Leadership / Management
Leading in a Crisis: Five Lessons from the Almeda Fire
Blog Post – The View from the Treehouse
Well, I thought I’d come to terms with living life out of control. Crises surround us: a pandemic, a tanked economy, lawless politics. I had accepted having power over basically nothing beyond doing the laundry and making sure we loaded the dishwasher on time. Seated in my home office for another shelter in place day, I learned how to overcome isolation…
THINK! Change Depends on It
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
The New Year dawns and with it comes the urge for change—a change of exercise routine, a change of job, a change of wine intake, a change of administration. No matter what change you choose, as soon as you finger it, you want it to happen. Now. Pounds should automatically melt away because you finally renewed the gym membership and bought new shorts. Your dream of a different job will lead directly to one being offered…
The Leadership Life Is Messy: 5 Ideas to Address the Mess
Article – Training Industry
The training profession excels at order. After all, its function is to provide clear principles and tools for people to learn the skills they need to succeed in their jobs. Trainers explain best practices, list the steps to achieve them and lead practice exercises. This approach has succeeded since education was born, and it undoubtedly will continue…
Leading Your Leader: 5 Steps to Manage Up and Move Up
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
You dreaded this moment, and yet it has arrived. The leader to whom you report has launched another initiative to pursue a new client that has everyone charging down the wrong road. How do you know? You have been down that road before and what you found at the end of it was not pretty. Your manager appears bent on his objective. He also seems to have lost his hearing, not to mention his memory…
Defining Roles and Responsibilities
Article – The ZWEIG Letter
Knowing who does what, who needs to weigh in, and who makes the final decision is critical to success…
7 Ways for Business Leaders to Successfully Navigate and Overcome the Unknown
Article – Chief Executive
This can impede a leader’s ability to focus forward and make progress. To overcome such challenges, here are 7 ways leaders can face the future in a world of divisive politics, shifting expectations and constantly looming unknowns…
The Heresy of Change: How Self-Knowledge Empowers Leaders to Move Up, or On
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
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…
If You Want People to Step Up, You Must Get Off the Step: Three Key Things to Make Leadership Succession Happen
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
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.”…
Why Succession Plans Don’t Happen
Article – Training Industry
The training and development community cares deeply about building new leadership talent. Nothing is more important to an organization’s future than ensuring that it will be well led into the future. But what happens if the organization has no plan for leadership succession?…
DON’T ADVISE, ACT!
Article – The ZWEIG Letter
Mentors do not fight for candidates’ advancement opportunities. That is the job of champions…
Leadership as a Mindset, Not a Job Description
Article – GlobeSt.com
How does an organization cultivate the next generation of leaders? Leadership expert Julie Benezet discusses why it’s not as easy as it seems in this EXCLUSIVE GlobeSt.com interview…
The Risky Business of Leadership: Four Mileposts on the Road to Building a Leadership Mindset
Article – Training Industry
Leading is not easy. If it were, more people would do it, and do it well. Yet, never have we needed leadership more than in the chaos of our modern, hyper-connected world. Without a doubt, we could use the guiding lights of more leadership talent…
Making Change Happen: Three Ways Coaches Can Help Lead the Charge
Article – Training Industry
I became an executive coach by accident while having coffee with a friend who needed to talk about an issue with his business partner…
Promote Risk-Taking
Article – The ZWEIG Letter
For the next generation of leaders to be successful, they’ll need a mindset sculpted by strategy, new ideas, and a willingness to embrace the unknown…
Your Baby Is Ugly
Article – The ZWEIG Letter
Successful leaders have to be able to deliver tough messages. Use these six strategies to navigate difficult conversations…
How to Say No
Article – The ZWEIG Letter
Leading a successful organization takes the courage to try new ideas, weather many storms, and know how to say no…
Leadership and the Unknown: Looking Under the Hood
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
Success for a leader requires embracing the unknown. Only by seeking out new ideas can leaders reach new strategic directions for their organizations. That is, after all, the job description of a leader. By their very nature, new ideas are untested. You will not know how they will turn out until you have tried them. In short, the future of your ideas lies in the unknown…
The ‘strategy thing’
Article – Julie Benezet
Can strategic thinking be learned? Sure, if you know where to start and are mindful of the mileposts along the way…
Operational Issues Can Be Your Greatest Asset: DUAL SCREEN MANAGEMENT®
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
Most executives view the countless daily operational issues they face as negative and a drag on the business. These problems certainly can be a hassle and hurt the bottom line. What most executives miss, however, is the opportunity these everyday problems offer to improve their company’s long-term strategic growth…
Invest in Developing Your High Potential Talent
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
Leadership is not a job that one just takes on knowing what to do. In fact, the nature of leadership is taking on challenges where their results most often are not known. To move out of the relative comfort of project and deal delivery, you have to move into the risky world of the unknown. For many, including your high potential talent, moving into that place is not an easy traverse…
6 Ways to Lead Successful Execution of Fresh Ideas
Blog Post – A View from the Treehouse
You have heard them all, and then some: There are no bad ideas. The road to success is paved with failures. To win we have to innovate. Let’s think outside of the box… The list goes on. At the crux of said list lies the idea that to succeed in the 21st Century you have to keep trying new things to please and attract new customers…
Former Director of Global Real Estate for Amazon Shares Leadership Lessons
Article – Jacksonville Daily Record
Almost two decades before Amazon.com Inc. opened its Jacksonville fulfillment centers, Julie Benezet walked into its Seattle offices to begin her job as its director of global real estate…
Mastering Business Development
Article – The ZWEIG Letter
For many leaders, business development resides outside their core competencies and comfort zone, to their firm’s detriment…
Here They Come!
Article – The ZWEIG Letter
Approximately 10,000 baby boomers will retire every day over the next decade. By 2030, millennials will comprise three-quarters of the U.S. workforce…
That Accountability Thing: Where Leaders Go to Hide
Article – Training Industry
Leaders love to talk about accountability: the idea that people have to honor commitments and deliver on what they say they will do. It creates order and expectations. It also produces results — that is, when it works. When it doesn’t work, the cause is often leaders who assume the principle doesn’t apply to them…