HUMANERGY'S LEADERSHIP BLOG
LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS THAT WORK IN THE REAL WORLD
Explore our library of practical tools, tips, and stories. Drawn from decades of coaching leaders and teams.
Explore Humanergy’s leadership blog for proven tools, strategies, and insights to help leaders and teams thrive.
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Alignment: Get it and keep it
It's true for all enterprises, from the "mom and pop" corner store to the global corporation. Alignment at an organizational, team and interpersonal level is necessary to achieve results....
Want innovation?
An article by Krisztina Holly and Jim Clifton in Business Week recently postulated that the answer to our economic woes is to inspire and empower employees to innovate. They challenged leaders to...
Coaching: Four essential elements
What is coaching? A clear definition is a necessary foundation for success - whether you're coaching a group of 8-year-old soccer players or a business executive. Humanergy views coaching as a...
Delegation done right
Delegation isn't just about giving someone else something from your task list (as tempting as that may be). Delegation is really an agreement between two parties, both of whom have responsibilities...
Communicating context
So much of what we try to communicate with others is context - the interrelated facts, conditions and background that give our message its full meaning. Communicating context is tricky....
The lost art of appreciation
"Thanks." "That was excellent work." "I really liked it when you...." We don't say these words often enough. Maybe it's the overdrive mode that most organizations are in these days. What we're...
A great place to work
What response would you get if you asked employees how it feels to work at your organization? "Not bad" or "depends on the day" might be among the answers. Humanergy recently asked its employees...
Meetings: Indispensable or waste of time?
People hate meetings. Or at least they feel strongly enough about them to create a seemingly-endless list of negative quotes about meetings. Here are more of our favorites, this time with a...
Decisions: Are they really logical?
The global economic crisis was created, at least in part, by a tremendous number of bad decisions. Most of these fateful judgments were made by smart, professional people. A few were the result of...
Can you really get away from it all?
Has the recession claimed another victim - the vacation (or as Humanergy's Aussie/Brit contingent says, "holiday")? The American Management Association's newsletter recently featured an article by...
Are you sharing the wealth?
A recent article in the Indianapolis Star titled Sharing the Wealth highlights something that we've always believed - that companies gain loyal employees through respectful practices, enriching job...
Three laws of influence
Influence is at the heart of leadership. To be even a modestly successful leader, you must be able to "sell" your ideas and be open to even better ideas that people bring to the table. The quantity...
Want to influence others?
When we successfully influence, we build solutions that everyone can live with. These solutions don't always come easily, and often people involved must change their thinking and behavior. How much...
How and who do you influence?
There's been a lot of buzz about influence as an essential component of leadership. It's true that with the exception of tyrants and dictators, leaders make most of their impact through...
Is the customer really first on your list?
It's ironic. Focusing on customers, as vital as they are to business success, can be lost in our quest for growth and high performance. It's all too easy to focus on how we can get more customers,...
The role of anger in leadership
A recent Forbes.com article titled How Do You Control CEO Rage? seems like a sign of the times. Stress from the dire economic situation, global competition and high-speed change seems to be...
Achieve more by doing less
It's summer. Time to kick back. Not so for lots of folks who are frantically trying to a) find a job or b) keep a job or c) survive in this hectic, over-scheduled, manically connected world. So,...
Help! I need somebody.
Asking for help just isn't cool. Or manly. Or womanly. At least that is how it seems, since we can be so loathe to do it. Maybe we're afraid to be seen as weak or unable to go it alone. Asking for...
Using questions to drive progress
You're in a meeting discussing an important issue, and you need to make a decision. Bob doesn't offer his opinions, but he does ask a lot of questions. Bob thinks, "Hey, this is great. My questions...
Microinequities: the small stuff counts
You're talking to your husband, and he picks up his BlackBerry and sends a text. The service representative rolls her eyes when you give her a request. These and other slights might not seem like...
Coaching for great performance
With every business feeling the effects of this tough economic climate, effective coaching of your people is critical to give you the edge on the competition. This is true for both helping employees...