When asked about the “best” age for people to receive leadership development, CEOs in one study...
Connect2Lead Leadership Blog
For Leaders at Every Level
Because they have no choice, people submit to managerial authority. Unlike management, when it...
One-size-fits-all doesn’t work when it comes to leadership development. It’s more effective to...
“I don’t know how to lead.” That was the opening line of a recent email from a frontline...
Human capital surveys with senior executives everywhere consistently find that there’s a profound...
In the Gig Economy, Great Resignation, Quiet Quit era, the war for talent is real. Retaining...

When you develop leaders at every level, you strengthen the organization and will significantly...
Don’t wait until it’s too late! It’s never too early to get started with building the skills...
We’ve established that there’s a difference between leadership and management. Understanding that...

In your organization, do you call the people at the tip-top of the org chart “leaders” and use the...
Short-term, tactical, compliance-based, and transactional. That describes the typical HR function....
It’s been said that the senior HR manager should be the CEO’s right-hand. Some think of HR as the...
The HR function is evolving. Yesteryear’s personnel department was compliance- and policy-focused....
The Human Resource function is on the brink of massive change with analytics, data science, AI,...
You’re hiring talented, smart people with the “right” credentials, background and education. So why...
The very nature of the HR role is to look outside the HR function and support people practices...
HR errors are costly, usually preventable, and the responsibility of every management team member...
Making the human resources department a dumping ground for all people-related practices is one of...
It’s been said that some organizations have forgotten the human in human resources. HR problems...
“We hire nice people.” That’s the brand promise of a healthcare company that retails specialty...
Employees are stressed, fragile, and still recovering from all the challenges and life changes...
It happens every day in businesses, big and small, from every sector. An employee fails to deliver...
There are, of course, obvious skills that effective team leaders demonstrate. This isn't a post...
Team camaraderie is attractive. People gravitate to teams where there is synergy, support and...
Guest Blog by Dr. Samineh I. ShaheemWorking in a team is often transformative, exciting and...
I'm encouraged by the number of people who ask how to be a great team player.
The interest in this...
When it comes to harmony in the workplace, it's a lot like ballroom dancing.
There's not a lot of...
What makes for good team effectiveness all comes down to one thing: Empowerment.
Adrift. Alone. Suspended in limbo. Nothing to hang on to. That's how Carmen felt. Sure, she was...
Maybe this sounds basic at first glance. So let's break it down. Effective work teams / place a /...
Effective teams are more than the sum of their talented parts. But reaching the full potential of...
How do you define teamwork?
Have you made teamwork synonymous with terms like "rowing in one...
To improve team communication, note that there's a big difference between effective team...
The fight or flight mechanism is a strong one. As tensions rise, some prepare to do battle. Others...
Healthy team conflict? Yes, it is possible. In fact, it's essential for highly effective teams.
...
As we wrap this CONNECT2Lead series on the 12 Dimensions of Trust, we’d be remiss if we didn’t...
Work from home. The Great Resignation. Record-high levels of employee disengagement, burnout and...
Why are some workplaces so much more laidback yet productive than others? What is it that makes...
Information is currency. In the workplace, people gain trust and earn favor by having the right...
As we proceed through the 12 Dimensions of Trust in this CONNECT2Lead blog series, fostering...
Trust in the workplace is obvious asset. It makes everything easier, life happier, and results...
It’s not automatic. Employees don’t instantly trust their bosses, management teams, or each other....
Have you ever really thought about this: What makes you trustworthy? What makes you trust other...
Earning trust at work is absolutely essential for career success. In environments or relationships...
Once upon a time, people found jobs with a company and stayed in that organization for their entire...
Most folks are surprised to learn that there’s more than honesty and integrity required to build...
When you first meet a new colleague, you have little foundation for trust. Even so, working...
Do you consider yourself to be trustworthy?
Why?
Trust. It’s a loaded word, a misunderstood construct, and a necessity in the workplace. Without...
As we wrap this series, Why Wait to be Great?, there’s one more aspect of personal effectiveness we...
Failure is inevitable. Your response to failure determines whether that failure helps or hurts you.
By now, the Why Wait to Be Great? series has undoubtedly challenged you in some way to step outside...
Have you been dodging a difficult conversation? The kind of conversation that may be uncomfortable,...
Becoming more assertive in a way that improves personal effectiveness mean that you won’t infringe...
Motivation is personal. What drives one person may be unappealing (or even abhorrent) to another....
To be effective, you’ll need to build skills for influencing others.
Influencing others is not the...
It’s impossible to make progress if people don’t trust you. It’s impossible to achieve great things...
As you’re mastering the habits of personal effectiveness, supplement them with the competencies...
As we continue our series on how to unleash your full potential, keep in mind that it’s the little...
Bucket lists, New Year’s resolutions, fitness apps, competitions, KPIs, and grades in school all...
Your personal potential is yours (and yours alone!) to recognize and maximize.
It’s not up to HR,...
Perception matters. Misperceptions, even unfair ones, can be damaging to a career or to healthy...
You can spend a lot of time, energy, and angst focusing on how others perceive you. Worrying about...
Mindset is “the established set of attitudes” you hold. An attitude is “a settled way of thinking...
This series, Why Wait to be Great?, explores how to unleash your full potential. Step one is...
The time is now. There is no point in waiting, no reason to delay. Your greatness is yours (and...
By now, you’ve seen it on company websites and heard it used to describe corporate culture. But...
The Top 10 Fixes for Miserable Meetings series in the CONNECT2Lead Blog is wrapping with this...
Throughout this CONNECt2Lead series about miserable meetings, we’ve introduced best practices for...
The best meetings are inclusive meetings. They elicit contributions from everyone attending,...
The first seven miserable meeting fixes covered in this series have focused on changes to be made...
When scheduling business meetings, there are two prevalent approaches: comparing calendars to...
Too many cooks spoil the broth. This proverb aptly conveys what happens when too many people are...
Let’s start with a shocker: you may not need a meeting agenda.
Not every type of meeting requires...
If you’re constantly trying to shoehorn essential tasks, deep thinking time, and your “real work”...
In part one of the Top 10 Fixes for Miserable Meetings series, we ran the numbers to calculate the...
The chief complaint employees have about meetings is that they’re disorganized. The lack of...
Miserable meetings are a soul-sucking, time-wasting blight in the workplace. If people in your...
If the mere mention of “meetings” makes you recoil, your organization may be making these common...
The answer may surprise you. When it comes to inclusion in the workplace, it’s not just the latest...
Bosses behaving badly in the workplace has some new additions to the list of employee grievances....
Remote working is here to stay, especially if employees have anything to say about it. Studies...
The solution is sensemaking, a critical competency for managers that want to alleviate workplace...
In our mini-series on employee engagement, we’ve covered what it is and why it matters. As we wrap...
No series about employee engagement would be complete without an honest look at how to prevent...
Maybe it’s easier for teachers, nurses, social workers, and caretakers to see the impact of their...
Here's a scary statistic. It aptly summarizes just important that manager’s role in employee...
Pre-Covid data revealed that only 25% of employees describe their workplace as a happy one, and...
As we wrap our CONNECT2Lead miniseries on coaching, we’re calling out the specific behaviors of...
We’ve been looking at coaching from every angle in this CONNECT2Lead miniseries. We examined the...
You can’t succeed at something if you’re doing something entirely different. Coaching often fails...
There’s a widespread misunderstanding of what coaching entails and how it’s different from other...
There are so many reasons to offer both mentoring and coaching in your organization… Unfortunately...
Information overload. An avalanche of misinformation. People counting on you to sort it all out....
There are two questions with a single, same answer that we’re going to tackle in this CONNECT2Lead...
When you look up to someone, you expect them to be honest and genuine. The people we admire don’t...
Courage means taking action despite fear. To be a courageous leader, you’ll make decisions and...
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. The role of a leader inevitably...
Strong leaders ask great questions. Their questions make you think, make you smarter, and make you...
When you hear the word “bias,” does it trigger an instant “not me!” reaction? For most, it’s easier...
45% of respondents to a Tolero Solutions survey indicated that a lack of trust in leadership was...
We started with a breakdown of information overload and becoming more discerning about the...
Last week, the CONNECT2Lead Blog tackled the topic of information overload. One way to control the...
It’s real. It’s happening. It has a detrimental effect on every person on your team. Information...
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In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, what do you want from your leaders?
Leadership is personal. In a previous Words to Lead by post here in the CONNECT2Lead Blog, we...
According to Abraham Maslow and extensions from his theory,
- A musician must make music,
- An artist...
This will, almost certainly, be a provocative statement.
Observing leaders in business, I think...
Once upon a time, leadership was associated with a command-and-control persona. Military leaders...
Good: Satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree.
Great: Unusual or considerable in degree,...
Each week in the Words to Lead by series from CONNECT2Sell, we’re examining various aspects of...
In recent CONNECT2Lead posts, in a series called Words to Lead by, we’ve looked at behaviors,...
When you think about leaders that you willingly choose to follow, certain obvious characteristics...
As one of the world’s 56 Certified Masters of The Leadership Challenge®, I have the privilege to...
In this new CONNECT2Lead series, Words to Lead by, our objective is to dig down to the nitty gritty...
This blog post is being released on the first Monday of the first month in the new year of a new...
In 2019, the CONNECT2Lead Blog focused heavily on employee engagement. It's the key to success in...
In 2019, the CONNECT2Lead Blog focused heavily on employee engagement. It's the key to success in...
In 2019, the CONNECT2Lead Blog focused heavily on employee engagement. It's the key to success in...
In 2019, the CONNECT2Lead Blog focused heavily on employee engagement. It's the key to success in...
In 2019, the CONNECT2Lead Blog focused heavily on employee engagement. It's the key to success in...
When it comes to formal recognition programs, how does your organization stack up?
It’s a dangerous disconnect.
- 92% of respondents, representing all age groups, think having access...
According to Michael Steger of CSU, there are three core components of meaningful work:
According to Dr. Pragya Agarwal, author of Sway, “workplace culture is the shared values, belief...
Trust is the “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety or a person; confidence in...
A study with 7,500 full-time employees found that 23% feel burned out at work very often or always,...
Do you have friends at work? As you look across the organization, does it appear that most...
Surely, by now, you’ve considered employing team members who work remotely. Or you’ve given team...
What’s the impact of having clear and well-communicated values in your organization?
Managers have more impact on employee engagement and retention than anyone else in the...
For CHROs and human resources professionals, there are serious concerns when it comes to human...
It’s a big problem in business. 90% of executives said keeping new hires is an issue in their...
As noted in last week’s article, the business benefits of employee engagement are extensive and...
Employee Engagement is the emotional commitment that employees feel toward their organization that...
This post is for everyone who relies on people to drive business results. This is the business case...
Throughout this 18-part series, The Ultimate Guide to Soft Skills for Managers, we’ve examined the...
When it comes to interpersonal skills, you can only fix what you know needs fixing. Blind spots are...
Before we can tackle the question of how to apply leadership skills in the workplace, there are...
The number one, most frequent problem I hear as an executive coach is that people just don’t know...
Have you been tasked with leading employees through change in any of these ways?
- Doing things in a...
In The Ultimate Guide to Soft Skills for Managers, we’ve made the business case for building your...
Attitude is “manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to...
Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s...
Workplace culture. It’s one of those business buzzwords that gets tossed around casually. Everyone ...
The Ultimate Guide to Soft Skills for Managers wouldn’t be complete without a look at the links...
You might be surprised to learn the causes of a potential breakdown in communication at work.
In this series, The Ultimate Guide of Soft Skills for Managers, our primary focus has been on...
There are a LOT of workplace soft skills to choose to develop. But misunderstandings about soft...
This series, The Ultimate Guide to Soft Skills, started with a look at the importance of leaders...
In this series, “The Ultimate Guide to Soft Skills for Managers,” the aim is to fully explain the...
It’s confusing. Managing vs. Leading. Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills. What does it really take to...
Over the next 16 weeks, the CONNECT2Lead articles will focus on developing soft skills for...
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this 12-part series about the warning signs of toxic leadership.
...
We’re nearing the end of this 12-part series of the warning signs of toxic leadership that has,...
Have you found your own persona or tendencies yet in this 12-part series?
This 12-part series on the warning signs of toxic leadership is, admittedly, very pointed. It’s...
If you are just joining this 12-part series, you may want to refer back to previous posts about...
As you’re reading through this 12-part series on the warning signs of toxic leadership that limits...
This marks the halfway point in our 12-part series that aims to get down deep to the roots of...
Welcome back to this 12-part series about the personas, career roadblocks and blind spots that,...
As we continue this 12-part series about the warning signs of toxic leadership that derails careers...
The warning signs of toxic leadership start with well-meaning individuals doing what they think is...
You’re coming in early on this 12-part series about behaviors that can be warning signs of...
In each installment of this 12-part series, we’ll examine behaviors that – if left unchecked – can...
In recent weeks, the CONNECT2Lead Blog has focused on toxic leadership, employee engagement, and...
Stop blaming Millennials.
2019 is going to be your year.
Whether it’s one person you’re holding out of new supervisor training or an entire group you’re...
You’re busy. You’re stressed. You’re working long hours and would like to find that elusive...
Constantly recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding and then starting over again? Finding it...
It can be confusing and overwhelming. How do you pick a supervisor training program that’s right...
Is your leadership transactional or transformational? That’s the question behind the questions...
Same company. Same role. Same job expectations. Two teams but all things equal ... except for the...
You’ve heard the stories and the stereotypes. Millennials, it appears, aren’t as loyal to their...
Corporate Leadership Training Programs can be costly. They can also be lucrative, rich in rewards...
When manager training is suggested or announced, there is often a level of skepticism. What’s the...
As a manager, especially a first-time supervisor, your employees’ success is your success. To be a...