FieldNotes
Our daily Field Notes email is just the kind of jumpstart you need. A fast read. Maybe less than a minute. Because sometimes it just takes one insight to change the trajectory of the day.
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Leading Team Members Who Retire Before Retiring
An unspoken epidemic exists in many organizations, especially in large enterprises with a sizeable swath of senior team members. To preserve the peace, this disease is commonly ignored and only talked about in hushed tones. The dirty secret everyone knows is that some leaders and team members retire before retiring.
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Ask Your Leader to Define the Criteria of Success Before Beginning Any Role, Assignment, or Initiative
Expectations between leaders and team members can prove more elusive than many people think. Nothing is more infuriating to team members than reaching the end of an assignment they believe has been successfully completed only to learn the leader is disappointed with the outcome. This reality often occurs even when expectations have been discussed and…
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Framing Challenging Assignments Positively
Good leaders don’t wait for team members to be perfectly ready to tackle assignments beyond their comfort zone. They stretch team members with projects, initiatives, and assignments that will provide a great learning opportunity and a potential showcase of their skills and talents.
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Leaders Without Character and Strong Values Have No Enemies and Make Poor Decisions
To live comfortably into the future with that decision or choice requires a grounding in the values and principles that have stood the test of time and have been held dearly by you in the past. Anything less means submitting to the loudest voices who demand their views be agreed to and acted upon. True…
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Preparing Reports for the Entertainment of Management
Leaders are often unaware of the impact and mad scramble their requests for information have on those below them and behind the scenes. Unless the leader knows how they will use the information or data, they should probably avoid asking others to spend countless hours doing busy work or creating reports pejoratively known in many…
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Great Partnerships Defer to Expertise and Passion
Great relationships and partnerships are full of debate, humor, collaboration, and disagreement. Making decisions together requires working through complex issues and different points of view. Breaking the gridlock of disagreement when both parties feel strongly about an issue is critical for sustaining a robust partnership. Doing this, however, is not always easy and has the…
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Don’t Tell People They Are Wrong – Tell Them How Right You Are Instead
Don’t Tell People They Are Wrong – Tell Them How Right You Are Instead. Experienced leaders and smart thinkers can sometimes fall into a habit of telling people they are wrong before they give them what they consider a better answer or view. The idea of pointing out that others are wrong in their thinking,…
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Leading Team Members Who Don’t Want a Relationship and Want to Be Left Alone to Do Their Work
The world of leadership style has seen drastic changes over the last 50 years. We’ve gone from an exclusionary, top-down, command and control orientation to an inclusive, empowering, and consensus-oriented approach. Team members expect a very different style of leadership from those who hold the title.
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Where Do You Stand With Your Leader?
Leaders commonly expect team members to check in with them when engaging in important tasks and assignments. Some leaders insist on being asked for their views, while other leaders simply want to be kept up to speed on what has transpired. Looking at a composite of conversations leaders have with team members, we can generalize
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Gratefulness Is More About the Future Than the Past
Gratefulness Is More About the Future Than the Past. When we are truly grateful, those around us can sense the awe and optimism we have even with the future’s uncertainties. This energizes others and inspires the kind of hope they need to become more grateful, as well. As the old maxim goes, ”A grateful mind…