How to tell someone they're doing a lousy job
The most supportive and psychologically safe culture won’t keep teammates from doing a lousy job and making a mess of things. Here's what to do about it.
Do you need to fire someone?
If you’re wondering if you need to fire someone, the answer is yes. You’ve probably already waited too long, and you’d be better off right now if they had been fired a while ago.
Beloved Leadership #7 - Prototype Early and Often
Practice #7, prototype early and often, feels like a specific method for deconsolidating rights to design (practice #1).
Beloved Leadership #6 - Trust there is Time
The classic adage to “go slow to go fast” means treating time like an abundant resource and not succumbing to the business-as-usual frantic pace and busy everything is urgent culture.
Beloved Leadership #5 - Source from Multiple Ways of Knowing
I know I’m not the only person delighted by articles with footnotes full of references and books with lengthy bibliographies. So much wisdom is missed and suppressed when we go all-in on praise of the written word and exclude other ways of knowing.
Beloved Leadership #4 - Seek Difference
“Seek difference” seems so eye-rollingly simple that I feel like Rimington and Cea are saying it elicits a sigh and commentary on the state of initiatives for expanding demographics within business-as-usual organizations. They clarify that instead, it is “a commitment to continually seek out relevant forms of diversity and create team cultures that effectively engage differences.”
Beloved Leadership #3 - Reckon with History
We often skip the opportunity to deeply process and learn from history. The past is either not worth our time and consideration or so venerated to be beyond reproach (which, for some unknown reason, means beyond examination).
Beloved Leadership #2 - Prioritizing Relationships
Prioritizing relationships does not mean doling out perks, bonuses, or hearty handshakes. It is an intentional move away from the transactional view of relationships that is part of business as usual - dropping the idea that who you know is the pathway to what you want.
Beloved Leadership #1 - Sharing Decision-Making Power
How we lead has a direct impact on what a team or organization can accomplish. I’ve seen far too many leaders un-thoughtfully recreate familiar processes that brought out the worst in their people, and their organizations failed to thrive. In this series of articles, I aim to identify leadership actions that will shift the quality of an organization’s output by evolving how the organization works in seven key ways. To create a beloved organization, you need beloved leadership. This series will dig into what that means in practice.
Leadership that Prevents Conflict
Thinking about managing conflict is draining, and managing conflicts is stressful. Leadership skills that prevent conflict are not a fantasy; you can do it.
Working with (not against) big personalities
Big personalities can be so much fun! Or they can be really tough to navigate. Here are two steps to make working together easier and more productive.
Making Tough Leadership Decisions
One reason hard decisions are hard is because they might negatively impact people around you. Tough decisions might actually hurt people, their feelings, their relationship with you, their life path - through no fault of their own. Avoiding hard decisions or passing the buck doesn’t actually help. (Nor does ramping up your energy to blame others, the circumstances, the state of the world, the fates, your teammates, the past...)
How Popular Leaders Actually Survive the Fury of Unpopular Decisions
Let’s suppose you’re you are (or want to be) both a popular leader and a good one. Being a good leader means sometimes your good decisions are unpopular. You knew it was inevitable, and now it’s happening - your teammates are not happy with your decision. And that’s ok because you are ready for this situation.
Teaching Organizational Culture
In my time cultivating oodles of leaders and leadership teams, it was repeatedly reinforced that paying attention to creating team culture is worth the effort. I’ve seen so many teams latch onto the quirks, foibles or neuroses of their leadership team, for better or for worse - generally for worse.
Discipline without Punishment
Classic models of organizational discipline policy damage work relationships and create a toxic work environment. And, I have yet to meet a leader who is stoked to be the disciplinarian for their team. If you hate how discipline works (or, more likely, how it doesn’t work) at your organization, it’s time to take a look at your discipline policy and come up with something better.
You might be a slightly anti-capitalist leader
I’ve noticed a fascinating theme lately of leaders rebelling against the expectations of capitalist culture. They are not against participating in commerce (they are making money); they are fighting the currents of toxic systems that create toxic organizational culture.