by Michael Holland - When an employee makes a dishonorable decision, they create small ripples of hurt. When executives make dishonorable decisions, they hurt whole organizations of people as well as those with whom the people interact. Hundreds if not thousands of people are impacted. There’s a standard to which most of us hold ourselves: [...]
by Michael Holland - Leaders should know that Human Resources professionals are there to help them. Though it might not look that way at all times, HR knows that the relative strength of their leaders corresponds directly to the number of people problems they will or won’t have. One of the primary functions of HR [...]
By Michael Holland - There’s the young leader slowly walking in the door to work at 7:50 am. His face reveals the agony he feels on this Friday morning as he’s worked so many hours this week just trying to get ahead of the workflow for his team and himself. He’s in for a 10 [...]
by Michael Holland - Change is happening all the time. Modern theory on change tells us we will work through a fairly typical pattern of denial, despair, acceptance and then hopefully engagement with moving forward. Think of it as a big U curve with despair at bottom It’s our visitation to the valley of despair [...]
By Michael Holland - You know a great leader within a few minutes of talking with them. There's no mistake. They stand out like an oak tree in the middle of the desert. Their title - or lack of a title - bear no connection to their leadership impact. They create a circle of safety [...]
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 un-engaged peers, [...]
by Michael Holland - "Here he comes. Heading straight for my office for yet another 'conversation' about why he can't get his work done in time for our meeting next week. Again and again he just doesn't come through. And last week he left early one day. I'm getting so tired of this routine. He's [...]
By Michael Holland - Recently I saw a commercial where a young couple throws a dart at a map and then take off for their weekend adventure to wherever the dart landed. How spontaneous and fun. Your employees are hoping you’re less adventurous. In the rush of work and the ever-changing whims of senior leadership, [...]
By Michael Holland - There’s a dance going on each and every day between new leaders and their bosses. The new leaders are in their first management role trying desperately to balance an insane workload with the art of delegating to their former peers. The new leaders appropriately want/desire a consistent, safe space to gain [...]
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. [...]
