Members of healthy leadership teams are engaged, committed, and accountable for achieving the collective results of the organization. When I’m conducting a session with a room full of those people, it’s an energizing, productive and rewarding experience. When even one member of the team isn’t properly engaged, it‘s often a long, painful, unproductive day.
In my last post, I referred to “heads-down management,” a term used to describe leaders who duck to avoid inevitable collisions with unpleasant circumstances. In other words, they avoid bad news.
At EOS we coach leadership teams to be open and honest with each other. This means they should be solving business issues without blame and finger-pointing. Proposed solutions to issues should be agenda-free. Leadership teams should have a united front and strive to eliminate politics from the culture. In other words, it’s about having a healthy, functional, cohesive team.
Setback, flop, mistake, screw-up, failure, fiasco, botch or—as I like to think of these things—wonderful opportunities to figure out how not to do something.
The best parenting advice I ever got was to date my kids. For all the parenting mistakes I made, I took this one to heart and to this day I have strong relationships and open communication with my adult children. The idea is simple. I asked for one hour each week and I’d buy (of course). They pick the place and time, they just have to talk…about anything. Their agenda not mine, I just needed to hear what’s going on. My promise was not to lecture.
