Tag Archives: leadership

How to set direction when the leader is not sure where to head next

Leaders set direction, align resources, and motivate action as suggested by the panels in Figure 1.  Another way to put it is that a leader develops, holds, nurtures, communicates, and drives to achieve a vision.

Figure 1: A leader sets direction, aligns resources, and motivates action.
Figure 1: A leader sets direction, aligns resources, and motivates action.

As in Figure 2, it helps to think of the leader holding a map, like Harry Potter’s Marauder’s map that is always changing, making sense of it, and navigating the course with those led looking on over the shoulders. The best leaders constantly check with their top team to confirm that they are headed toward the same goals, in the same way, and for the same reasons.

Figure 2: A leader develops, holds, nurtures, communicates, and drives to achieve a vision.

Top leaders are also always open to input from their core team to tweak goals and plans along the way. Clarity starts with the leader.  If the leader is not clear then no one else can be clear.  A leader either: Continue reading How to set direction when the leader is not sure where to head next

Former student named one of 100 fastest growing inner-city businesses

Alumnus Pete Merzbacher’s Philly Bread Named One of 100 Fastest Growing Inner-City Businesses

“They’ve always been honest with me. They don’t tell me what I want to hear, they tell me what I need to hear…I needed someone to help me through the difficult business problems, and Peter B and Peter D were always there to help.”

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Transition Plan for CEOs

What To Do Between Your Exit and Next Position

We wrote a post about how to make a graceful exit (especially when it’s involuntary) that explored what steps to take when leaving your position. This post is the follow-up that dives into how to identify, assess, and consolidate lessons learned to find the right next job. We’ll explore three key steps to a successful transition plan for CEOs.

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How Top CEOs Manage Their Time

Time Management for Leaders and Aspiring Leaders

After reviewing the draft news release announcing my latest promotion (many years back) and offering her congratulations, our press agent exclaimed with some dismay that: “…now you’ll have even LESS time than ever!”

I remember remarking smartly in reply that she was wrong, and that I still had just as much time as I’d always had. In fact, I had the same amount of time each day that both Da Vinci and Einstein had, and that my job, same as ever, was to make the most of it! Continue reading How Top CEOs Manage Their Time

How to develop leaders, teams, and organizations that perform to their potential.

If you’ve been in charge for a while and it feels like performance and growth are not where you want them to be, you probably know that you are likely headed in the wrong direction.

Every leader, team, and organization eventually hits an inflection point. There IS a solution.

The first step is to take stock of how things are going, why things need to change, and how they would be if things were going well.

A management offsite is an excellent way to engage the top team along these lines. However, to prepare for and facilitate a high-powered executive offsite takes careful planning, data collection, analysis, and design effort.

Approach

Most leaders find it difficult to adequately prepare—assuming they even know how—for their offsite. Further, it is nearly impossible for a leader to facilitate and participate in, let alone also lead, their own offsite. A better strategy is to hire experts who use proven approaches, tools, and methods to prepare and facilitate.

Continue reading How to develop leaders, teams, and organizations that perform to their potential.