“You’re Toast!” There’s a fun little idiom – “You’re Toast!” – that’s always tickled me. Not to be confused with ‘giving a toast’, like at a wedding or celebration – or bread that’s been cooked in a toaster – all of which are generally really good things, telling someone “You’re Toast’ is akin to saying […]
Great bosses use their authority to unlock important doors for their staff. Is another department causing problems for your team? Use your authority (by calling who needs to be called) to get things moving in the right direction, again. Is there some sort of roadblock that’s slowing down an important project? Use your authority (by
Leadership Moves #31: Use Your Authority to Make Good Things Happen Sooner Read More »
Quit pretending you’re perfect – even trying to be is a ridiculous timesink. Excellence versus Perfection Striving for excellence is good. Striving for perfection is not. To help clarify the difference… Striving for excellent is a three step ‘competency plus’ model: What do I need to do to meet the minimum requirements of the assignment?
Leadership Move #30: Model How To Handle Failure Read More »
The thing about personal/professional development goals is this: If they’re too easy, people get bored by them; If they’re too difficult, people get unnerved by them. Either extreme falls short of its intended aim. So the key in establishing quality goals is to have them sufficiently s-t-r-e-t-c-h the person, but not overwhelm them. Here are
Leadership Move #29: Establish S-T-R-E-T-C-H Goals Read More »
To quickly undermine your credibility, as a boss, just mismanage your budget. Routinely spending too much is, obviously, bad. But it’s important you know that spending too little is also problematic. Why? Because routinely striving to come in UNDER budget – an approach that (far too) many leaders take – also proves you’re ill-equipped, or
Leadership Move #28: Maintain Strong Fiduciary Controls Read More »
Sometimes it takes some digging to get to the root of things – and asking questions is a great way to do that. But, not all questions are created equal. Some questions are easy to answer but their answers provide little, if any, new insights. Example: ‘Why’d ya do THAT?!’ The problem: Aside from the
