A few weeks ago, we painted the first floor of our new house. The entire process—from prep to the actual work to the clean up—took about five days. The prep alone took an entire day—gathering materials, taping the edges, and priming the walls. That first day was intimidating and difficult. I questioned whether this was [...]

Self-awareness is the first step to better leadership. If you don’t know what you don’t know, you cannot improve on your weaknesses. If you are unaware of your strengths, you won’t reach your potential. A lack of knowledge about who you are and how you operate can lead you to overemphasize your strengths, to the [...]

A few months ago, I attended a Leadership Development Program with mostly Gen Xers and Boomers. I believe I was the sole Gen Y attendee there. On the third day of the five-day program, we practiced coaching behaviors. The woman I was paired with had a dilemma at work where there were communication [...]

We think we can multitask without negative consequences, but we are wrong. We trust that those who are confident about their skills have good reason to be. And we assume that we know more than we actually do. These illusions, as well as three others, are the subject of the new book, [...]

Leaders who inspire have an ability to articulate a vision in a way that appeals to us and motivates us to act. They provide purpose and meaning for the task at hand. The result of inspirational leadership is that we are willing to invest more effort, we are more encouraged, we are more confident, and [...]

When downsizing must happen, the emotional toll is heavy on everyone in the company as well as everyone close to it. Layoff survivors, those who are left after a round of layoffs, are in a stressful situation. In fact, those who still have their jobs experience similar anxiety and decline [...]

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “loyalty is usually seen as a virtue, albeit a problematic one. It is constituted centrally by perseverance in an association to which a person has become intrinsically committed. Its paradigmatic expression is found in friendship, to which loyalty is integral, but many other relationships and [...]

Teams can do a variety of things, and the buzzwords can get heavy when talking about teams. Teams may coordinate projects, create products, deliver services, or provide advice and they all make decisions. Let’s lay out some common language and definitions in teamwork.

Operational Team

Upon entering a company, sometimes you are [...]