When You Mess Up at Work (Because You Will)
I stepped in it this week. Interestingly, I was also hired as a coach by a leader who also, in a very different way, made a big mistake. We all make mistakes, some of us more than others. So how can we prepare, learn from them, and recover well? Over the years, I’ve...
When the Comments Become the Conversation
Over the past few weeks I have shared thoughts on workplace culture stemming from an incident during a program I was facilitating. The CEO made an off-hand and disrespectful comment about a colleague’s lunch, mocking curry for sure, and perhaps ethnicity. Then he...
The Signal Leaders Send
The last two weeks, we examined how a comment, nervous laughter, and the phrase “that’s just the way he is” created a culture that valued harmony over honesty. I was reminded of this situation recently, when after the winter Olympics I watched a public leadership...
“That’s Just the Way He Is”
Last week, I wrote about a lunch moment that produced nervous laughter. When I later apologized to my sponsor for not being more assertive and questioning in the moment, he shrugged. “That’s just the way he is,” he assured me. According to Edgar Schein, the most...
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