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 [...]

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 [...]

Your high performers dislike meetings — especially if they run long. They see meetings as a wasteful interruption to their structured work day. The more meetings they have, the less satisfied they feel with their job.

Others enjoy meetings, though. Specifically, people working in teams require collaboration in order to [...]

When you have multiple stakeholders, various projects, and competing deadlines, it can sometimes be difficult to prioritize. It can seem impossible to make a good decision that pleases everyone. The good news is, you don’t have to make everyone happy. Going in too many directions at once makes it difficult to move forward. To straighten [...]

Productivity advice can be so general sometimes. “Keep your inbox empty.” Or “You can’t multitask.” But productivity is hardly a one-size-fits-all concept. The best way to work depends on the person, it depends on the task, and it depends on the situation surrounding both. Even the pointers in this article may be [...]

A derailed executive is an previously-named high-potential employee who has reached the middle management level, only to find that there is little chance of future advancement (as previously thought) due to a misfit between job requirements and personal skills. Thus, the executive either plateaus or leaves the organization altogether. That is the original [...]

The skill set that is required for success at an individual contributor and entry-level job gets old quickly. As you achieve results by doing things right, you get put into a position that now requires you to do the right things. As this happens, your technical expertise matter less and less.