Expand your horizon to influence and motivate others to actively build cohesive teams.

What Type of Trust Should Leaders Exhibit?

by Michael Holland -  Manager Matt is two years into his 1st tour of duty as a leader.  He’s survived the dark days of learning to manage on the fly with new situations when everything was new to him. He’s been through handling performance reviews and slow staff meetings, handled performance challenges and [...]

By |2024-11-18T09:29:58-05:00November 27th, 2024|Building My Team|Comments Off on What Type of Trust Should Leaders Exhibit?

3 Ways Leaders Fail to Align Their People

By Michael Holland -   15-year-old girls have perfected the art of dual communication. They nod appropriately to their parents as key parental instructions are put forth. Then in a moment the 15-year-old girl turns toward her friends and dramatically performs the full eye roll communicating her true feelings and commitment to her parents. [...]

By |2024-09-21T11:34:07-04:00October 2nd, 2024|Building My Team|Comments Off on 3 Ways Leaders Fail to Align Their People

Seeking and Cloning Those 4 Bright Spots of Your Team

By Michael Holland -  Looking back over the last three months, you can point to four specific times when you team was fully engaged, catching the perfect wave of energized synergy. The team was so productive during those times that the whole quarter was successful because of those highly effective windows. These are bright spots.  [...]

By |2024-09-11T10:59:55-04:00September 11th, 2024|Building My Team|Comments Off on Seeking and Cloning Those 4 Bright Spots of Your Team

Pedigree and Talent Are Not Always What They Seem To Be

by Michael Holland -   In the movie Moneyball, Manager Billy Beane looks to rebuild his dismal baseball team with a limited budget and therefore limited opportunity to acquire expensive talent. He decides to gamble on a methodology to look deeply at what types of players and activity he needs to be successful, which [...]

By |2024-08-25T17:31:25-04:00August 28th, 2024|Building My Team|Comments Off on Pedigree and Talent Are Not Always What They Seem To Be

6 Hidden Assumptions that Limit Your Team’s Effectiveness

By Michael Holland Picture this real life competition with a goal to build the tallest structure that can support a soft, fluffy, lightweight marshmallow using spaghetti, twine and tape within 18 minutes. First, there's a ballroom full of 100 co-workers.  They are broken out into random teams of 4 to 5 and are [...]

By |2024-07-06T13:22:21-04:00July 10th, 2024|Building My Team|Comments Off on 6 Hidden Assumptions that Limit Your Team’s Effectiveness

Crafting the Story: The Critical Questions You Need to Answer as a Leader

By Michael Holland -  Great leaders learn the art of crafting the story in which employees can place themselves. The story has historical underpinnings, heroes, villains, a bit of drama, obstacles to overcome and a goal to be achieved that is just beyond the capabilities of the team but is within reach. Great [...]

By |2024-05-12T12:41:28-04:00May 15th, 2024|Building My Team|Comments Off on Crafting the Story: The Critical Questions You Need to Answer as a Leader

3 Ways to Convert Leadership Mistakes to Wisdom

by Michael Holland -  In 1994 I made a classic management mistake. It involved a very stressful job, a struggling team, and two bags of marshmallows. The short version of the story is that a consistently tardy team member to critical team meetings received a barrage of marshmallows when he arrived late, yet [...]

By |2024-03-27T12:13:01-04:00April 3rd, 2024|Building My Team|1 Comment

Lead Like You’re the Rudder of a Sailboat

By Michael Holland - During a summer evening on the Magothy River, one of the large rivers feeding the famous Chesapeake Bay, I witnessed a beautiful sailing race: 40 or 50 sailboats tacked back and forth along the river, each one maneuvering to catch the wind perfectly and take advantage of a competitor. [...]

By |2024-02-14T10:41:57-05:00February 14th, 2024|Building My Team|Comments Off on Lead Like You’re the Rudder of a Sailboat

How to Tell If You Are a Wimpy and Dishonest Leader

By Michael Holland I worry at times that the gap which exists between leaders leading well and those who won't is growing wider and deeper.  Recently I re-watched the TED Talk  "Why Good Leaders Make Us Feel Safe" by Simon Sinek. In the talk, Sinek inspires with stories of how true leaders provide a circle [...]

By |2023-11-09T11:48:03-05:00November 8th, 2023|Building My Team|Comments Off on How to Tell If You Are a Wimpy and Dishonest Leader

The 5 Ways You Let Down Your Team When You Retire On The Job

By Michael Holland Three months.  That’s all.  Then you can retire or start the new role in the division in CA or go to the blah, blah, blah opportunity.  You’ve been laying low and avoiding all conflicts within the team you lead.  No sense addressing a problem with so little time left.  No sense wasting your precious [...]

By |2023-10-14T11:56:56-04:00November 1st, 2023|Building My Team|Comments Off on The 5 Ways You Let Down Your Team When You Retire On The Job
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