Fascinating research recently from McKinsey shows that employers are going beyond burnout and stress to consider employee well-being more holistically, including different factors that impact holistic employee wellbeing and how predictive each factor is to overall health. Leaders are well-aware they need to cultivate psychological safety and a sense of belonging in their teams; it is refreshing to see these factors correlated to well-being. Too often there is tension between performance and employee well-being. The distinctions between which factors are org vs. team vs. role vs. individual can ..read more

Coaching the team as a whole, not just individuals, is becoming a key leadership skill. Team coaching, whereby you use coaching practices in team meetings, has parallels to the same practices which foster team psychological safety including developing strong collaborative relationships amongst team members; coaching the team to solve problems collectively and using an inquiry/Socratic approach to help them think differently about challenges; and seeing failures as learning opportunities and creating a culture where failing is okay (with frequent post-mortems asking "what did we learn?"). All o ..read more

In order to understand team engagement & motivation, Google asked 180 teams: What is most important for team performance? The top responses included: making an impact, having meaning, role clarity and structure, and dependability of others. But the #1 response was psychological safety; that team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other. Neuroscience informs this idea of psychological safety in teams. In fact, one of the most exciting developments in leadership coaching has been the rise of neuroscience-based research which provides insight int ..read more

Research shows that the first five minutes of your workday are critical to how effective the rest of your day is.  When you first arrive at your office, what do you do? A strong start to the work day includes 5 minutes of planning the day ahead. Even if your schedule is set well in advance, it can be helpful to take a few minutes when you fist sit down at your desk to plan and anticipate the rest of your day. Think about key decisions you need to take, and organize a priorities list for the day. Rearrange any meetings that aren’t critical. Build in preparation time to key meetin ..read more

In an earlier post, I wrote about research showing that the most effective leaders go beyond time management skills to use high-performing habits throughout their workday. These are meaningful at work, and yet, the activities that impact our effectiveness do not end when we go home. In fact, the habits we create during our “off-work hours” can be some of the most impactful on our focus, creativity, resilience and physical and mental energy – all of which we need in large supply to successfully navigate the the average workday.  Many of us tend to downplay how much time we are willing to g ..read more

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review presented research that shows that the effective leadership performance is based less on skill in leadership competencies, and more on discrete, daily routines that are utilized to drive personal and organizational effectiveness.  In other words, the most effective leaders have strong daily habits for themselves and their teams. Over time, these habits lead to higher performance. My work in working with senior leaders supports that idea. Habits might include time management practices for personal effectiveness, but in most organizations, hig ..read more

In a recent coaching conversation with a senior executive, he started our session by expressing frustration with casual chit-chat at the beginning of meetings. He has an extensive to-do list which never gets shorter, and often works long hours, so getting down to business is a priority for him. He considers his strengths to be his ability to execute effectively and quickly, and to be someone who is reliable, trustworthy and competent. These qualities are meaningful leadership traits and important to his work in strategy and finance. However, there is a flaw in this leader’s thinking about how ..read more

Research shows that energy management is the “new” time management – it’s not just about the number of hours in the day you create, it is about the quality of those hours, and how you manage your energy.   Energy management is about cultivating the whole leader, taking into account sleep, proper diet, exercise and time for socializing, creativity and strategic thinking.  Energy management is hard because we usually think in terms of time spent, not energy. For most of us, we think that the time we spend “not doing something” is not going to help us in that particular moment or that w ..read more

The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace by Lindsay Pollack. Great insights & tips on creating, and working in, a diverse engaging workforce. Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up by Jerry Colonna. Easy to read, and full of engaging stories, this book looks at psychological traumas that we all carry around and how they can get in our way - and how to get them out of the way. Humble Inquiry by Edgar H. Schein. A simple and clear book on communication and relationship-building through inquiry.  Full of wisdom.  High Output Management by Andr ..read more

Giving effective feedback is something that very few leaders do well. Effective feedback includes positive feedback to let someone know they are doing a good job, as well as constructive feedback to improve performance.  In fact, research shows that giving both kinds of feedback is critical to developing your talent, and the ideal praise-to-criticism ratio is 5:1. In other words, effective teams need a little negative feedback to stay on course and avoid complacency, but they also need 5 times more positive reinforcement to stay motivated and driven to do their jobs. Most l ..read more