Posts Tagged ‘Crisis’

In Times of Crisis, Do You Make it Better or Worse?

Friday, April 1st, 2011

When chal­leng­ing news hits, do your emo­tions rise? Does your tone and inten­sity kick up a notch? Do your actions become more fran­tic and fast paced?

If so, you are prob­a­bly mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion worse.

When you are a leader, the peo­ple around you will mir­ror your response. In a time of cri­sis, you must have the best think­ing from everyone.

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Keeping Your Perspective

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

We all fight bat­tles at some point in our lives and careers, and some of these strug­gles can last a long time. Lengthy bat­tles cause weari­ness. Over time, weari­ness erodes our con­fi­dence. When we lose con­fi­dence, we can eas­ily lose our perspective.

When a leader loses per­spec­tive for too long, it can be terminal.

So what should one do who finds them­selves tired, fear­ful, and con­fused? Here are 5 sug­ges­tions for those of you who might be trapped in this very uncom­fort­able place right now.

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Reboundability

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

I had the oppor­tu­nity to work with one of our favorite clients last week in Den­ver. Our team orga­nized and led a two day expe­ri­ence for their top per­form­ing man­agers and sales force. It was a won­der­ful time.

Won­der­ful, that is, once I arrived.

I will spare you the brunt of my travel woes, but my day involved can­celled planes, standby, and an arrival just 3 hours after the event started. Slightly stressed (or just a bit more than slightly), I made it to the site with just 15 min­utes to spare before I was to speak on Coach­ing Leadership.

It was at this event that I learned about the term “rebound­abil­ity”. After my pre­sen­ta­tion, I was talk­ing to a few of our clients and I shared about my day’s mishaps. This is when our friend and client Melanie Nygren shared this idea of reboundabilty.

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Bifocal Vision Required

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Bi-Focal Vision - Optometry MachineIn chal­leng­ing times, most lead­ers spend the major­ity of their time play­ing defense.  This means time spent review­ing cash flow, sales reports, and finan­cials so they can make the best reac­tive and tac­ti­cal deci­sions in order to sur­vive.  Cost cut­ting, expense con­trol, layoffs…..ugh! 

Deal­ing with these very real sce­nar­ios can really bring a leader down.  And the unfor­tu­nate thing is that, if he spends too much time each day focused on these activ­i­ties for too long, he and his team will begin to lose sight of why they do what they do.  They will lose sight of the mis­sion, they will no longer see oppor­tu­nity, and they will lose hope. 

Ulti­mately, if the leader has both eyes down on the data, the organization’s health and cul­ture will suffer.

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