Culture is defined by what your organization is willing to tolerate. In the engineering profession, it can be tempting to let otherwise high-performing individuals get away with bad workplace behavior. The reality is that drama, bullying, poor communication, and general interpersonal carelessness almost always gets in the way of the larger team reaching its true […]
Behavior Is Performance: What Engineering Leaders Miss Read More »
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” ~John F. Kennedy This is what I wrote on the board on my first day in the office, after erasing the detailed instructions to the team from the previous departed leader, whose
Seeing Your Team’s Full Potential — Leadership Turnaround Story Read More »
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~Viktor E. Frankl We’ve all had our moments. The feeling of an overwhelming physical and emotional burden, the feeling of being forced to act more quickly than we
How Leaders Manage Emotional Reactions Under Pressure Read More »
Every strength has multiple facets that can be expressed through either healthy, or unhealthy behaviors. Both the healthy and unhealthy expressions are two sides of the same coin–you cannot focus on surgically and completely removing your faults without suppressing your strengths, minimizing key elements of what make you who you are. While settling into a
Leadership Strengths Have a Dark Side | How to Dial Them In Read More »
One of the key game-changers for me as a leader was implementing a practice of waiting 3-4 seconds before responding in a conversation, no matter how badly I wanted to jump in. That short time window made space for entire conversations and learning opportunities that never would have manifested otherwise. That window left space open
Active Listening for Leaders | The 3-Second Rule Read More »
I had a chance to see “Becoming Led Zeppelin” yesterday–great movie about an iconic band! I remember picking up a guitar as a teenager and scouring the internet for tabs to learn Led Zeppelin songs. “When the Levee Breaks” is still one of my all-time favs. There was a quote that stood out to me
What Makes a Great Engineering Team | The Intangible Factor Read More »
A conductor leads a team of musical experts to perform beautiful and complex masterpieces. He provides enough direction to the team as a whole so that each member knows their place in relation to others, the timing and rhythm of execution, and where the team as a whole is headed. Can you imagine if a
The Conductor Model for Engineering Leaders Read More »
Leadership coaches often utilize assessments to kick off a coaching engagement and provide useful context around further conversations with their clients. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has been scientifically proven to have an even stronger correlation with leadership effectiveness than Intelligence Quotient (IQ), and anecdotally, high emotional intelligence has been the strongest indicator of success that I
EQ-i 2.0 Assessments | A Game-Changer for Engineering Leaders Read More »
