, we quickly make a judgment about them. You can lose credibility that you worked so hard to build up.
It dampens the mood of your team. When people hear you making negative comments, it affects their emotional state. This is because, as brain science teaches us, our nervous systems are intertwined. Your periodic complaints about, say, how IT or HR let you down, can shift others into moods of resignation, resentment, or fear.

Make life bigger than “Yes” versus “No”

by amiel · Aug 20, 2014

Many people want you to stop saying “Yes” to everything. It’s overloading your life, sapping your energy, and keeping you from doing the meaningful stuff. Jeff Goins calls this “the small but soul-crushing word you use every day.”

Their solution? Say “No.”

This recommendation isn’t wrong, just incomplete. What it leaves out are two other legitimate responses to requests. By incorporating these into your repertoire, you not only free yourself from overscheduling. You also live a bigger life.

But first…

The virtues of saying “No”

Let’s give “No” its due. If you’re the kind of person who agrees to everything, making more frequent use of “No” helps you: [Read more…] about Make life bigger than “Yes” versus “No”

Luck matters

by amiel · Jul 25, 2014

Luck matters. We hate to admit it, but it does.

Let’s start with DNA. Your genes are responsible for 50 percent of your happiness. It’s called the “genetic set point.” Don’t buy this? Talk with twins who’ve been apart for forty years. Or take a look at the research. The conclusion is clear: half of your happiness is determined at your birth. You can pick your jeans but not your genes.

Now consider demographics. How much wealth you are born into. The color of your skin. The place where you grow up. You don’t control these either.

Luck matters.

Yet we convince ourselves it does not.

[Read more…] about Luck matters

The Race of Our Lives

by amiel · Jun 23, 2014

The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.
—Bill O’Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance Company

We’re in the race of our lives. It’s not between the “good guys” and “bad guys” but between the complexity of our world and the capacity of our minds to manage this complexity—and the amount of energy we have to fuel us.

We know from Jim Collins’s survey of 1400 companies that transforming from “good to great” requires Level 5 leadership: a paradoxical blend of professional ambition and personal humility. We also know from longitudinal research of small- and mid-sized organizations that organizations’ capacity to transform is directly related to top executives’ ability to integrate different perspectives, use a broad repertoire of power approaches, and self-correct.

That’s where leadership comes in.

On-the-Job Experience Plus Deliberate Practice

by amiel · Jun 17, 2014

It’s rare for major business journals to talk about experience-based leadership development. So I was pleasantly surprised to see an interview with Cynthia McCauley of the Center for Creative Leadership in Strategy + Business. McCauley describes why on-the-job experience, rather than formal training, is important to developing leadership:

Leaders who step into new situations face challenges that call for untested abilities. They continue to develop their capacities and successfully take on higher levels of leadership responsibility. That’s consistent with what we know about adult learning and development, too: People learn how to do things when they’re put in situations where they have to do them and practice doing them.

This may sound obvious, but few organizations build leadership development around on-the-job experience. Instead, they offer formal training and possibly mentoring or coaching. Therefore, there is a great opportunity to improve leadership quality by matching leaders who are good at learning with experiences that teach them what they need to learn. [Read more…] about On-the-Job Experience Plus Deliberate Practice

Before You Lean In, Own Your Space

by amiel · Jun 16, 2014

Fifteen months ago, Sheryl Sandberg‘s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead came out and took the country by storm. Grounded in research and filled with personal anecdotes, the book sparked a national conversation about power, privilege, and the distribution of responsibilities between women and men in the workplace and at home. I’ve spoken with many people (mostly women but also a few men) who were inspired by the book and just as many who felt it contained useful insights but fell short in important ways. In this post, I’d like to share the very first reaction I had to the book and why I think it’s relevant to all of us.

My reaction to the book began with the title. What does it mean to “lean in?” Sandberg recommends this to women as an alternative to leaning back—in the Board room and around conference tables where important decisions are made. Leaning in means speaking up, stepping forward, and being willing to take on jobs with loftier titles and bigger responsibilities. To me, this is valuable advice to women who aim for larger impact and recognition. It’s also useful for the smaller but still significant percentage of men who hold back and remain quiet when the stakes are high. [Read more…] about Before You Lean In, Own Your Space

If you can’t join them, beat them

by amiel · Jun 12, 2014

In 1979, the Ann Arbor Arsenal soccer team held tryouts. Twelve boys showed up to compete for a single open spot on the team. I was one of them.

The morning started with demonstrations of individual skills. We passed, trapped, dribbled, and shot the ball. Bonus points went to anyone who could juggle more than ten times on his head. Truth be told, the specifics of what we did have receded into memory. The passage of twenty five years can do that. What I do remember clearly is how much all of us wanted to win that spot on the team. So much that we fought hard to show that we were better, faster, and stronger than the kid next to us. For me, the other eleven boys were the enemy. If one of them got picked for the team, that would mean that I hadn’t. And I would be team-less. [Read more…] about If you can’t join them, beat them