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 […]

5 Problems with being a perfectionist

Last month an article caught my eye.  It was called “Why your employees need to make mistakes.” Years ago, I tried to convince my boss that mistakes weren’t necessarily bad.  Mistakes could be valid measurement of effort and innovation.  If we never make mistakes, it’s a strong sign that we aren’t putting our necks out […]

Empathy, not perfection

A few years ago when I was doing research for a graduate class in Emotional Intelligence, I had occasion to do research on empathy.  I ran across an interesting research study done in the medical community that showed some surprising results about doctors and empathy. Empathy trumps perfection.  According to the results of the study, […]