leading teams

Leadership Meditations for 2018
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Leadership Meditations for 2018

Here are twelve leadership meditations for 2018.  I coupled them with photographs of scenes in my favourite place, Newfoundland and Labrador.  Most of these meditations I have created or amassed over the years, some I know I heard elsewhere but can’t remember the source.. I apologize in advance if you have heard any of them before, but I truly believe they are all worth sharing and reflecting on.  I hope that you enjoy these meditations, and that they help you have a successful chapter on your leadership journey in 2018.  I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2018!

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Remarks to Atlantic Director Education Event November 2, 2017
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Remarks to Atlantic Director Education Event November 2, 2017

Last week I had the great pleasure of speaking to a conference at the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.  The event was for Atlantic Canadian Alumni of the Directors Education Program from the Institute of Corporate Directors, and was on the topic of Governance and Disruption.

There were a lot of ‘big questions’ being debated in the room, particularly around the paradoxes that are arising in being a Director in times of such uncertainty and change.   The role of management and of Directors is changing, and every firm needs to think about how they are managing the interrelated areas of Innovation, Disruption, Customer Behaviour Change, and Technology Evolution – and the impacts of all of these on both the strategy and risk profile of a firm.

It was extremely refreshing to see such energy around the evolution of good governance! Bravo to the Institute of Corporate Directors, The Sobey School of Business, and the Atlantic Canada Directors Education Alumni for putting together such a great event!

My session in particular was around the steps that Directors need to take to ensure good  strategy and good governance in these times of disruption.   I thought I’d share my slides from the event here…obviously there was a lot of dialogue that went with the slides – so feel free to ask me any questions that you may have…

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Are you a label maker?

ImageRecently I was called for a reference and was asked for the “one word that best described the candidate”. One word?, I thought. How can I possibly encapsulate all the power and potential of this person in just one word? And worse, once I say whatever word I pick, will it be affixed in the other person’s mind forever? What if I get it wrong?

I don’t know if we’re all born with an overzealous need to organize everything, but I have noticed we seem to have a keen need to label ourselves, and the people around us.

Through our lives we collect a series of labels. These labels are hewn from inputs from all over: descriptions put on report cards by first grade teachers; off-handed comments by teenage friends; feedback from your first work supervisor; a comment thrown out in a heated discussion with a loved one… the sources are endless!

We seem to latch on to these labels and they frame a basis for how we see ourselves. Sometimes they even drive our behaviour in terms of prescribing how we act in the future. In many ways we are what we believe about ourselves, and equally dangerous we see others in the context of the labels that we have heard affixed to them.

These labels put opaque lenses on our observations, colouring our impressions of what we see in others. And they can actually be self-fulfilling prophecies that influence the opportunities people are given, and the interpretation of their work.

In building teams it is important that we not encapsulate our team members in labels that limit their ability to stretch and to bring the full extent of their contribution to the table. Putting labels on people, or on ourselves, allows us to organize the team into a nice little arrangement in our mind – yet it also restricts the full range of contribution that the team members can bring.

By labelling someone with a functional expertise you run the risk of ignoring his or her great ideas outside of that specific area. By labelling someone with a certain personality trait you ignore other parts of his or her personality or needs. By labelling someone with a certain competency you can ignore the many other competencies that they have, or that they can develop if given the opportunity. Similarly, when you label yourself you restrict your innovation and your willingness to step out of your ‘label zone’ and stretch yourself to your maximum.

This call was a gentle reminder to myself to avoid the trap of assigning neat little labels on myself or on others…because nothing is more limiting than that.

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