Tag: Leadership
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Observations: Sea Stories
Admiral William McRaven (Ret) shares some insightful lessons learned from his wild life. Admiral William McRaven (Ret) is one of the most fascinating modern-day military leaders. A career Navy SEAL officer, he commanded numerous elite units and performed key roles in critical missions all around the world. Most notoriously, he oversaw the daring Operation NEPTUNE…
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Observations: The Checklist Manifesto
Even experts skip or forget important steps. I recently finished reading Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto and thoroughly enjoyed it. Having worked professionally in a field where checklists are a fundamental concept, it was good to have it validated by someone outside of my expertise. He starts by assuming that there are two general types of errors:…
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The Board of Directors
Spirituality and resilience isn’t always about your church. This concept is from the U.S. Air Force’s “Comprehensive Airmen Fitness” resiliency program. My examples and uses are my own. When we come to hard decisions in life, everyone has a variety of techniques to deal with them. One of the most common is to talk to…
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Observations: David and Goliath
Malcolm Gladwell explores the David and Goliath trope, revealing that maybe we’ve been learning the wrong lesson. Most of us in Western culture have heard the story of David and Goliath since our early childhoods. It has arisen as a common trope to describe an underdog rising up and obliterating their opponent – and all expectations. Malcolm…
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Superstars versus Rockstars
Fostering both professional growth and personal growth to build a balanced team. If you’ve read my Top 5: Leadership Books, you already know that my number one is Kim Scott’s Radical Candor. Her overarching thesis is that for and your team to succeed professionally, you must care about each other personally. Doing so allows for a substantially more productive feedback cycle,…
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Recording Your Own Classes (on a Mac)
How do we improve our team from home? Record your own classes! On occasion, I have recorded my own classes for my teammates on effective communication. I had a lot of fun learning how to do it and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to do with a modern laptop in your home.…
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Observations: Dare to Lead
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt Lessons Learned is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.…
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Teleworking is Hard
Whoever thought working from home was easy never listened to that stay-at-home parent. How do we prevent teleworking burnout? Let’s face it: teleworking sounds amazing. Roll out of bed late, leisurely enjoy your breakfast and coffee, get in some exercise, and get to work. Finish up early and still have plenty of time to catch…
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The Eisenhower Box
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower President Dwight D. Eisenhower was an incredibly productive man. Over the course of his life, in addition to serving two terms as the 34th President of our country, he also served as General of the Army (the rare five-star general)…
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Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose
Why Daniel Pink is on to something with his 2011 book, Drive. In 2011, Daniel Pink published a great book titled, Drive, which discusses the numerous ways that people are driven in life, their profession, and their passions. His fundamental thesis was that there are three primary elements that contribute to our personal and professional satisfaction: the…
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My Top 5: Leadership Books
Here is a list of the top five books that have made me a better leader. While I have read a lot of books that I can claim have reshaped my problem-solving and leadership approaches, these are the top five that I like to recommend to my teammates. Some of these I have been reading…