May 2 Leadership Webinar: Are You Frustrating Your Team?

Are you frustrating your teammates without even realizing it? In our next leadership webinar, we’re going to take a deep dive into how we can be more effective – and less frustrating – leaders in the following three areas: meetings, your availability, and decision-making roulette.

Is it your colleague or leader who’s challenged in one of these areas? Then we’ll give you guidance on how to work better with them. You won’t want to miss this next webinar!

Complimentary Webinar – Quit Frustrating Your Team
Thursday, May 2 at Noon Eastern / 11 a.m. Central / 9 a.m. Pacific
Taught by Linda Sasser, CEO, Impacting Leaders
Click Here to Register Now!

Indecision is better than risking the wrong decision, right? Well, if you’re dismantling a bomb or performing brain surgery, maybe. But, in the day-to-day of business, there are few upsides to dragging out your decision. (more…)

Each month several leaders within our organization get together to learn about and discuss a different leadership-related topic. This month our conversation veered to how quickly we respond to the needs of our team, and one leader volunteered to share a self-admitted failure when she took too long to take action on behalf of one of her star performers who was having some technology issues. (more…)

Discernment: a beautiful gift that can bring value to so many in our wake! But what exactly is discernment?

We’ve all heard leadership experts talk a lot about knowledge and wisdom, but we seldom discuss the value of discernment. I think it’s because it so hard to explain, figure out and teach… if it can even be taught. (more…)

I had a great discussion with one of my leaders in her growth review a couple weeks ago. She told me she wanted to get better in her consistency, that is, she wanted to be sure she was treating the employees she was leading equally.

It turns out that what she was referring to was fairness. I blogged on the topic of fairness a few years ago. When we treat our employees fairly, we allow every one of them the opportunity and freedom to perform by providing them with training, coaching, and candid feedback.

If I let you leave two hours early for an appointment one day without taking PTO because you have an appointment and you’re caught up on your work, then I’m fair. And if I don’t permit you to leave early without taking PTO because you’re consistently behind on your work, then, again, I’m also being fair. (more…)

For some, leading others comes naturally. For others, it’s something we have to intentionally work at. Regardless of how you’ve come to lead others, leading must come from your core.

In a recent one-on-one with an emerging leader, I questioned her on a decision that she made that wasn’t to my liking. Her response was, “Well, I didn’t feel good about it, but I know that it has been done that way before.”

I put this young leader in the position she is in, not because of her experience, but because of her core. I need, want, and expect her to make decisions from her core. I trust her core more than some of the old legacy policies that have been in place. Because she didn’t tap into her core, I didn’t get her best. (more…)

In our typically hectic lives, consistency often seems like an admirable but unrealistic character trait. Sure, we grin at the endearing consistency of generations before us. My grandparents were of a generation that you could set your watch by! But in today’s world? Nah! Consistency simply isn’t realistic! Or is it? (more…)

There are so many things that technology has made easier nowadays, and sometimes I wonder if it’s made us a little lazy too. Not intentionally “I just want to lay on the couch and watch TV all day” lazy, but the kind of laziness that you don’t even realize has crept up on you, especially when you’re working 10+ hour days and running from 6 a.m. in the morning until 10 p.m. at night. Who you callin’ lazy?!

Well, what I’m talking about is laziness in our thinking! When we get lazy with our thinking, we put the burden on someone else to do the thinking for us. Here a few ways I see it happening (and I’m sure I’ve been guilty myself!) and what you can do to avoid lazy thinking: (more…)

We’ve all asked (aloud or silently) the same question about our boss, or the department vice president, or the CEO at one time or another: What is he/she thinking??!!

Well, the odds are the leader spent a good deal of time considering their options before making their decision. However, when you aren’t privy to your leader’s thought process and all the details and factors that go into a decision, some decisions can seem bewildering. And then there’s the unfortunate reality that even when a lot of thought goes into a decision, occasionally it still ends up being the wrong one…or so we think.

So, what do you do now? Here are recommendations for both leaders and teammates when decisions from the top just don’t make any sense. (more…)

I had a great conversation with a leader last week. He was discussing his successes as well as his challenges in business, and he shared a great insight that he’d come to realize: for quite some time, he’d been leading out of fear.

I understood what he was talking about. I’ve been there. Maybe you have too. (more…)