I sometimes describe the calendar and the competing demands we face as a dragon that must be slain every day. On the days we prevail our influence increases. But the truth is, despite our best efforts, some days the dragon wins. Fortunately for us and those we lead, we have the opportunity to start fresh every day… but so does the dragon.
Tag: Capacity
I love the questions I receive from leaders! Over the last few years, many of the questions have been unique to a specific situation, however, there are others that ring true across age, gender, nationality and stage of career. These are some of my favorites. Today is one of those questions: How can I get ahead as a leader?
When we began researching the best practices of High Performance Organizations, we were not surprised to discover the best leaders, when attempting to build great organizations, did not work alone. They built strong leadership teams. Leaders need capacity; leadership teams not only provide capacity, they increase results. Randy Gravitt and I wrote about this in the Chess Not Checkers Field Guide. The following is an excerpt on this critical practice.
Leaders get things done. This is one reason people seek us out. When there’s a problem to be solved, or and opportunity to seize, it’s often a leader who is called upon to respond. So what’s the problem? If we’re not careful, we can become so busy we actually forfeit our leadership!
Categories
One Word… Team
This is the next post in a series on single words with big implications for us as leaders. Previous posts have focused on Vision, Data, Diversity and more. Today’s word: Team. Obviously, I have a strong bias on this one since I wrote a book entitled, The Secret of Teams and the companion Field Guide.
Have you ever had a feeling you could do more? Accomplish more? Congratulations, leaders are supposed to have that feeling. In Today’s Challenge, I’ll address the “problem” you face when you actually do have untapped leadership capacity.
As you may know, on Fridays I respond to a question from a reader. Today is another good one. I’ve written previously about how important it is for a leader to find ways to grow his or her capacity. Today’s question is: How do you discern inherent leadership capacity when interviewing a candidate?
I met my wife in 11th grade; we were in Trigonometry together. I’m glad I was there; however, I shouldn’t have been. It became obvious fairly quickly that I was in over my head. Our first ever conversation occurred while looking at the results of our first test. I made a 16… Donna made a 96! She asked me how I got a 16 – I said, “I think they gave me points for getting my name right.”