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Learning from ineffective leaders: Three things I learned about leadership by watching people who didn’t lead well
Your leadership journey should include new paths that haven’t been tried before as well as new directions that are the result of learning from what you’ve done or seen others do before. So where do we most often look for those leadership lessons? …. Often, we look for leadership role models who exemplify who we want to be as a leader and how we want to lead. I would argue that we can learn just as much from ineffective leaders.
Photo by Alexis B: https://www.pexels.com/photo/view-of-birds-flying-18003816/
5 Techniques to Level Up Your Facilitation Game
Facilitation is one of the most important tools I use to do my work. There are parts of it that come naturally to me. I’m a good listener, and I’m also good at synthesizing information and grasping connections between things. Other parts of my skill in facilitation are the result of lots of training and practice….If you’re seeking to keep building your facilitation skills, here are some techniques that work for me regardless of the method I'm using or the group I’m working with.
Photo by Christina Morillo: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-dry-erase-board-with-red-diagram-1181311/
Meaningful Change through Coalition Building – Part 3
Developing cohesion in a group of stakeholders with differing backgrounds, needs, priorities, and beliefs is not easy. Some relationships will be new, with people going through the process of figuring each other out. More difficult is when some members of the coalition have a shared history of competition, distrust, or even outright hostility. In our experience, commitment to a common cause might be enough to get initial engagement from coalition members, but positive relationships are needed to keep them engaged. Empathy is a necessary component of relationship-building, whether you’re starting from scratch or healing from the past.
Photo by Min An: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-silhouette-during-sunset-853168/
Meaningful Change through Coalition Building – Part 2
While all three entities were focused on increasing funding, each was focused on their own needs and their own state funding mechanisms. Efforts to increase funding or change the funding mechanism led by one entity were often viewed with suspicion by the others because of their competing priorities. This, combined with the reality that none of the involved entities had the authority to actually make the change they were seeking, led to a seemingly intractable challenge….We needed an effective coalition that could withstand and overcome the challenges inherent in the three delivery system model.
Photo credit: awmcphee, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meaningful Change through Coalition Building – Part 1
One of the challenges with making change in the criminal legal system is that there is no one with authority over all the stakeholders, and some of those stakeholders are literally paid to disagree with one another in court. That is by design. To promote fairness, it’s an adversarial system composed of independent parts. As a result, we have to build coalitions to make change. Along with that comes creating consensus that is strong enough to drive action and keeping the coalition engaged over time and through challenges.
Photo credit: Photo by fauxels on Pexels
9 Tips for Successfully Navigating Leadership Transitions
Leadership transitions are a fact of life in all organizations. Those transitions carry risk – and they can create a deep sense of uncertainty for all involved. Some changes in leadership are well thought out, planned for, and relatively smooth. Others are abrupt, chaotic, and rocky. In reality, even the most intentional transitions include their share of instability. How you manage that instability depends on whether you are the one leaving, the one coming in, or one of those staying.
Photo credit: photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash
3 Ways Resilient Organizations Leave Room for Uncertainty in Strategic Planning
Given that we’re operating in uncertainty, a critical skill to build or reinforce during the strategic planning process is how our future selves can recognize that part (or perhaps all) of our original plan is no longer the most strategic way to move forward. The planning process is an opportunity to work toward a culture that gives us permission to thoughtfully shift course when the new reality calls for it.
So how can you go about implementing a strategic planning process that is responsive to change? Here are three practices organizations can follow to create more resilient strategic plans.
Photo credit: photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash