Leadership Perspectives

Leading versus managing: Four things for leaders to let go of

Last year, I wrote a blog post on eight key differences between managing and leading. I recently had occasion to think of these distinctions again when a coaching client asked me how a person could lead a large team without spending all their time in the details. She had nine people on her team, which […]

The downside of failing to delegate

We are certain that leaders – at least on an intellectual level – understand the benefits of effective delegation.  Yet too many delegate too little.  Would we delegate more if we truly understood the impact of NOT delegating?  Perhaps. Here’s just a few of the consequences that arise out of a failure to delegate: You, […]

Benefits of delegation and why leaders don’t delegate

As leaders, we know that we should delegate so that we can spend our time more efficiently and give others in our organizations the opportunity to learn.  We also know that we don’t delegate nearly as much as we should.   We even know that there are negative consequences associated with not delegating more and we […]

How to make strategic planning more meaningful

Despite what the calendar says, late summer, when kids go back to school, the nights get crisper, and the days get shorter, always feels more like the start of the new year than January 1st does, to me.  Anticipation is in the air as we shake off “summer casual” attitudes and start thinking seriously about […]

Six Ways to Making Learning Stick (or How to Get Your Money’s Worth from Developmental Training)

Developmental training is a process, not an event. What leaders do to support training initiatives will determine, more than anything else, whether learning is retained after the initial training event.  Unsupported, days spent in developmental training quickly turn into enjoyable boondoggles that are quickly forgotten. This week, I presented a proposal to train an organization’s […]

Leading Versus Managing: Eight Key Differences

In last week’s post, I tackled the question of whether leadership can be learned (Yes) and I provided five critical skills and practices to cultivate to help build real leadership capacity. I noted that learning to lead is as much about learning to connect with and be in relationship with people as it is about […]