October, 2012

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The 12 Toughest Challenges of Leadership

Leadership Freak

The challenges of leadership are inside leaders. Stop blaming organizations and others for your shortfalls and failures. Take the bull by the horns. You are the bull. The 12 Toughest Challenges of Leadership: Humility during success. Confidence during setbacks. Stepping back so others can step up. Putting plans into action – Follow through. Experience shows [.].

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Is it OK for Leaders to Be Scared?

Kevin Eikenberry

At this time of the year being scared or scary is kinda cool – after all it is Halloween! But this is a short season and leaders lead all year long, so the question asked by the title of this piece is a good one – “is it ok for leaders to be scared?” Most [.].

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Testing Early and Often: An Interview with Matthew Bissett

CMCrossroads

In this interview, Matthew Bissett, the test manager responsible for the integration and testing of his area's flagship system for Her Majesty's Government, shares his thoughts with us on the importance of early testing in order to rapidly speed up software releases.

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The “Cookie-Dough” Analogy

GMC

This is a great metaphor that I came up with that applies to most high tech products, and could certainly make the a point to all innovative companies with a product development group. Click on the link to see the diagram (below). What do you all think? Post by: Ryan Stock.

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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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10 Reasons Leaders Fail, Plus One

Leadership Freak

“The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” William Pollard Organizations fail because leaders fail and leaders fail because they: Stop learning. Don’t build the team. Can’t collaborate. Won’t adapt. Won’t delegate. Assume. Blame. Lack focus. Don’t communicate. Don’t plan. Adapted from contributions on Facebook (10/16/12).

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Overcoming the Reason People Resist Change

Leadership Freak

“In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” Warren Buffett Talking about change is easy, acceptable, even exciting. Talking and executing are two different things. Change becomes real when we have to change our own attitudes and behaviors, not until. The wrong picture: Change movements [.].

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How to Quickly End Useless Meetings

Leadership Freak

More lying happens in meetings than any other place in your organization. Most lies are lies of silence. In meetings, silence isn’t consent, its cowardice, self-interest, manipulation, or political expediency. Honesty, more than anything else, transforms meetings. Truth-telling ends useless meetings. When there’s more honesty in the “meeting after the meeting,” excellence is a myth.

Manager 97
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Letting Go of the 12 Behaviors Holding You Back

Leadership Freak

12 Behaviors that always hold leaders back: Avoiding. Avoiding is the path to mediocrity. Copying others and loosing you. Copying others is useful when it aligns with your strengths. When it doesn’t align, it creates stress, pressure, frustration, and failure. Over thinking and under acting; stressing preparation over execution. Most organizations plan well and execute poorly. [.].

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6 Ways Successful Leaders Think

Leadership Freak

Only fools plan to fail. Leaders always plan to succeed. Working on plans is working to anticipate and nullify reasons for failure. But, failure happens in spite of plans. There’s more to success than hard work. The uncomfortable truth is sincere, smart, hardworking people fail all the time. Success demands hard work and right thinking. Learning [.].

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Seven Power Tips for Spotting Future Leaders

Leadership Freak

You’ll fail apart from surrounding yourself with talented people. This means: Great leaders identify and develop great leaders. One of my favorite Jack Welch quotes is, “The team with the best players wins.” But, how do you identify the best players? Look for those who are: Already active. Frustrated. They look around and don’t like [.].

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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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How the Need for Fairness Destroys People

Leadership Freak

The need for fairness prevents people in the middle from reaching the top. Every organization of any size has slackers, drifters, and fence sitters. Top management should deal with them, but sometimes they don’t. It’s not fair that you give 100% while they give 75%, or less. The need for fairness whispers in your ear, [.].

Manager 95
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So You Screwed Up …

Leadership Freak

Mistakes make you feel dumb, even though they are the path to wisdom. Few things change us more than mistakes. Not making mistakes is worse than making them. Sometimes the best way to move forward is looking back. Rather than ignoring mistakes, relive them. I asked, Irv Rothman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard Financial Services, about making [.].

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How to Make a Difference that Matters

Leadership Freak

A life that matters is not about desire; it’s about how. Leaders who make a difference develop internally and explore externally. Neglect one and you won’t make a difference that matters. Component one: High impact begins internally with who you are. From this vantage point, making a difference that matters is all about you. It [.].

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The 10 Ways to Gain Influence

Leadership Freak

If leadership is influence then dominance and coercion aren’t leading. Police have rightful authority to control. Relying on power, authority, or position, makes you look like a cop writing speeding tickets. Danger: Dominant leaders achieve compliance at the expense of loyally, inspiration, and innovation. If you want to lead, increase your influence.

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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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The Secret to Creating the Future

Leadership Freak

Frustrated leaders spend far too much time focused on the past and far too little time creating the future. They’re always saying, “What are we doing wrong?” The past cannot be changed. Stop trying to fix it. If you don’t have clear vision for the future, looking back destroys you. Your past can be: A [.].

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When Collaboration Doesn’t Work

Leadership Freak

Stop bowing at the altar of collaboration. It’s usually better to work with others, to collaborate. But, collaboration isn’t always useful or necessary. Collaboration can be cumbersome, ineffective, or detrimental. Sometimes, having someone work for you is better than working with them. Collaboration isn’t useful when: Time is short. Collaboration is slower than working alone.

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The Secret Power of Hearing Shadows

Leadership Freak

Listening is a skill. Hearing someone is a gift. My dad’s first words when I told him about my new job were, “It’s not very close to home.” I was a fresh college graduate in Missouri. He was back home in Maine and the job was in Pennsylvania. I did the easy thing. I heard [.].

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The Feedback Question that Changes Everything

Leadership Freak

When was the last time you received useful feedback? Everyone who craves excellence craves feedback. You need to know how you’re doing and how to improve. You’ll never reach excellence without feedback. Honesty is problem one: The higher you go the more likely people say what they’re expected to say, not what they believe. Honest [.].

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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 Confidence/Competence Loop

Kevin Eikenberry

There are several basic areas of study that, as we study them, we can become more effective coaches and leaders. This long list includes both human behavior and learning. The psychological concept I want to talk about today comes from the intersection of these two fields of study. Don’t worry; I’m not going to go [.].

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5 Strategies that Defeat Drifting

Leadership Freak

The trouble with teams is drifters; people who hide behind the work of others. Drifters are more than annoying; they’re dangerous, damaging dead weight. Drifters de-motivate the motivated and drain energy from the energized. Poorly run teams protect low performers. Energized team members ask, “Why am I busting my butt?” when drifters succeed. Dealing with drifters: [.].

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High Performer or High Potential

Leadership Freak

All leaders always keep watch for high performers they can move into greater responsibilities. You’re a lousy leader who may succeed in the short-term but fail in the end, if you don’t. Seduction: Passion to develop great teams seduces leaders into hoping high performers are high potentials. But… All high performers are not high potentials. [.].

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10 Proven Ways to Run Great Meetings

Leadership Freak

Poorly run meetings are like garbage strewn along the organizational highway. Useful meetings are like the Sumatran Tiger, powerful but nearly extinct. Great organizations have great meetings. 7 reasons meetings suck: They’re too long. They lack purpose and outcomes. The wrong people are in the room. Participants aren’t accountable for results. Participants engage in turf [.].

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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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Right or Wrong Isn’t the Issue

Leadership Freak

This post is inspired by a reader who writes, “I believe that leaders make decision not based on what is right or wrong but what is relevant in the context.” Most leadership decisions are about good, better, and best, not right and wrong. They aren’t moral. Moral decisions aren’t compromised. Options, on the other hand, are explored and [.].

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Six Keys to Better Impromptu Speaking

Kevin Eikenberry

Have you ever found yourself in a situation like these? You are sitting in the meeting, when your boss’ boss asks you – “what do you think?” Or you are asked to stand and share your thoughts on a topic you haven’t considered before or weren’t prepared to discuss. If you have, you’d likely agree [.].

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How to Get What You Want

Leadership Freak

It takes conviction, candor, and courage to push against the boss or the board. Managers who can’t stand up and push back are inevitably pushed around and down. Yesterday, I talked with the President and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Financial Services, Irv Rothman. He leads 1,500 employees in over 50 countries. His book, “Out-Executing the Competition” [.].

Manager 86
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How to Win by Leaning In

Leadership Freak

Strong winds blow you down when you lean back. Successful leaders lean into resistance, adversity, failure, and criticism. Leaning away from resistance is a sure way to be blown down by resistance. Not: Welcome and learn from the stormy parts of leading. Don’t reject them. Leaning-in isn’t fighting-off. Lean against: Change encounters resistance.

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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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The Untapped Secret of Leadership Success

Leadership Freak

Jack K. is one of the most popular and well-known guys in my community. One reason, he tells stories. He has a bucket of stories that I’ve heard several times and want to hear again. This morning, I’ll see Jack and ask him to tell what I call the, “Two Invoice Story,” again. Stories: Inspire. Instruct. Enlighten. [.].

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How to Uncover Your Greatest Value

Leadership Freak

Image source The people you serve determine the value you bring. The owners of a growing company didn’t appreciate the greatest value they brought their customers. Surprisingly, it wasn’t their products and services. Their best customers said: They understand us and our business. They take the time to understand the way we do things. I [.].

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Seven Keys to More Effectively Leading Teams

Kevin Eikenberry

Maybe you find yourself in a new team environment and leading a team for the first time, or maybe you have been working with and leading teams forever. Either way, the keys in this article – whether as new information or a fresh reminder – can make a world of difference in morale, productivity, and [.].

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The Power of Reflection

Kevin Eikenberry

If I could give you a tool or resource that would change your life in positive ways, change your results, create more happiness in your life, and help you get better at anything you desired. And if I could promise you that this tool would cost you nothing, require only yourself, and [.].

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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.