Two years ago, when I finally sat down to write The Journey of Not Knowing: How 21st Century Leaders Can Chart a Course Where There Is None, I had no idea what lay ahead. No doubt I was living my own creed of living in the unknown. Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird, the […]
My Elliptical Life: Three Ways to Ground Yourself to Lead in Chaotic Times
By Julie Benezet Two years ago, my doctor told me to face facts: if I continued to run, my knees would turn into sponge cake, or words to that effect. Feeling the sponginess already coming on, I begrudgingly doffed my running shoes and moved into the gym. There I made the acquaintance of the elliptical […]
How are Mindfulness and Executive Presence Related: Four Principles to Follow
Two years ago, when I first wrote about mindfulness and executive presence, it was near impossible to live in the modern world and not to have seen the barrage of articles, books, blogs, conferences and weekend retreats devoted to the topic of mindfulness. The barrage continues, only it no longer talks about mindfulness. Instead, it […]
If You Want People to Step Up, You Must Get Off the Step: Three Key Things to Make Leadership Succession Happen
A familiar lament heard among senior leaders these days is, “I can’t get my leadership team to propose, let alone champion new ideas to beat our competition and attract new customers. They just submerge themselves in ongoing projects and leave me to do the heavy lifting.” Whether the comment comes from senior leaders of mature […]
The Morning After November 8, 2016: The Journey of Not Knowing Shifts into Overdrive
Last June I wrote a piece on Brexit (The Insularity of Anger,” June 27, 2016) in Great Britain and how the voters for Brexit grew out of the disenfranchisement of many Britons who felt their country had failed to protect their jobs and economic security. At the time, I made the analogy to Trump supporters […]
The Heresy of Change: How Self-Knowledge Empowers Leaders to Move Up, or On
Is there something in the water that heralds different thinking? Over my entire working life, I have listened to leaders as clients, colleagues and friends talk about their careers, what they want from them and what struggles they face. Those all are normal attributes of executive life. In the last month, a recurrent theme surfaced […]
The Insularity of Anger: Brexit and the Barrier to Change
As I watch mesmerized at the fallout from the Brexit results I can’t help thinking about the power of anger and how it insulates people from its impact. In today’s landscape there seems to be no shortage of anger and its omnipresence is deadening forward movement by leaders and their constituents. The “Leave” voters in […]
Leading Collaboration: It’s About Connecting, Not Calm
You have decided that collaboration is an important company value and critical to its culture. However, what does that mean in practice to a leader? Consider the following scene: Leader: Okay, how are we doing on the Xerxes project? Engineer, how is the programming going? Engineer: It’s going, but it would go a whole lot better if […]
The Power of Empathy: What We Don’t Know Won’t Help Us
“I know I have to work for him,” complains a young leader. “He runs our company but he seems so judgmental. Whenever we talk he just looks at me levelly as if waiting for me just to go away. That’s a problem when I need him to approve the restructuring of our group.” “What do […]
