Leading requires courage and discipline as well as aptitude. It is something at which no one ever achieves perfection. The journey toward mastery offers continual opportunities to learn and abundant rewards for the effort. Precise language is important if we are to mitigate the damage of people who claim to lead, but don’t. Leadership is a noun. Leading is a verb. It is only by doing the hard work of leading that your followers will see you as a leader.
My recommendations for improving organizations by championing the human spirit, fostering trust and transparency, and eliminating low-value processes. When you start by creating the conditions for workers and customers to succeed, you achieve true organizational success (and make shareholders happy, too).
An environment that promotes good leadership will have zero tolerance for toxic behavior. Such an environment will use honest mistakes as learning experiences. It will be one that develops everyone’s ability to think and act like leaders. The list could go on. The examples in each of these books show that there are performance benefits beyond the intangible rewards of simply being decent.
I was recently interviewed by Chief.com about common leadership pitfalls resulting in shorter tenures for CEOs. The complexity of the operating environment and the multiplicity of challenges facing today's executives mean their is less and less room for error. Some of my comments: Before you reorganize the place or launch a flashy new initiative, you want to know what's working, who your allies are going to be, and who your adversaries or resistors are likely to be," McNulty explains. ...
Organizations are in a constant state of change, sometimes minor and sometimes major. This is why it is important to understand the benefits of both convergence and divergence.
My latest for Medium looks the limits of power in getting people to return to the office. The alternative: a focus on making the best, highest use of everyone's time--and that includes when and where they are together. "Forcing employees back to the office is likely to depress engagement. For some, it decreases productivity. It encourages passive resistance and quiet quitting. Or active resistance and actual quitting. Think instead of pursuing usefulness. If you make time in the office ...
