Leadership Skills

How Cognitive Dissonance Helps and Hurts Your Change Efforts

Change is tough. We know that. Personal change, professional change, and organizational change can each be overwhelming. Especially when change is led by someone who doesn’t...

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5 Things That Plans Are Good For

Plans aren’t good for everything, and the complexity of a plan is inversely related to the success of its corresponding actions. Here are 5 things that...

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3 Lenses to Build Self-Awareness

Daniel Goleman, in his ground-breaking book*, showed us three lenses or perspectives to consider when increasing self-awareness: Emotional Self-Awareness: Labeling one’s own emotions and measuring their...

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Increasing Empathy Skills in Conversation

Ever had that conversation that didn’t go as planned? Okay. That’s an easy question. Ever had that conversation where there was an underlying tension? The words...

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Management, Unlike Leadership

In yesterday’s episode, A Brief History of Management, I posed a series of questions without providing answers. I’d like to offer a few bullets to encourage...

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10 Obstacle Tackling Traits

In yesterday’s post, I shared 10 obstacles teachers face that limit their effectiveness and productivity. Here’s the list of 10 school leadership traits that take away...

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10 Obstacles Teachers Face

There are many obstacles and challenges to overcome. Here are 10 obstacles your teachers face. More importantly, these are 10 obstacles you can have a direct...

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Learning to Be Confident

For some of us, it’s probably the hardest thing. Yeah, sure we all have areas of strength where we’re confident. But confidence in decision-making, confidence in...

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Inevitable Results

Many outcomes are inevitable. Many results just happen. Average, for example, just happens. It takes no leadership to get there. Average just occurs. Status quo. Status...

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Team Entropy

Apart from physics, entropy is defined as a lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder. Entropy is a natural part of working as a...

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Managing Up

In the recent Mafost Mashup episode (5 Ways to Jump Start Next School Year), I offered 5 strategies and 5 friends offered strategies to really level...

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August Amnesia

It’s coming to a school near you…hopefully, not yours. It’s the “what did we say we were going to do” syndrome. My gut says everyone in school...

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Research on Empowerment

In a very thorough study, researchers (see link below) outlined the benefits of empowerment in the workplace. What I found interesting in the study was how...

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When Groupthink Takes Hold

James Stoner conducted a study in 1961 about people in groups. It has been replicated hundreds of times since then. In the 1970s, Yale researcher Irving...

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Fear, Criticism, and the Real Monster

In a conversation about risk-taking, creativity, and failure, the question was asked, “Risk-takers have to be comfortable with failure as a potential consequence. How do leaders...

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