Leadership Is a Practice, Not a Personality
Think about the most frustrating boss you’ve ever had. Not the incompetent one or the absent one—I’m talking about the charismatic leader. The one who could fire up a town hall, deliver a brilliant keynote at the annual conference, look great on the leadership stage. But come Monday morning, working with them day-to-day? Deeply frustrating. […]
Busy Leaders vs. Effective Leaders: Which One Are You?
Right now, the world has what I’d call a busyness fetish. We place this weird status on being mad, crazy busy, as if that’s somehow a valuable characteristic in itself. And it’s nuts. You know the drill. You brag to your friends: “Oh my God, I was working till midnight last night!” They counter with […]
Why Soft Skills Are Actually the Hardest Skills to Develop
I had someone once ask me, “Well, you can’t actually train leadership, can you?” I’ll be honest—I was offended. But looking back, I think that question reveals something important about how we think about soft skills in organizations. People see leadership, communication, creativity, inspiration, motivation—all of these things—as almost magical. Like you’re either born with […]
From Intent to Impact: Closing the Leadership Gap
Let’s be honest about something: when you become a people leader, there’s this gap. A big one. Between knowing what you should do and actually doing it. Call it the leadership gap—the distance between what you mean to do, what you know you ought to do, and what actually gets done. And if you’re in […]
How to Lead Without Authority
Leadership does not just refer to the behavior of people when they have direct reports. You can lead projects. You can lead programs. There are many situations in which people leadership skills show up even if you don’t have a direct leadership role. Even beyond that, leadership is a set of behaviors—a way to behave […]
What It Really Means to Be a PROAKTIV Leader
Most people don’t think about leadership as a learned skill. They think of it as a natural extension of their job title. You get promoted, suddenly you have direct reports, and now, congratulations, you’re a leader. But nothing about that transition guarantees you’re doing leadership well. In fact, it’s more likely that you’re winging it—reactively, […]