Parent Category for Leadership Learning Moments

The 7 Items to Include in Your Leadership Owner’s Manual

By Michael Holland -  I needed to re-set my clock in my not-so-new car and had forgotten which buttons to push in sequence to get the clock flashing and ready for change.  Rumbling through my glove box I pulled out the thick, black canvass bag which contained the owner’s manual.  Well, actually it [...]

By |2025-04-01T17:27:26-04:00April 23rd, 2025|Building My Team|Comments Off on The 7 Items to Include in Your Leadership Owner’s Manual

Found Time – What Great Leaders Do With It

By Michael Holland - While on your way to a meeting, you get word that the meeting is being rescheduled. You now have 45 minutes of found time. Found time is like winning a small lottery.  You smile like when you walk outside on the first really nice day of spring. Great leaders [...]

By |2025-04-01T12:17:23-04:00April 16th, 2025|Productivity|Comments Off on Found Time – What Great Leaders Do With It

Why Leaders Fail to Create Responsible Employees

By Michael Holland -   There’s the strong, powerful, charismatic, self-absorbed CEO attempting to guide a senior leader forward, or their team forward. After a moment or two of seemingly good leadership technique he finds his natural groove and drops the “S Bomb.”  The “do it my way because I said so” command. His [...]

By |2025-04-01T11:09:27-04:00April 9th, 2025|Managing Performance|Comments Off on Why Leaders Fail to Create Responsible Employees

Questions to Prompt Your Leadership Reflection Muscles

By Michael Holland -   Since December 17, 2014 I have been writing a journal entry for each day. Each morning I write about the previous day. Then I get to read what I wrote on the same day each of the previous years in my journal. This habit has helped me to [...]

By |2025-03-24T09:02:05-04:00April 2nd, 2025|Your Development|Comments Off on Questions to Prompt Your Leadership Reflection Muscles

New Take on Tracking Employee Progress

by Michael Holland      The depth and breadth of a well prepared performance review is directly proportional to the amount of information you have on the employee for the whole period of time.  Tracking employee progress between reviews is something every leader is doing - well, every leader should be doing.  The question is [...]

By |2025-04-02T11:55:59-04:00March 31st, 2025|Productivity|Comments Off on New Take on Tracking Employee Progress

The Mistake New Managers Make in Setting Boundaries

by Michael Holland -   How far can a bungee cord stretch before it will break? I squinted at the 4th bungee cord I was using to hold down a piece of furniture on my trailer. As I stretched and stretched it, I held my breath, hoping it wouldn’t snap. My mind wandered, and [...]

By |2025-03-23T12:17:02-04:00March 26th, 2025|Managing Up|Comments Off on The Mistake New Managers Make in Setting Boundaries

HR Shouldn’t Be the Fixer of Bad Leadership

by Michael Holland For too long, HR has been forced into the role of a cleanup crew—picking up the pieces after bad leadership decisions, disengaged employees, and dysfunctional teams. This isn’t what HR was designed for, yet it happens in organizations every day. Think about it: Employees don’t leave companies; they leave bad [...]

By |2025-03-26T15:56:17-04:00March 24th, 2025|For HR Leaders|Comments Off on HR Shouldn’t Be the Fixer of Bad Leadership

Why Less “Sanding” is Needed with New Leaders

By Michael Holland - Recently I was watching one of those home remodeling shows and the host was showing off the before and after shots of wood trim in a house.  To do it right, they had to put in a lot of work to strip down the layers of paint that had [...]

By |2025-03-19T09:17:31-04:00March 19th, 2025|New Leader|Comments Off on Why Less “Sanding” is Needed with New Leaders

13 Meetings a Day – The Fallacy of Productive Double-Booking

By Michael Holland - Once, when I was scheduling the next coaching session with a leader, I was able to see her Outlook calendar. She made a comment about constantly being double-booked for time slots for meetings and at times triple-booked. And that she routinely was in back-to-back meetings throughout a day sometimes [...]

By |2025-03-05T10:28:40-05:00March 5th, 2025|Productivity|Comments Off on 13 Meetings a Day – The Fallacy of Productive Double-Booking

How to Get Better at Achieving Your Long-Term Goals: Covey’s 4 Quadrants Productivity Tool

In several books by Stephen Covey, he describes a framework for prioritizing work that is aimed at achieving long-term goals by understanding the lack of need for work on tasks that appear to be urgent, but are in reality less important. He uses a time management 4 box method to categorize tasks on two continuum: [...]

By |2025-03-03T10:04:10-05:00March 2nd, 2025|Productivity|Comments Off on How to Get Better at Achieving Your Long-Term Goals: Covey’s 4 Quadrants Productivity Tool
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