What do you talk about at work? Recently, I’ve come to appreciate how many conversations I have every week about leadership issues… dozens, scores – probably thousands of these discussions over the past decade. This week, I’ve been in four conversations about the value and imperative of a leadership pipeline – and it is only Tuesday!
Leaders face obstacles daily, and often, we may not even think much about it. Challenges are just part of what we do. But what about a new leader, what issues does he or she face? Today’s Challenge question is from a leader who writes: What mistakes do you see new leaders make that could be avoided?
Several years ago, Tim Tassopoulos and I had the opportunity to have breakfast with Stephen Covey. When I find myself with thought-leaders, regardless of their field, I always want to ask great questions. On this occasion, Tim beat me to it. He asked Dr. Covey, “How do you create leaders at every level in an organization?”
Over the last few years, Jim Collins has asked our organization some great questions. Here’s an example: What are the “key seats” in your organization? How many of those seats are currently filled by the right person? These are powerful questions – but in this case, the real challenge was what Jim said next.
Almost 10 years ago, I had the privilege to co-author The Secret with Ken Blanchard, a book about Chick-fil-A’s point of view on leadership. It was a lot of fun doing the book with Ken and even more fun talking to groups all over the world about leadership. What I didn’t expect was the question that I received over and over again… “We’ve read The Secret, what’s next?”