Tag Archives: leader

Get Clear, Manage to Lead

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 →

Executive Transition, Job Search, People Matters

Transition Plan for CEOs

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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.

Continue reading Transition Plan for CEOs →

Manage to Lead

How Top CEOs Manage Their Time

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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 →

Get Help, Manage to Lead

Six reasons every leader should join a peer group.

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Peer group iconEvery leader stands to benefit from the opportunity to meet monthly in a professionally facilitated session with about a dozen non-competitive peers who are in similar roles, in similar organizations, and at a similar stage of evolution.

Leaders who make the one decision to join, as long as they show up, get six distinct benefits that are hard to achieve any other way:

  • Leaders can be genuinely open to input and be vulnerable, even wrong, in front of each other; no need to put on airs or skirt around the hard stuff.
  • Peers really know and understand each other, personally and professionally, and the challenges each faces in meeting associated goals; feelings of loneliness and depression are less common among participants.

Continue reading Six reasons every leader should join a peer group. →

Finance Matters

Ten Lessons on Selling a Company.

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Selling a company is a heady experience. The wise CEO knows, though, that many things can go wrong and that it pays to study what makes some transactions go well and others fall apart. Here are ten tips consolidated from personal experience on both sides of many deals that, while they may not guarantee success, if followed increase the odds of a good result:

  • Know what you seek in terms of price and role.  Do not be wishy-washy and do not get greedy; once you have what you want, take it!
  • Manage the sale like a project. Plan, staff, organize, guide, and govern it well. It takes a team of internal (CEO, CFO, CTO, etc.) and external (corporate lawyer(s), employment lawyer(s), banker(s), analyst(s), investor(s), etc.) players. Assign a leader of the inside team and a leader of the outside team to coordinate with each other. Consciously, purposefully, and thoughtfully deploy yourself and others from both inside and outside the organization to cover all the bases.

Continue reading Ten Lessons on Selling a Company. →