Questions Leaders Need to Answer

This is the BIG question, and only you can answer it. But answer it you must. Leaders owe it to themselves as well as the people they lead to go deeper into their own motivations, their hopes, and their dreams. Business schools don’t require a course in "Understanding Your Personal Mission" for graduation, nor do [...]

I was doing a team-building session for a group of system-types in a large organization. We had claimed our space in the corporate conference center and made it ours for the two days of our session. By the afternoon of the first day, it was a mess. Flipcharts covered the walls, candy wrappers littered the [...]

Did the word "love" in this question make you raise an eyebrow, cough nervously, or think about moving on to the next page? These questions are going to get increasingly personal as the pages turn, and you’re going to have to make a decision about whether or not you’re going to stay with them. Being [...]

Everyone gets down in the dumps. The trick is not to stay there. Especially when you’re the leader. So, how do you re-ignite your enthusiasm? I call my grandson Quinn. At the time I’m writing this he’s twenty-one months old, and his favorite word is WOW! (The caps and the exclamation mark are deliberate–you can [...]

I’d like you to try a little experiment. Remember the first day of your first real job. What happened that caused you to hide the expression on your face so no one else could see the silly grin that spread from ear to ear? Remember what triggered the response and what the response felt like. [...]

In a recent interview on the Today show, the musician Jon Bon Jovi told Matt Lauer how much he enjoyed working as an actor with Matthew McConaughey on the movie U-571. As an inexperienced actor, Bon Jovi looked to McConaughey as a leader and wasn’t disappointed. Bon Jovi said that it wasn’t what McConaughey said [...]

Recently, four of us gathered around a table to play cards. Of the four, one knew all the rules, two knew some of the rules, and the fourth thought she’d played the game once in her life. We played a practice hand to give everyone the opportunity to get a feel for the rules, and [...]

My friend Kathryn Jeffers wrote a book called Don’t Kill the Messenger: How to Avoid the Dangers of Workplace Conflict. In the Introduction, she paraphrases Aristotle’s words on anger. He believed that anyone can become angry, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, for the right purpose, and in the [...]

This question can be tricky if your answer is I don’t or I’ve heard of people who try something like this. How do you find time to think? Not to solve problems or put out fires, but just to think about things both big and small. I know, I know: you’re so busy every day [...]

After a fifteen-year on-again, off-again quest, I found a copy of a book I remember from my early childhood, I Decided. Rereading it after more years than I care to share with you, the story was just as I remembered. A little girl goes shopping with her mother and is allowed to pick one toy. [...]

Have you ever listened to the radio station WIIFM? I’m surprised if you haven’t. It has the power to broadcast all over the world, and my experience, both personal and professional, leads me to believe that everyone tunes in to this station–sooner rather than later. WIIFM stands for What’s In It For Me. Get it? [...]

I’m often hired to do skill-building workshops for frontline employees. The particular skill doesn’t seem to matter; the same question is asked by participants, "Are you doing this program for our managers/leaders?" Usually the answer is no, but I’ve come to believe that their question isn’t grounded in a concern about the skill set of [...]

Several years ago, one of the airlines aired a TV commercial that told the story of a leader who gathered his team around a table to announce that one of their oldest clients had just called and fired them. As he handed out plane tickets, he told the team that they were going to visit [...]

Have you ever known anyone who’s had a brush with death? People’s reactions vary, but most often they seem to walk away from the experience vowing to make every minute count. They realize there are no guarantees when it comes to the future, and that’s okay as long as they are taking advantage of the [...]

I’ve always understood the expression "Can’t see the forest for the trees." It wasn’t till I moved to northern Wisconsin that I realized not everyone does understand it. It’s easy, in this land of wonderful woods, to miss the beautiful expanse as you focus on one scruffy pine–wondering why someone hasn’t pruned it. The same [...]

It’s the vision thing. In my favorite leadership book, The Leadership Challenge by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, the authors remind leaders that it is their job to imagine things for their organizations that are beyond the ordinary. That’s why people ask this kind of question. It is their attempt to understand, clarify, [...]