by Kevin Eikenberry As a leader we need to understand the expectations and needs of our team members. As a new leader, especially if we were promoted from within the team we now lead, that should be an opportunity – we have walked in those shoes, and likely have a sense of the wants and

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I’ve written often about the importance of setting clear expectations with our team members, including here and here, but expectations run both directions.  Do you understand your employee expectations of you as a leader, and about their work and working situation?  This has always been an important question, but now that we are living/have lived

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I get asked this question a lot: How can I be more influential? And often times when I am asked this, it isn’t phrased exactly like that. It might sound more like… How can I motivate my team to do more? How can I better inspire my team? There are a lot of ways that

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by Kevin Eikenberry Most often on this blog you read about tips and ideas for new and front-line leaders – people in the role of supervision and leadership after the move from bud to boss.  This post takes a different approach, focusing more on the organizational view.  If you are an individual leader thinking about

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Would you like to have people hear you, value your input, and more often follow your lead and ideas? If so, you are striving for greater influence. When you have greater influence, you have greater confidence, you are less stressed, and will likely be more productive. Those are all good things. But when people think

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Everyone would like to be more influential – get their ideas across and make a bigger impact. While I believe everyone wants those things, many also worry about being seen as pushy or presumptuous, brassy or bold, or even self-serving. Is it possible to influence powerfully and maintain relationships, yet not be seen in a

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by Kevin Eikenberry When thinking about team or organizational culture, often new and frontline leaders think the way they did as individuals – that culture is something for the C-Suite or senior management to think about.  Culture, they often think, is above their pay grade.  Yes, culture can be driven from the top-down, but it

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As you look into the future of work and your workplace, there is plenty of uncertainty.  When things are uncertain, we don’t feel like we have much control of events and the future. Big external factors have always impacted our organizations and the context of our work, but never has it seemed as obvious and

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I’m willing to bet that every day, we spend some amount of time waiting. Waiting on hold. Waiting on our food order. Waiting for our kids to get off the bus. Waiting, waiting, waiting. And I recently observed a group of people who were waiting for quite a long time. In this episode, I’ll share

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