The air around us was orange. That was pretty common after a dust storm as a fine powder of sand hung in the air. Through the orange haze, I could see the mechanics going through their morning inspections of the rescue helicopters that sat on alert, ready to rapidly respond… Read More »The Mission: That Others May Live
A very good friend of mine was recently promoted to lead the division in which she has been working for a number of years. She confided in me that in addition to the usual worries about taking a new position was the worry that the person who assumes her old… Read More »Moving up? Let go of the past!
What energizes you? When you’re having one of those days when things aren’t going right and the boss isn’t happy, what do you do? Hopefully, your answer is not to find someone to yell at. Leaders seldom make everyone happy and can count on having bad days. How you handle… Read More »Stress Relief for Leaders
I have a new lady in my life, and my wife approves! My new “lady†is an 8-year old golden retriever we’ve named Katy. She came to us as Savana, but we thought Katy was a better fit. Not that it mattered that we changed this old dog’s name; Savana… Read More »Leadership, Motivation, and a Dog
We were on final for a practice bombing run 300 feet above the Arizona desert going about 540 knots (620 mph). The plane was an F-16D which is a two-seat trainer version of the F-16C Falcon. My back-seater was a flight surgeon logging mandatory air time and who was blissfully… Read More »Four Steps to Leader Awareness – Hard lessons learned from flight operations
Leaders often ask what sort of leadership style is appropriate. Authoritarian or relaxed? Different style for different people or always treat everyone the same? Years ago, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard published their Situational Leadership model, suggesting a leader should adopt a style that is appropriate to a follower’s ability… Read More »What’s the Best Leadership Style
In workshop discussions concerning conflict management, inevitably the subject of dealing with “toxic” individuals comes up. I maintain that if you have toxic individuals on your team, you normally don’t have a conflict problem, you have a values problem. We’ve talked about workplace culture before but, in my experience, few… Read More »Dealing with Toxic Team Members
Employee engagement is a concept that gets a lot of press these days. Leaders wring their hands about low levels of engagement and experts offer all kinds of actions and formulas that will fix the problem. All that angst isn’t really necessary, as engagement is a pretty simple concept. Few… Read More »I Want to be on That Team
I had been a commander of a flying training squadron for a few months. One Monday morning I was getting ready to go into work when the phone rang. I put the phone to my ear and heard, “Where are you?†Have you ever had one of those moments when… Read More »What do you do when you fall short as a leader? (Pictograph)
Have you noticed a lack of social civility these days? Everywhere I look it seems people have self-selected into various camps and are not interested in what anyone else has to say. It seems impossible to have a civilized discussion on anything beyond the weather. This situation is affecting young… Read More »Five Ways to Encourage Conflict on Your Team