Entries by Christopher Kolenda

Boosting your self-awareness

He lacks self-awareness! She’s totally un-self-aware. Leaders need more self-awareness. Have you heard descriptions like these at work? If you are like most people, you get the importance of self-awareness, but you have few tools to put it into practice. If you’d like to improve your self-awareness, you’ll want to read on. What’s the big deal […]

Daisy showed us what gratitude looks like

Do you have people and companions in your life that inspire gratitude?  My wife, Nicole, and I are grateful for our dog, Daisy, who blessed our lives for six years before dying on February 1st last year from cancer.  She showed us the meaning of gratitude in her love and affection (and the strange way […]

It’s what you’re hearing, Listen. You don’t have to suck at listening.

Do you find yourself repeating yourself or asking others to repeat themselves? Is miscommunication a challenge at your company? This could be a result of common listening errors. “It’s not what you heard; it’s what you’re hearing, listen.” The immortal words of deceased rap star DMX tell us, “It’s what you’re hearing, listen.” The trouble […]

What we’re getting wrong about “Command and Control” and why you need it to succeed.

Have you heard leadership and management gurus rubbishing military-style command and control leadership practices? The military has a field order paragraph called Command and Control. The gurus presume command and control means someone barking orders (command) and micromanaging compliance (control). If you’ve ever been in a good military unit, you probably scratch your head at […]

Here’s how the most respected leaders simplify.

Do you find that getting everyone in your company on the same page is a struggle, especially in a hybrid work environment? The benefits of everyone rowing in the right direction and cadence reduces anxiety and distress, increases cooperation and innovation, and avoids wasting time in misunderstandings. The challenge, of course, is that our businesses […]

The Harvard, MIT, and Penn Presidents show the Cost of Hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the destroyer of trust.  Only 21 percent of people trust leadership at work (Gallup), and do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do practices are at the heart of it. If you want to improve places in your organization that experience challenges with buy-in, accountability, and employee turnover, addressing hypocrisy is an excellent place to start. Only a rare person, […]