by Michael Holland I’ve been pondering how American Diplomats are assessing their exposure, given the forced transparency of some of their secret cables via the WikiLeaks cable dumping. Are they embarrassed? Worried? Fearful? Relieved? Anxious? Distraught? I imagine that each individual is wondering how others view their integrity as compared to the perception [...]
by Michael Holland I’ve become intrigued with a book by Robert Sutton titled The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't which came out in paperback in September 2010. The premise of the book is that organizations bear a huge cost due to the behaviors and impacts of [...]
by Michael Holland Are you a leader or a functional leader? Companies expect leaders to be generally strong at leading others and specifically strong at leading functions. Unfortunately many leaders grow up within specific business functions, gaining experience and greater levels of authority. The scope of responsibility is a combination of people leadership [...]
by Michael Holland Time seems to slip by, minutes here, hours there, then suddenly weeks have gone by. As a leader, you have many competing interests for your time during any given day. Current business protocol encourages an endless run at meetings, and at times, it seems you have little control of your [...]
by Michael Holland Overwhelmed in a meeting with a large project? Is an employee struggling with how to get through all the work in front of them? Use this simplistic project planning tool to help get a handle on the project or work load. Let’s use an example: your boss comes to you, [...]
by Michael Holland Have regular conversations with your employees, one-on-one, about their work and themselves. It shows your employees you are interested and care about meeting their needs. The information you learn will help you to better manage each person and you will find that your employees will appreciate the conversation. Below are [...]
by Michael Holland All seasoned leaders at one point in their careers have been challenged with the departure of a key employee who had certain work knowledge that was painful to replicate. Companies invest time and money in developing succession planning for leadership roles. They invest in developing strong leaders to make sure [...]
by Michael Holland Do your employees ever “miss the mark?” Sometimes, do things get done in a manner you didn’t expect or didn’t want? Those are the times to hold back and first ask yourself, “where wasn’t I clear?” Our first instinct is to often “blame the employee” and analyze what he or [...]
by Michael Holland How are you measuring your success and effectiveness as a leader? What scale is used? To whom are you comparing yourself? A friend of mine was more than happy to talk about his glory days as a distinguished athlete at his school. He was a starter on varsity teams all [...]
by Michael Holland As my friend Jerry says, you can have a bad day or bad month or even a bad year. But it’s pretty hard to have a bad 5 years. What is important in life is your trend line. I submit you take a similar approach to your leadership capability. Every one of [...]
