5 Common Characteristics of Successful Boardroom Meetings

There are few places riper for productive discussions, contentious debate, smart decisions as well as disastrous ones than around the boardroom table. In my experiences both as a participant and an observer in various boardroom discussions over the years, I’ve identified the five most common characteristics of successful meetings around the boardroom table. (more…)

Sometimes I wonder if some leaders truly want to see their people succeed. For example, I see leaders delegate a task to a person on their team or an entire team itself, but instead of providing coaching and support along the way, they watch and criticize in how the individual or team goes about completing the task at hand. (more…)

Confidence and competence: both are essential to our success as leaders. A person can be really good at what they do in part because they are so confident in their abilities and in their plan to move forward.

On the other hand, you can take a person who shares the same level of competence – they have the same skills and strengths – but they lack the confidence. This lack of confidence will limit what they accomplish. (more…)

Pay it forward. The phrase alone makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it? We love it when the car in front of us at the Starbucks drive through “pays it forward” by paying for our cup of coffee, and we, in turn, pay it forward by buying a cup for the car behind us. (more…)

For some reason, positivity often gets a bad rap. In television and film, overly positive people are portrayed as airheads who are clueless as to what’s really going on. A great story around the office is usually one that gets the most laughs by vilifying the boss or rehashing an epic failure. It’s much easier to think of 100 reasons why an idea won’t work than to come up with 10 of why it will.

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As I noted in 5 Actions for Leading a Virtual Team, the Impacting Leaders team is comprised of mostly virtual employees. I asked my team to think about the actions they deem to be essential to success as a member of a virtual team. Here’s what they had to share:
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Trust… it’s difficult to define and impossible to force. Building trust with others is the foundation of success. Trust glues marriages together, bonds friends for life, builds partnerships and connects business men and women. Trust between a leader and a follower impacts lives. (more…)

Last Sunday evening I was watching the Olympics figure skating team event when Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko stepped onto the ice. Evgeni is known as his country’s greatest male figure skater, and this is his fourth Olympics.

As Evgeni performed, one of the commentators said something that caught my attention. She said that Evgeni Plushenko was so great, he had earned the right to be arrogant. (more…)

Should the principles of leadership change over time? Should each new generation of leaders redefine what leading is? It is my belief that the principles should not, and need not, change. Leadership strategy and navigation techniques will change as the conditions demand, but sound principles of leadership do not change over time. What does change, however, is the person who is responsible to lead with those sound principles. (more…)

I’d like to introduce a guest blogger today. Bryan Greenwood is an executive leader at a client of Impacting Leaders. I was so impressed with his New Year message to his team that I wanted to share it with you this week.

As the New Year quickly approaches, it is common for many to self-evaluate and reflect on our accomplishments of the goals we have set for ourselves. During this time of reflection, we inevitably focus on our “successes” and “failures” in reaching these goals. Human nature is a harsh companion as it causes us to generally reflect more on our failures than our successes. (more…)