Tag Archives: Time management

How Good Leaders Work Well Under Pressure

When I speak at conferences and meetings, every once and awhile I notice one or two people who aren’t participating in the sessions but set up in the hallway or lobby, balancing a phone and laptop and looking grim. If I have a chance to catch up with them later, most often I find it’s a deadline or crisis that’s cropped up unexpectedly.

How Good Leaders Work Well Under Pressure

High-pressure situations can happen anytime, anywhere. Maybe it’s a predictable crunch time that rolls around every quarter or year, maybe a request from an important client on a difficult timetable, maybe an error or an audit or an unexpected staff shortage—or more than one of these together.

Taming the Beast of Employee Distraction Leadership Tips

We live in an age of nonstop distraction. Email pings, social media outlets beckon, news is reported on a 24/7 cycle, and there’s always a new cycle of blogs and websites to catch up on. It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole even after a legitimate work-related search and emerge at the end of the work day having spent much of the afternoon wandering around online. The recent rise of productivity systems isn’t a coincidence—unless you have an extraordinary level of discipline, it’s a real challenge to stay focused.

Taming the Beast of Employee Distraction Leadership Tips

If you’re in charge of a team or an organization, the scope of the challenge is even greater—and the stakes even higher.

3 Time Management Tips for Good Leaders

Ben Franklin understood the importance of time management. In Poor Richard’s Almanac, he writes, “Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough.”

3 Time Management Tips for Good Leaders

We generally think of time management as a day-to-day concern, a way to stay focused so we can cram more to-do items in between meetings. It’s well worth paying attention to, but it’s limited in scope.

Be Where You Are in Leadership

We’re constantly surrounded by reminders to look and plan ahead, to play the long game, to think strategically about where we want to be in five years while also preparing for retirement. That kind of planning is important to building a successful career, without question. But there’s also something to be said for focusing on the here and now.

Be Where You Are in Leadership

The concept of mindfulness, focusing and conscious awareness of the present moment is very important. It’s been found to not only make you more productive but also have health benefits ranging from reduced stress to lower blood pressure.

Balancing Boundaries with Work and Life in Leadership

Work-life balance is an idea that’s getting a lot of attention lately. It’s supposed to be a sign of health and good judgment, a new package for the old concept of “having it all.”

Balancing Boundaries with Work and Life in Leadership

The idea of work-life balance is a great one: By being intentional and firm about boundaries, you can carve out protected time for work, family, friends, and for yourself. It is important to learn when to say, “Yes” and when to say, “No.”

Motivational Leadership: Seize and Enjoy the Moment

Time flies! You know how everyone’s always saying, “seize the moment!”? Of course there are others who say, “the moment seizes us.”

Motivational Leadership: Seize and Enjoy the Moment

Either way, our culture has embedded in us the fear of missing out, or #FOMO as it’s trending now. It drives leaders and employees into continual striving and life with an “every-day I’m hustlin’” mentality.

Leadership 101 from Grandma’s Kitchen

We often think of leadership as something that’s found in boardrooms and executive suites—but that’s a limiting perspective. In truth, examples of great leadership can turn up where you least expect to find them.

Leadership 101 from Grandma's Kitchen

Recently my thirteen year old son had taken his love of pecan pie to the next level by learning to make it for himself. As luck would have it, he has access to the best cook and baker in our part of the world—Grandma, who lives just a few miles down the road from us.

Even a Super Hero Needs a Plan of Attack to Be a Good Leader

Setting the bar high to become a good leader for yourself is not a bad thing; but even Superman needed help from Lois Lane every once in a while.

Even a Super Hero Needs a Plan of Attack to Be a Good Leader

Betsy’s known for her reliability. She’s great at working independently and can be trusted to complete projects that have been assigned to her. Her boss knows that when a last minute task comes up, he can always depend on Betsy to take care of it. In many ways, Betsy is a dream employee, and while she likes being the “go to” gal, she realizes that she’s close to burnout.