Category: To The Bosses

What They Teach Us: Andrew Cuomo And Leadership In A Time Of Crisis

March 23, 2020By CiOIn CiO Briefs, General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on What They Teach Us: Andrew Cuomo And Leadership In A Time Of Crisis

Leadership Lesson: It’s important to take away what we can from the best examples of leadership, even in a crisis, when the leadership can either shine or not.

Where do you get your leadership fix?

Who do you look to who you, if not follow, at least consider dependable, knowing they’re taking care of your environmental, organizational, or, hell, even psychological needs?

Like, who do you look to and think Shit, okay. I know this person is on top of things?

COVID-19 has hit the U.S. (I pray to God there’s no need to include a hyperlink to any background on the virus because you’re well aware and informed of what’s going on.)

(…You know what’s going on, right?)

In any…

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The Litmus Test Of Your Greatest Transformational Leaders: What Did You Take Forward?

February 24, 2020By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on The Litmus Test Of Your Greatest Transformational Leaders: What Did You Take Forward?

Leadership Lesson: It’s important for each of us to keep in mind our greatest leaders – the standouts — in order to consider what it was that made them so and how they can inspire us to find, develop, and live our best form of leadership for those around us.

This past week, on LinkedIn, I posted a few pictures of and commentary on the leadership book Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, which chronicles the best leadership examples and stories of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. Taking a lesson from the book,…

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The Power of Engagement: How Do You Draw Others Into Your Vision?

May 31, 2019By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on The Power of Engagement: How Do You Draw Others Into Your Vision?

Leadership Lesson: Aside from the work for the mission and encouraging people to go after targeted benchmark goals and achievements, one should know how they can work toward guiding others to want to work toward that same goal.

What are you in it for? What do you want out of what you’re working toward, whether for yourself as an individual, or for your organization as one of its team leaders and/or players?

Whatever you’re involved in, supporting, or passionate about — how do you bring people around to work toward an end result as much as you do? How do you move people to see the vision you have, and to believe in it?

We may want the best for our organization by trying to get the work behind our message done,…

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Learn From Your Own Past: Raising Your Passion Without Raising Your Voice

April 5, 2019By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on Learn From Your Own Past: Raising Your Passion Without Raising Your Voice

Leadership Lesson: Don’t dismiss the entire set of takeaways from a past experience because you regret any portion of it which may make you uncomfortable or feel ashamed.

Looking to the past is both important and a constant source for realization and improvement.

In addition to that realization of what we’re all about and the improvement allowing us to continue building forward, the past also helps us figure out what to avoid doing…again.

Recently, I was talking with someone who was going to be presenting to colleagues in their industry as part of a panel. They were nervous because (a) they didn’t feel confident enough at public speaking to be up in…

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If We Need To Evolve Beyond Today, Don’t “Teach A Man To Fish.”

January 25, 2019By CiOIn Article, To The Bosses, To The StudentsComments Off on If We Need To Evolve Beyond Today, Don’t “Teach A Man To Fish.”

Leadership Lesson: In order to set someone up for their best habits in development, growth, and their own definition of success, it’s important to consider the true adaptability skills we provide alongside the traditional tools we impart on those we lead, teach, or influence. 

“Give a man a fish
and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish
and you feed him for a life time.”  

Yeah, I don’t think so. 

Unfortunately, this Chinese proverb is incomplete. It leaves so much — too much — to the imagination. Although expecting imagination to fill in the gaps can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on the student’s own curiosity, the proverb should have taken its message one step further.

Related:

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In Working With Others, How Do You Challenge Them To Make Them Better?

November 2, 2018By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on In Working With Others, How Do You Challenge Them To Make Them Better?

Leadership Lesson: Although leadership is about working to eliminate and minimize environmental, developmental, and mission-related obstacles, making someone or something better in the course of that work, it can’t be fully effective without challenging those who are led.

The leadership of yesteryear – coordinating people to carry out cookie-cutter, repetitive tasks that benefit a mission or organization – is long gone.

Even though most workplaces have evolved past that type of work and mentality, as time goes on, there is even more to leadership than just getting the best results. It’s not only about the task at hand but also about what is built for the future, in both the organization or group or the people carrying out the work.

Leadership is about getting the best out…

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What Do You Lose By Not Sorting Through Environmental Noise?

July 28, 2018By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on What Do You Lose By Not Sorting Through Environmental Noise?

Leadership Lesson: It’s always important to step in and help others see each other’s points of view, so that everyone can work toward the common goal.

There is so much noise in our environments. Whether this noise is reflected in the inability to communicate, the wrong fashion of communicating, or allowing too much emotion into our communication, nothing moves forward and everything becomes vulnerable to that noise.

To begin diminishing the noise, let’s start with you: Are you completely closed off to all ideas and opinions that surround you? That is where that noise begins — in the process, or lack thereof, of interacting with ideas.

My hope is that you’re not. I’m hoping you at least acknowledge those concepts, whatever forms they may take.

There’s no…

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The Leader’s Responsibility: Don’t Lose Sight Of Those Who Depend On Your Leadership

July 13, 2018By CiOIn To The BossesComments Off on The Leader’s Responsibility: Don’t Lose Sight Of Those Who Depend On Your Leadership

Leadership Lesson: It’s important to keep track of what others need, following up accordingly to make sure they are getting the ongoing tools, support, and trust they need to make progress, improve performance, and overcome challenges.

How do you keep your ear to the ground as a leader?

As you make your way through your environments, how do you ensure that you remember the things that are pertinent and important, whether they are of a positive, neutral, or negative nature, not losing sight of their relevance.

How do you make sure you’re not taking your eye off the ball?

First, think about it as it applies to you.

It’s important to remember the thoughts, ideas, and drive you had for yourself in your path to date. Regular…

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Your Leadership Wake: In The End, What Would Happen If You Were To Leave Tomorrow?

June 8, 2018By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on Your Leadership Wake: In The End, What Would Happen If You Were To Leave Tomorrow?

Leadership Lesson: Always keep the future – the mid-term and long-term — in mind, and consider what things would look like and how well they would work after you’re gone.

This previous post had broken down the power and influence of leadership impact and introduced this series of posts covering where the wake from a leader’s actions can be observed and felt.

It outlined how a leader — or anyone, for that matter — can create and leave behind a positive, exhausting, or neutral experience for those around them, based on how they approach different areas such as collaboration, communication, and expression.

It asked us to consider what a leader leaves in their wake.

This post is the last of the series which has…

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Leadership Can Be Lonely: How Do You Really Step Outside Of Yourself To Connect?

May 18, 2018By CiOIn Article, General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on Leadership Can Be Lonely: How Do You Really Step Outside Of Yourself To Connect?

Leadership Lesson: Loneliness is trending toward becoming an epidemic, but a similar, powerful emptiness — an unfulfilled and psychological need – can also exist in leadership.

Loneliness can rob us of our best lives, in which we could get to know others on a deeper level and utilize and develop our greatest abilities. At the same time, it robs others of the opportunity to know us and realize, and benefit from, what we could provide.

These two articles outline the growing severity and proliferation of loneliness in society:

Seven Simple Ways To Cope With Loneliness

Loneliness Is A Health Issue, And Needs Targeted Solutions

Much in the same way loneliness is detrimental in people’s personal lives, it can…

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Mentorships Are The Connections That Bring All The Pieces Together

May 11, 2018By CiOIn In The Middle, To The BossesComments Off on Mentorships Are The Connections That Bring All The Pieces Together

Leadership Lesson: Don’t forgo any part of your personal efficiency and strength, or that of your team or organization, by ignoring the importance of mentorship.

Mentoring is a powerful tool and experience.  Both the mentor and the mentee can gain from the relationship, with each side walking away more refined and better prepared for having partaken in, and extracted advantages from, the relationship.

In order to avoid its underestimation, the mentoring relationship should not be seen as an arrangement in which the mentee and mentor are assigned and the mentee is merely learning and gaining new information from the mentor. There’s more to it than that.

Through mentoring, there is not only a transfer of knowledge regarding the environment from one…

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In Your Leadership: How Do You Help Others Articulate Their Ideas? Part 2

April 20, 2018By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on In Your Leadership: How Do You Help Others Articulate Their Ideas? Part 2

Continued From Part 1

Leadership Lesson: How do you use the questions here to help bring out what other people are thinking and what they can contribute?

Ideas may exist in people who surround you, untapped, ready for the taking.

They can be harnessed from knowledge others are holding onto while they flesh out the details, knowledge they may not even be aware they hold, or knowledge which can be created through the curiosity they hold, which can also be tapped for vision generation.

Ask yourself these questions about how you interact with others to help them articulate their ideas:                                       

Do you…
…stop to converse with others?

This one…

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In Your Leadership: How Do You Help Others Articulate Their Ideas? Part 1

April 13, 2018By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on In Your Leadership: How Do You Help Others Articulate Their Ideas? Part 1

Leadership Lesson: Be able to understand how and what it is you can draw out of other people in the form of ideas and contributions.

One of the top markers of effective leadership is the ability to harness the resources at one’s disposal. That can mean anything from the physical resources of machinery, warehouses, and factories, to the physical work of individuals and teams in companies, to the technical work of strategy execution itself.

But it also means tapping into and harnessing the unutilized portions of people’s thinking — the abstract, the conceptual, and the knowledge which don’t stand at the forefront of their mind’s work or expression. It’s not only what they present and make obvious or explicit that is important but also what they hold that they…

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Your Leadership Wake: How Do You Guide And Support Others?

March 23, 2018By CiOIn To The BossesComments Off on Your Leadership Wake: How Do You Guide And Support Others?

Leadership Lesson: Leadership is about building others, engaging their best, and challenging them toward their best, to build toward a common goal.

This previous post had broken down the power and influence of leadership impact and introduced this series of posts covering where the wake from a leader’s actions can be observed and felt.

It outlined how a leader — or anyone, for that matter — can create and leave behind a positive, exhausting, or neutral experience for those around them, based on how they approach different areas such as collaboration, communication, and expression.

It asked us to consider what a leader leaves in their wake.

This post is one of many in the series which breaks down a few of the areas in which…

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Your Leadership Wake: How Do You Listen to Others?

February 23, 2018By CiOIn General Leadership, To The BossesComments Off on Your Leadership Wake: How Do You Listen to Others?

Leadership Lesson: You can’t lead if you don’t listen to your people or your environment. They see and know what you don’t. Get in the habit of listening.

This previous post had broken down the power and influence of leadership impact and introduced this series of posts covering where the wake from a leader’s actions can be observed and felt.

It outlined how a leader — or anyone, for that matter — can create and leave behind a positive, exhausting, or neutral experience for those around them, based on how they approach different areas such as collaboration, communication, and expression.

It asked us to consider what a leader leaves in their wake.

This post is one of many in the series which breaks down a…

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