Every leader wants to be fair to their team members. Unfortunately many leaders make a very simple mistake when thinking about and acting on fairness.  Once they make a simple mental shift, they can truly be fair to all the members of their team. Today’s post is taken from a longer interview conducted by Wally Bock. If you’ve never read Wally’s work, I highly encourage you to check it out. Today he interviews Mike Figliuolo about his new book Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Wally: Your newest book is ‘Lead Inside The Box,’ which I think is an interesting title. So, how did you come to write it? Why did you write a second book? And what’s the title all about? Mike: We constantly hear in our teaching and our coaching practice that leaders are saying they’re too busy, they’re too pressured, and they don’t have time. They’re also talking about the increased expectations that are being placed on them and their teams. The notion of the core framework of the book is all about how to be a more efficient and effective leader. It seemed to us like this book was going to solve a very pressing need in the market. WB: Do you have any indication that it is actually doing that? MF: I would say based on all the reviews we’re getting on Amazon and Goodreads it is. People are saying this is a great approach because it’s simple, it’s actionable, it’s practical, and it makes sense. They also are saying what’s different about it is so many leadership books out there look at the individual team member and say, ‘Well there’s the problem! It’s that person.’ What we’re saying is ‘That’s not […]

Reorganizations are usually painful and ugly – but they don’t have to be. If you’re thoughtful about how you place talent during a transition, things can be great. Fail to do so, however, and you’re headed for disaster. If you’re tasked with leading a team through a reorg, you need to tread carefully. It’s easy to get caught up in all the operational changes and miss the much larger – and costlier – people impacts. In our new book Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy), we share the following perspectives on how you can successfully avoid a reorg leadership disaster. Quite often, departments are combined, split, or a team’s purpose is redefined. Reorganizations are disquieting. Leaders in this role face several challenges the Leadership Matrix (pictured) can help them overcome. It’s a tool my co-author, Victor Prince, and I developed after a couple of combined decades of helping clients navigate exactly this kind of situation. First, leaders have to evaluate the performance of team members with whom they haven’t worked before. This is done by answering a few simple questions based on knowledge of that individual’s performance. Second, as responsibilities change, a team member who was a high performer on one set of tasks might find themselves struggling with their new role. The Leadership Matrix makes it easier for leaders to assess these new team dynamics and apply their energy appropriately.

Are you tired of your team members not performing well and driving you crazy?  There’s a fix for that. It begins with realizing it’s probably all your fault… All too often we blame performance issues on our team members.  After all, they’re the ones driving us crazy. But that’s not fair. Leaders need to understand that they’re driving that poor performance in some way. In our new book Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy), we share the following perspectives. Here’s an excerpt to help you tackle this awareness issue. For some newly-minted leaders, making the shift from delivering the work to working through others to deliver results feels like they’ve gone from pulling all the strings to pushing a rope. If they can’t get their team members to do the job exactly the way they would do it, they may be tempted to micromanage or, even worse, do the work themselves. But now that they have more that they’re responsible for, they can’t do it all. If they take that approach, they’ll burn themselves out and fail to deliver the results they desire and the organization expects. Your scarcest resource is the time and energy available for you to invest in leading your team – your leadership capital. To get the most out of your team without burning yourself out, invest your leadership capital wisely. To do so, figure out where to invest it in your team members to achieve the greatest results for your efforts. Different types of team members require different amounts and types of leadership capital from you.