Introvert

Introvert and Extrovert: Labels, Not Capabilities

Bob Mason Leave a comment

Introvert or extrovert. Most psychological tests apply this label and in popular definitions, extroverts are seen as outgoing, fun-loving, and gregarious. Introverts are seen as inward-focused, quiet, and maybe even standoffish. The Daedalus Group uses the My HardWired™ Leadership Styles Assessment and like most such instruments, it identifies introversion and extroversion. While this is a legitimate identification, it sometimes leaves people, especially those identified as introverted, with a feeling that…

Secret

Shhh…It’s a Secret

Bob Mason Leave a comment

Do you keep information from your team? How much should you share with them? It’s a topic that always generates lively discussion in our workshops. Many leaders lean toward sharing minimal information; or at least sanitized information. I’ve always appreciated bosses who will tell me what’s going on. I remember years ago during a major multinational military exercise, our commander sent an intelligence analyst to give us lowly aircraft mechanics…

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Responsibility and Accountability: They’re the Same, Just Different

Bob Mason Leave a comment

If you look up the definitions of responsibility and accountability you’ll find they are used interchangeably. But there is a subtle yet important difference between the two words. A good way to separate them is to consider responsibility as ownership of a task, and accountability as ownership of the results. Consider this example. Jack leads a team on which Jill is a member. Jack assigns Jill a task. It’s a…

Graduation

A Word to the Recent Graduate’s New Leaders

Bob Mason Leave a comment

Most of the graduation ceremonies and celebrations are over now. Young people, and some not so young, have rightly celebrated great achievements and are now looking forward to the start of the next phase of their lives. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of speakers have taken to stages around the nation to provide motivational comments about the graduate’s futures. Now that the caps and gowns are put away and the party venues…

Diverse

A Difficult Subject

Bob Mason Leave a comment

In a recent leadership workshop, we had deep discussion about diversity. Participants were looking for answers to an issue leaders face that seems to have no good answer. The conversation centered on two questions: how should a leader view diversity and why does this seem to be such an explosive and often no-win situation? That’s a difficult subject and even such a discussion can be fraught with danger. But it…