THE MISSION BRIEFING
A blog by Eric Downing that offers leadership coaching for executives. Watch and engage with Eric Downing on topics of leadership, strategy, critical thinking and competitive advantage.
LATEST POSTS
How to keep your corporate team intact in the new virtual workplace
Is your team still a team? In a virtual environment it is extremely easy for team building to take a backseat to a more task-oriented, day-to-day method of functioning. There’s a risk that teams will begin to disconnect and slip into the loose affiliation of a group.
Let Them Learn From Their Mistakes
Don't be afraid to let your followers or team members learn from their mistakes rather than removing or replacing them. Continuity and trust are powerful conditions that make it easier to fully implement your vision and your strategy.
What Leadership Style Works Best?
What leadership style should you embrace to ensure the greatest chance for success? It may be one of the most important decisions any new leader makes.
Don’t Let The Cobra Effect Bite You
History has many important lessons to teach us, especially when it comes to the consequences of aggressively pursuing a bad strategy. One such lesson comes from the time of British rule of colonial India when something know as the Cobra Effect became a classic example of a well-intentioned leadership intervention that produced exactly the opposite results from what was expected.
Your Next Promotion Won’t Be Why You Fail
The time-tested Peter Principle states that as employees rise in the hierarchy of the organization, they eventually reach a level of incompetence that leads to their failure and eventual demise. In the new corporate paradigm, the Peter principle is even more insidious. The more competent you are and the more willing you are to take on additional tasks and responsibilities, the more likely the organization will load you up until you fail.
Eventually, the Wolf Always Shows Up
Well-intentioned leaders have been telling their management teams that strategy execution is the most important focus for the organization for a long time without really doing much about it. The key to strategy execution is to understand the four barriers that may be getting in your way.
Why a Rearview Mirror is More Valuable than a Crystal Ball
Most meetings fall into one of two categories. There are the Crystal Ball meetings that focus on planning, forecasting and strategizing. And there’s the far-less common Rearview Mirror meetings that focus on reviewing, analyzing and figuring out the lesson learned. If you really want to supercharge your organization and magnify your competitive advantage, commit to using the Rearview Mirror meeting to its full effect.
Don’t reinvent yourself, reinvigorate yourself
The threat of irrelevance is pushing professionals to think they need to keep changing and developing. But reinventing yourself is not as easy as the recruiters and self-help books might have you believe. My suggestion is don’t reinvent yourself, reinvigorate yourself. A reenergized you today, is far more useful than a reinvented future self.
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