Entries by gmader

Don’t overlook the power of authentic conversations

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I was participating in a meeting of the senior leadership team of a leading technology company. The leaders were discussing important strategic and operational topics that are critical to the future of their business. At some point, I looked around the table and at least 50% of the leaders were looking down at their smartphones, probably responding to emails or something like that. In fact, throughout the entire meeting, this was pretty much the case. This is not an isolated dynamic for this team or company. It is pretty much the norm in most or all meetings of most teams and organizations. From time to time the CEO would stop the flow of the conversation, […]

Don’t forget to enjoy the journey toward your destination

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I was coaching a senior executive who was not demonstrating the leadership that he had wanted and that people expected of him in his senior position. During our session, he shared his disappointment and frustration with the fact that he had recently turned 50 and he hadn’t reached the level of promotion that he had wanted. It seemed that his miss behavior was a reaction to his sudden realization and panic that “he was behind on achieving his life goals…”. As ambitious members of a modern and demanding society, we have the tendency to go through life with the sense that we are “not quite there yet”. We set goals for ourselves and then along […]

Are you owning your personal power?

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I was working with a senior leadership team of a successful technology company that was dealing with great change as a result of changes in their market and the way their customers wanted to partner with them to purchase and consume their offerings. The stakes were high and the senior leaders had to make some big and bold decisions about how they will organize their company differently to accommodate this change. The good news was that the company had a strong portfolio of offerings that was relevant and desired by their customers. The bad news is that this organization and leadership team had a long history of working in a particularly siloed way. While teams […]

How to overcome being a narcissistic leader

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I work with narcissistic leaders from time to time. While narcissistic leaders are often very ambitious, driven and successful, they do not empower, promote, recognize and elevate the people around them. Instead, they tend to take the credit, seek the limelight and remain the stars of the show under all circumstances. Here are eight typical characteristics of narcissistic leaders: They always have to be “the star”. They don’t like to share the limelight, elevate others and overall enable others around them to become too powerful, influential or great. In fact, they seem to be threatened by others shining and they get quite upset when others play too much of a dominant role. They take the […]

Can your team handle tough conversations?

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If you want to know how powerful your team is, just see how team members deal with sensitive and tough topics. Sensitive and tough topics are any subjects that require the leaders and team members to put their own personal feelings, egos, and agendas aside for the greater good of their company or team. It could be anything as big as deciding which team to invest in, which team member to promote or re-allocating people and budgets from one leader’s team to another. It could be something as trivial as giving honest feedback to colleagues, your boss or subordinates about poor performance. When it comes to sensitive and tough conversations the line between big and […]

Stop having objectives if you are not going to explicitly promise to fulfill them!

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All teams have objectives or outcomes, which team members usually believe in, aspire to and want to deliver. However, not all teams have the same relationship with their objectives and outcomes. Most leaders and teams seem to believe that if their objectives are well articulated and clear enough they have a greater chance of succeeding. That is not necessarily true. Yes, it makes a difference that an objective or outcome is well articulated. However, I have seen many teams with well-articulated outcomes achieve mediocre traction against their outcomes. In contrast, I have seen teams with mediocre level outcomes achieve extraordinary traction and results against their outcomes. Why? Most leaders and teams seem to believe that […]

Why are people so afraid of bluntness?

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What is wrong with being blunt? Most people generally tend to avoid being too blunt. However, in many organizations bluntness is non existent and in most organizations Ambiguity and Vagueness are an epidemic. I couldn’t count the number of times I have been in a meeting about an important topic and someone rambled on and on without getting to the point, or someone expressed their opinion and still no one understood what it is, or someone said they had the solution only to continue to highlight the problems, which everyone already understood to begin with. People tend to talk a lot without saying much! I see this behavior at every level of the organization, from […]

Are you staying on top of your communications?

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Recently I wanted to get some additional phone and TV services from my cable provider, so I called them up and after being passed along from one agent to another I finally asked to speak with a supervisor.  After hearing my frustrations and needs the supervisor apologized and promised to take care of all my needs quickly and effectively. There was one item that he couldn’t get for me in our call so he gave me his personal email address and again he pledged to get back to me ASAP with the resolution. Several days passed and I didn’t hear from him so I emailed him a few times and eventually he responded, again apologizing […]

Does your team have heart?

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As human beings, we need a heart and a brain in order to live. We need most of our other organs too, but our heart and brain seem to represent the two main engines that fuel and shape our survival and health. You could view these as the ‘Yin and Yang’ of our well-being. We could continue to exist without a heart or a brain but it wouldn’t be much of a life. Well, it is the same when it comes to the well-being of any team or organization. In order to be vibrant, strong and healthy a team must have a heart and a brain. Heart The heart of the team is reflected in […]

Why is excellence so hard to come by?

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How many times have you been blown away by the supreme excellence of an interaction or service experience, in the last week or month? OK, if blown away is too high of a bar, how about being impressed by an interaction or service or feeling that it was truly beyond your expectations? I think that if you were honest, you would probably admit that these unforgettable experiences of excellence are far apart. It’s not that they don’t exist. They do! But they are rare. For the most part, we have lowered our expectations and standards to accept mediocracy in most interactions and services. If you go online and read the mission statement or values of […]

Are you making THE difference?

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People genuinely want to work together in a more authentic, courageous and effective way. However, even good, well-meaning people often find it challenging to do the right things and behave and act in ways that promote a productive environment. They know what works and what doesn’t work, but knowing and doing are two different things. For example: People know that gossiping doesn’t work; ‘trashing’ coworkers and ‘throwing them under the bus’ is hurtful and it undermines trust and productivity, but they still do it. People know that paying lip service to commitments doesn’t work, but they still do it. People know that blaming other teams and people doesn’t fix the problem, in fact, it makes […]

The Power of Starting

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Many years ago, I played the classical guitar. At the time I was even half-decent at it, and it brought me great pleasure. I stopped playing about 26 years ago, but about a year ago I picked it up again and I have been playing ever since. To be honest, it took a while between the time that I decided to start and the actual time that I started. I kept procrastinating the starting point because every time I intended to start playing negative thoughts came up about the challenge of starting again from scratch. Starting again as a beginner felt daunting, so I convinced myself to start another day, and this happened a few […]