Are we losing the ability to listen? I mean to truly listen to understand someone else – to understand what they mean, what they need, and why. More and more as I’m working with leaders and teams, I find that the root cause of many problems, stressors, and failures is a lack of communication. And I mean real communication. You can have weekly staff meetings or...
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During a recent conversation with a leader in a large organization, I asked, “Why do you what you do?” Perhaps because she was programmed, like many of us are, to respond to the question, “What do you do?”, I received a description of the very technical aspects of her job. I asked my question again – emphasizing the “why” part – and she thought for a minute and...
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Empathy. It is a little word that has a lot of power. And in the wake of all the tragedies our country is dealing with, we are reminded of its power. Some people react to tragedy by lashing out, others by taking to social media to use the situation as proof of their opinions, and still others by withdrawing or ignoring the situation. Those who are most...
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Given the unique generational make-up of our current workforce, workshops and trainings on generational awareness are pretty common. Unfortunately, what’s also common in those workshops are biases, stereotypes, and – however unintentional – discrimination. When we reduce the generational discussion to, “Millennials are like this, Gen Xers are like...
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Do you ever have times when you get distracted, lose sight of your priorities, or just become overwhelmed by everything you have to do? Of course you do. We all do. That’s the reality of life in the modern workplace. Competing priorities, doing more with less, rapid changes, and the ultimate – always putting other people’s needs first. While those...
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Sleeping on the floor of an airport may not seem like an opportunity to practice leadership, but it was. It was a long week, late at night, and we were ready to get home. And though the second leg of our flight was delayed, we finally boarded and pulled away from the gate. Minutes later, plans changed. Not our plans to get home, but the pilots’ plans to avoid...
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