February, 2012

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Are You Observing or Judging?

Kevin Eikenberry

Yesterday I was thinking about observation and judgement, and how it relates to effective communication and coaching. It reminded me of a particular incident that took place a few years back – an incident I had previously written about on the blog for my book Remarkable Leadership. We were driving somewhere as a family and [.].

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10 Power Tips for Leaders who Talk too Much

Leadership Freak

All the interesting things you say make you uninteresting to others. A rare few enthrall listeners. Don’t think of yourself as one. You know too much and have too much to say. Passion sets your tongue on fire. You can’t wait to create enthusiasm, solve problems, and share transformative insights. In a busy world brevity [.].

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Andrea Kates | What Organizations Need To Do To Foster Innovation

Tanveer Nasser

These days, everyone is talking about the importance of innovation to an organization's future, but what exactly does it take to be innovative and how do we start? That's the basis of my conversation with business strategist and author Andrea Kates in this latest episode of “Leadership Biz Cafe”. Andrea is the founder of the Business Genome project and has led more than 250 business innovation initiatives with a variety of organizations, including Royal Dutch Shell (Asia-Pacific), Audi, Allstate

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A No-Excuses Leadership Learning Strategy

Kevin Eikenberry

Leading effectively is a complex mix of skills and behaviors that don’t all come naturally and can’t be mastered quickly (if ever). To put it simply, to be a great leader, you must be a continual learner. That is easy to say. It is easy to believe. But how do you do it? I believe [.].

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How to Make The Best Benefits Decisions for 2025's Workforce: An HR and Total Rewards Guide

Speaker: Kaitlin Ruby Carroll

Retaining top talent in 2025 means rethinking benefits. In a competitive job market, fertility benefits are more than just offerings - they are a commitment to your team’s well-being. Gain critical insights into the latest fertility benefits strategies that can help position your organization as an industry leader. Our expert will explore the unique advantages and challenges of each model, share success stories from top organizations, and offer practical strategies to make benefits decisions tha

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How to Enhance Authority Without Being Bossy

Leadership Freak

** “Managing up” means you’re thinking like those over you and adapting. Those who adapt survive and thrive. You’re asking things like: What’s the leader’s style? Where should I fit in and how can I stand out? What’s the big picture, not simply tasks? What makes the leader feel supported? How much information do they [.].

Manager 87
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Tell Your Critics to Take a Hike

Leadership Freak

** Alternate title: “Critics: Thank’em or Spank’em” Receiving personal criticism stands apart from criticizing products, services, or organizations. My leadership was first criticized when I was in my early 20’s. It stunned me. I still remember the sting. People who say personal criticism doesn’t hurt, lie. If you enjoy it, you’re weird or sick.

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Life Changing Leadership Quotes? – You Decide

Leadership Freak

Being smart enough to know you’re dumb makes learning easy. There’s a personal light bulb moment reflected in every quote that follows. Forward trajectory quotes: Any fool can start something new. It takes brilliant leaders to stop something old. My life gives testament to the power of purposeful abandonment. A little over 3 years ago, [.].

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How to Stop Drifting and Find Focus

Leadership Freak

** Life is a journey but you’re drifting unless you define your destination. The same is true for organizations. The first step toward success is defining it. Too eager to do: Activity seduces. Leaders easily fall into the “Let’s just go do something” trap. Activity without destination is futility. Eager to do: The choice between [.].

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Sweet 16 Potent Leadership Quotes – You Decide

Leadership Freak

** It’s easy to confuse and difficult to clarify. Confusion drives us toward clarity. Clarity allows us to act. I’m looking for your perspective and insights on this set of Leadership Freak quotes. Will you grab one or more and expand, correct, clarify, and/or modify it. The Sweet 16: Don’t let the stupid things others [.].

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Seven Powerful Lessons I Learned from Zig Ziglar

Kevin Eikenberry

I first read See You at the Top (Zig Ziglar’s classic first book) over Christmas one year during college. I had heard of Zig, and checked out the book from the library. I took pages of notes since I couldn’t write in the book. I still have the notes. Soon after, I started listening to Zig’s [.].

Sales 82
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The Diversity Reckoning: Can HR Survive Without New Perspectives?

Speaker: Jeremy York

2024 has tested every organization, and 2025 promises no less - the warning signs are everywhere. If you’re relying on superficial approaches to diversity, you might find yourself scrambling to catch up. Thought diversity - the fuel for new ideas, fresh perspectives, and disruptive innovation - is more than a buzzword. It's a survival strategy. And if you’re not building it into your workplace culture right now , you’re heading for trouble.

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8 Power Tips for Building Your Reputation

Leadership Freak

** Your reputation is built on being noticed for the right things in the right way by the right people. Reputation is about credibility, trust, and influence. Good reputations create opportunities. Danger: Good reputations are earned slowly and lost quickly. One major blunder outweighs many contributions. Building your reputation: Focus on results even though the [.].

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The Most Dangerous Lie Leaders Believe

Leadership Freak

The most dangerous lie leaders tell themselves is, “I know.” DeBono wisely said, “Those who think they know, don’t. All leaders fall prey to this lie, yes all. How many times have you thought you knew but discovered you didn’t? You think what you think because it’s right. Right? You came to know too much because: [.].

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Fixing the Reason Vision Casting Flopps

Leadership Freak

Image source Casting vision to hopeless people is like feeding cake to the dead. The greatest vision in the world is meaningless in the absence of hope. It’s more important to build hope than it is to cast vision. Hope builds confidence. Confident people dare to act. The Gift: Fear rules where hope sleeps. Giving [.].

Metrics 81
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Killing the Inner Critic

Leadership Freak

** There was a time when I thought my anger was about the world out there. But, anger, frustration, and complaints are first about who I am and then about other people, circumstances, and environments. Not liking my performance: There’s always room for improvement. Translation, I fell short. For example, I always see ways my [.].

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Recognition Powers High-Performance — If You Do it Right

Speaker: Radhika Samant and Todd Wuestenberg

Employee recognition has often been deemed a "feel-good" initiative, tied closely to rewards. While we understand its importance, we tend to associate recognition with intangible outcomes like engagement and sentiment, rather than direct impacts on retention and high performance. In today’s workplace, the true ROI of recognition lies in its ability to regenerate tangible, business-driven results.

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How to Protect and Enhance Your Strengths

Leadership Freak

Your strengths have dark sides that limit potential, destroy achievement, and hamstring opportunities. Powerful strengths become anchors without softeners. The difference between mediocre and extraordinary success is tempering qualities. Task oriented leaders come off as people-users more interested in finishing projects than the people completing them.

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The Leadership Shift toward Exponential Success

Leadership Freak

Image source The fringes of leadership are populated with problem-centric leaders. Leaders are born when they shift from self to others. Leaders begin leading when they shift toward solutions. The first is a beginning - the second represents success. The problem with problems: Seeing problems places you on the fringes of leadership. Somehow it feels important to point out [.].

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How to Step Back and Succeed More

Leadership Freak

** It’s easier for leaders to step up and in than to step down and back. Beginnings demand stepping in; enduring, exponential success calls for stepping back. Before stepping back: Before you step back, build people who embrace organizational values. People who don’t share values always suggest wrong directions, dilute focus, and slow progress.

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A CEO says “If I Could Do it Again …”

Leadership Freak

Image source One high performance department is miserable and oppressive another is joyful and liberating. One leader has fun while another leader … All leaders get things done but the way they do things matters. John Bell, former CEO of Jacobs Suchard (Nabob, Kraft), suggested he would not do different things as much as he [.].

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HR Meets AI: The New Way of Keeping Large Workforces Connected and Engaged

Speaker: Miriam Connaughton and Donald Knight

As organizations scale, keeping employees connected, engaged, and productive can seem like a monumental task. But what if AI could help you do all of this and more? AI has the power to help, but the key is implementing it in a way that enhances, rather than replaces, human connection. Join us for an exploration into how industry trailblazers are using AI to transform employee experience at scale while addressing both the potential and the pitfalls.

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The Destruction of Potential and Joy

Leadership Freak

Image source Leave the good ole days in the past. Enjoy memories but never try recreating experiences. Some years back, my wife and I went to an amusement park with another couple. It was the perfect storm of fun. The day was perfect. The crowds were small. We smiled, laughed, and played till it hurt. [.].

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Avoiding the Putrid Beast Destroying Leaders

Leadership Freak

Pride is good. For example, “Have some pride” and “Take pride in your work.” Arrogant pride, however, represents the dark, blinding, deceptive underbelly of leadership. Arrogant pride drives leaders to gather in protective huddles of pseudo-invincibility where stepping on others is smugly applauded and lifting others is foolish weakness. Filthy dark festering pride drives outrageous [.].

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Linsanity for Leaders

Kevin Eikenberry

Perhaps you’ve heard of Jeremy Lin and “Linsanity”, or perhaps you don’t follow sports at all. In case you haven’t or don’t, let me give you some background. Jeremy Lin is a 6’3″ basketball player. He went 32-1 as a high school senior and helped his team win a California State Championship, and even though [.].

Manager 79
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Successful Intervention in 5 Steps

Leadership Freak

Weak leaders smugly think, “I knew that would happen.” Cowardly leaders saying “I told you so.” Not if but how: Strong leaders tip toward courageous intervention. They don’t sit on the sidelines like cowards gloating over failures they saw coming. They turn potential failures to successes. On the other hand, interventionist leaders aren’t meddling parents [.].

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The Upskilling Advantage: Transforming Your Workforce For Future Growth

Speaker: Brian Richardson

With a staggering 92% of CEOs prioritizing skill development, and 84% struggling with transformation, mastering upskilling is now more critical than ever. Drawing on extensive research and collaboration with hundreds of leading organizations, discover key hurdles and innovative best practices in workforce upskilling. You'll walk away with a deep understanding of how to build a culture of continuous learning, expert insights into assessing the current skills of your employees, and a strategic too

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Top 10 Ways to Tick Off CEOs

Leadership Freak

** If you aren’t concerned about ticking off the CEO, you should be. It’s easy to irritate high level leaders who operate in high pressure environments, especially if you aren’t part of the inner circle. Senior leaders expect mid-levels to prove their value and earn their place; they did. They can smell a sense of [.].

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Getting Corporate Leaders Coming to You

Leadership Freak

** Don’t worry about getting noticed by senior leadership; care but don’t worry. Mike Myatt said, “Great leaders don’t need to worry about influencing the C-Suite, the C-Suite will always come to them.” Stop trying: Organizations don’t need needy people. Doug Conant remarked, “Don’t try too hard to connect with senior leadership.” Doug illustrated his [.].

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Make a Leap to Greater Productivity

Kevin Eikenberry

It’s Leap Day, that once-every-four-years event that leads people to say things like “You have a whole extra day, how do you plan to use it?” Sounds nice, but wouldn’t you rather get a little time every day, for the rest of your life, than a random added day every four years (a day that, [.].

Manager 78
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How to Make Subordinates Colleagues

Leadership Freak

** You must give power in order to empower? Empowerment is giving qualified people power and permission to act. Empowerment fails when leaders talk empowerment but hang on to permission or make it difficult to act. Empowered people become colleagues not employees. Transform your organization by making subordinates colleagues. Eliminate exclusive trappings of power.

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Mastering Remote Onboarding: Proven Strategies for Seamless New Hire Integration

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

Join this brand new webinar with Tim Buteyn to learn how you can master the art of remote onboarding! By the end of this session, you'll understand how to: Craft a Tailored Onboarding Checklist 📝 Develop a comprehensive, customized checklist that ensures every new hire has a smooth transition into your company, no matter where they are in the world.

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Five Love Affairs Leaders Should Have

Kevin Eikenberry

Caught up in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, that day we celebrate romantic love, I began thinking again about the connection between the words love and leadership. Before you even read about these five love affairs, you might be put off by using the word love in the context of your work. Don’t be. Am [.].

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Exalting Leaders

Leadership Freak

Encourage and exalt leaders don’t pull them down. But you may say, “Won’t arrogance destroy them.” Destruction: Leaders hungry for power are dangerous. Arrogant leaders stop listening, grow autocratic, and become self-protective narcissists. Like boxers in the ring, protect yourself at all times. Never trust them. They’ll slice you down and sacrifice stakeholder value for personal [.].

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Long Noses Build Big Barriers

Leadership Freak

Brain power, skills, and success beckon leaders to believe they are better than others when they aren’t. The most repulsive lie leaders believe about themselves is the long-nose-lie, “I’m better than.” Everyone sees the long nose you look down. The insecure feel inferior around your long nose while climbers grovel for its approval. In either [.].

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Conquering a Leadership Paradox

Kevin Eikenberry

It happens all over the world, every day. Josie is a great performer. She is very good at her technical expertise, and for that she is rewarded with a promotion. Her supervisor calls her into her office and gives her the good news. Congratulations Josie, you are now the supervisor! Excited, perhaps surprised, and maybe [.].

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How To Empower Your Workforce With Modern Fertility Benefits

Speaker: Andrea Wuchiski

In an era where a workforce spans multiple generations, HR managers and Total Rewards leaders face the unique challenge of designing benefits packages that cater to diverse employee needs. This session will delve into how comprehensive fertility benefits can bridge generational gaps, support employees’ health, and enhance workplace satisfaction. Join us for an insightful session that highlights the strategic importance of fertility benefits in today’s competitive job market.