When you are leading in a challenging season, you must up your game in just about every dimension of effective leadership. But no skill could be more important than that of leadership intelligence. When your team is feeling unsettled, or even fearful, there’s little point in casting vision, devising strategies or even setting goals; at…
4 Ways to Win Over Worry and Strengthen Your Leadership
As a leader, the energy you waste on worrying can be one of the greatest obstacles to your overall effectiveness. The problem is that worry squanders a leader’s mental energy. Mental energy is one of the resources most vital to a leader, and yet when worry begins to take root, it is this very resource…
How To Pursue Excellence Without Driving Everyone Crazy
Aspiring for “excellence” can lead to an inspiring environment of achievement. But if you miss the target, you might only create a neurotic atmosphere of fear. I once was talking with a new team member as part of his on-boarding process, when I mentioned to him that “excellence” was one of our core values. “Oh…
The Surprising Benefit of Letting Go of Good Ideas
As a leader, you must be able to start things. You must be able to complete things. And, more often than you’d think, sometimes you have to put an end to things. To take your leadership to the next level, you may need the courage to kill off a good idea. But how can you…
3 Leadership Challenges Where “I Don’t Know” Fails You
When a leader responds to a question by saying, “I don’t know”, it can reveal transparency and authenticity. But sometimes, “I don’t know” is the very worst thing you could say as a leader. Increasingly, leaders are being coached that “It’s okay to say ‘I don’t know’”. This is a largely positive trend and, in…
