I’ve lost a few elections in my time. It hurt. It left me feeling out of sync and uncertain. It was an emotional rollercoaster ride. If you’ve lost an election or some type of selection process, I am writing this post for you. I imagine you sitting across a table from me and you’ve just heard the news that someone …
Giving A Speech
Tomorrow is our student government election day. Before everyone hits the polls, we’ll be hearing speeches from the candidates. These are always interesting. While none of the candidates are professional communicators, you can tell who does it better than others. If I could sit down with each of the candidates as they put their speech together, I’d offer the following …
How To Become A Delegating Master
“The opposite of effective delegation is micromanagement.” – Wikipedia entry on delegation The word, “delegation” is derived from Latin and means “to send from.” Think about it, you are taking the time to send the work “from” you “to” someone else. Effective delegation will not only give you more time to work on your important opportunities, but it also provides …
The Missing Ingredient In Listening
In one ear and out the other. It’s a common cliche’ of a critique where a conversation (or perhaps a monologue) ends with one person feeling like the other didn’t listen. They heard you. They nodded their head in affirmation. They even recited back to you word for word what you just said. But listening did not take place. What …
A Leader’s Job Security
Problems are job security for leaders. If there aren’t any problems to solve then there really isn’t a need for leaders. If everything was easy, leaders wouldn’t be essential. Watch what happens when those around you encounter problems. Each of us face a temptation to do one of the following:
All By Yourself
It’s easy to step into a new position and immediately think about all of the things YOU have to do. This is because YOU want to do what needs to be done and YOU want to do it well. But doing can sometimes get in the way of leading. If you do everything by yourself, you’re not a leader, you’re …
One Less Option
I pulled into the drive thru line at Starbucks this morning. Nothing odd about that except for the sudden realization I had left my wallet at home. I don’t usually forget that. Now when I say wallet, what I mean is the small, money clip with the pocket for credit cards that I carry in my front pocket. I gave …
Five Perspectives To Evaluate Your Experiences: #5-Recruit
If you whittle down your definition of leadership to its most basic function, it’s about people. I recently posted this on Twitter: Leadership is all about how people react to what we say and do. When you take the time to reflect and evaluate your experiences, there will be certain tasks that you will want to repeat (redo) and tasks …