How to Win the Battle Within Recently, while reading a piece by Marshall Goldsmith, I was reminded of a very insightful principle one of my early coach/mentors taught me. During one of our sessions in the “Rare Book Room” at Eastern University, Dr. Harold Howard described to me the inner battle we all have. The battle goes like this… in the morning I plan to do a bunch of things that are important to me… finish my A tasks (back then we planned our days with paper and pen using an organizational system much larger than my current laptop), start three new B tasks, write 5 thank you notes, spend 30 minutes doing my MBWA (management by walking around) activities, etc. Then my day happens… and of course, I only accomplish, if I am having an awesome day, half of my plan. What happened? What happens most days? Well, Harold described what Marshall calls the planner and the doer in all of us. The planner is wide-eyed and believes you can do so much and starts the day with vigor. The doer…
Supercharge your leadership by fostering gratefulness If you did a fully anonymous 360 review and all those who report to you, and your peers, completed the survey, would they all say “wow, she is the most exciting and engaged leader I have ever worked for or known”? OK, so very few leaders would achieve this level and yet, those of us who take up the mantle of leadership want our team to passionately follow our lead and bring energy to our mission. The mountain of material on leadership is impressive. There certainly is no shortage of research, scholarly writing, and opinion writing on the topic. I applaud those of you who are willing to be in the arena of leadership and who regularly read and apply the latest thinking to your craft. Leadership is personal! Leadership can be bloody. Oh, you know what I mean, people judge your every move, they critique your words, your tone, how you walk, who you spend time with, who you do not spend time with, how y