Leadership Development | Coaching Churches

Category Archive: Leadership Development

Three Steps To Fix A Broken Culture

Posted by on May 14, 2018

Organizational culture is near the top of every major companies list of priorities. It is a combination of how your people and process work together to produce the maximum productivity. If it is healthy, great things routinely happen but if is toxic you are on a fast track to the bottom. This Forbes post is one of the best I have read:

“According to Gallup, “The world’s best organizations don’t simply promise a great employee experience; they create a culture of engagement in which employees can continuously develop and thrive. Leaders at these world-class organizations treat their workplace culture as a powerful competitive differentiator.”

Categories: Leadership Development Organizational Culture | Comments Off on Three Steps To Fix A Broken Culture

How To Ask Your Boss For Feedback

Posted by on May 7, 2018

When working with companies and especially leadership teams, the presence of healthy feedback systems in their culture is absolutely critical. The other two extremes are shooting the messenger and the loss of trust that leads to telling the boss what they want to hear instead of what they need to know. This Fast Company post is a best practice:

“I recently read an interesting stat from PwC that indicated nearly 60% of polled employees said they would like feedback from their bosses on a daily or weekly basis. More interesting than that, for employees under age 30, the desire for regular feedback flow jumped to 72%. Being a CEO for nearly 20 years, and having managed millennial workers for a good part of that time, I agree with these findings.”

Categories: Leadership Development Organizational Culture | Comments Off on How To Ask Your Boss For Feedback

How Humble Leadership Really Works

Posted by on May 4, 2018

When I started my corporate leadership journey the leaders were very directive and the results were the number one priority. The people in the organization were simply a means to that end. Today, results are still critical but the best approach is to value your people first and then they will deliver consistently great results. This HBR post is excellent:

“When you’re a leader — no matter how long you’ve been in your role or how hard the journey was to get there — you are merely overhead unless you’re bringing out the best in your employees. Unfortunately, many leaders lose sight of this.”

Categories: Leadership Development Servant Leader | Comments Off on How Humble Leadership Really Works

7 Signs Great Leaders Can't Afford To Ignore

Posted by on April 30, 2018

Because we are so busy as leaders we can confuse activity with effectiveness. Sometimes it becomes critical to have an outside voice to help us regain perspective and create positive momentum. I have benefited greatly from having a coach and absolutely love helping others through my executive coaching. This Forbes post helps define the rational:

“All great athletes have coaches, so do most world-class executives. You are a leader. Growth is your job.Coaching is the most effective way to see into your blind spots, enhance your vision and reduce or remove challenging behaviors.”

Categories: Career Development Leadership Development | Comments Off on 7 Signs Great Leaders Can't Afford To Ignore

5 Ways To Prevent Decision Fatigue From Ruining Productivity

Posted by on April 27, 2018

Multi-tasking felt so good because we were almost always doing something. Eventually, when I evaluated all of the important work I actually did at the end of the day it was almost nothing. I now block time for deep important work so that I can stay focused long enough to make real progress. This Fast Company post is very helpful:

“More and more, our careers depend on making good choices. And by understanding decision fatigue and how we can counter it, we can make sure we’re operating at 100% all day long. Decision fatigue is the deterioration of our ability to make good decisions after a long session of decision making.”

Categories: Leadership Development Pastoral Leadership Productivity | Comments Off on 5 Ways To Prevent Decision Fatigue From Ruining Productivity

6 Ways To Regain Control Of Your Schedule

Posted by on April 18, 2018

There is not a day that goes by that at least 20% of my time is spent dealing with new inputs or changing priorities. It has forced me to be almost brutal about blocking time and at the same time leaving open spots for the unknown. If I wire it up too tight it only blows up even more. Always looking for help and Avery Blank provided:

“Time is money. It is valuable to your career and well-being. If you want to advance, you have to identify your career priorities and move efficiently towards them. Stop valuing other people’s time more than yours. Here are six ways you can take control of your schedule”

Categories: Margin Personal Leadership Productivity | Comments Off on 6 Ways To Regain Control Of Your Schedule

How To Define Your Corporate Culture

Posted by on April 16, 2018

Organizational culture is a hot topic because it’s the secret sauce that allows all of your people and process to work together for maximum effectiveness. It is that unique combination of core values, vision, purpose, mission and stories. When it is working well almost no one notices but when it is not everyone knows and it drains the trust out of your teams. This Forbes Council post was very helpful:

“With employee engagement on the decline, your company’s corporate culture may be at risk. You may find that you are losing the loyalty of your team and that the vision you have for your company is in jeopardy. But, what if you are a new organization looking to create a corporate culture from scratch?

Categories: Career Development Leadership Development Organizational Culture | Comments Off on How To Define Your Corporate Culture

Blind Spots That Plague Even The Best Leaders

Posted by on April 14, 2018

The ongoing tension between innovation and execution have never been a bigger issue for leaders. Competition and even Disruption demand leaders always watch the bottom line while looking out the window to see which way the wind is blowing. The failure to do both can quickly doom your entire organization. This Fast Company post is excellent:

“There’s a mythology around great leaders. They’re visionary. They’re inspirational. They seem to know what their organizations and teams need intuitively. But make no mistake: No one is perfect—and most leaders have blind spots, says Robert Bruce Shaw of Princeton Management Consulting Groupin Princeton, New Jersey, and author of Leadership Blind Spots: How Successful Leaders Identify and Overcome the Weaknesses That Matter.”

Categories: Career Development Leadership Development Strategy | Comments Off on Blind Spots That Plague Even The Best Leaders

The Two Traits Of The Best Problem Solving Teams

Posted by on April 4, 2018

Team collaboration is one of the most misunderstood concepts within many organizations. The old axiom of the sum is greater than the contribution of the individual parts it not working. Too much feedback from the wrong people and not enough from others creates predictable patterns of frustration. Teams need real leadership or they cannot be successful. This HBR post will help:

“Imagine you are a fly on the wall in a corporate training center where a management team of 12 is participating in a session on executing strategy. The team is midway through attempting to solve a new, uncertain, and complex problem. The facilitators look on as at first the exercise follows its usual path.”

Categories: Leadership Development Organizational Culture Teamwork | Comments Off on The Two Traits Of The Best Problem Solving Teams

How To Train Yourself To Take Feedback

Posted by on March 30, 2018

One of the major weaknesses I find through my executive coaching is many leaders avoid or even hate conflict. This inevitably leads to even more conflict because the situation was not dealt with before it escalated into a crisis. The only way to avoid this is effective ongoing feedback. This Fast Company post is excellent:

“But let’s get real: Sometimes the only way to get perspective about what needs to change comes from an outside perspective. Yes, believe it or not, there is often a gap between who we desire and think we are presenting to the world, and the way others see us. Turns out that when you ask the people around you–the ones who see you in action every day and are impacted by the choices you make–where you can grow, their ideas might be a little different than your own.”

Categories: Career Development Leadership Development Organizational Culture | Comments Off on How To Train Yourself To Take Feedback