Leadership Lessons from Moses

Our church is doing 90 days with the Bible challenge.  This is where the congregation is engaged in reading the entire Bible over the summer.   I’ve struggled my way through Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy but found that reading the entire account of Moses through in a few days has revealed several leadership lessons from his life that I never noticed. Lesson 1:  Get a wingman.    Aaron was Moses’.  A wingman is someone who complements you so that two end up being better than one.  Moses had a stuttering problem and Aaron was a good speaker. They worked together to accomplish many

Want to get job? Foster Collaboration

The First 2 Cs that all employers want-conscientiousness and creativity are about individual contributions.  However, the second two, one which we have already discussed, communication and our final C, collaboration focus on how we interact with other people.   I would argue the final two are more important. They, also, help people be more successful at the first two, creating even greater gains in your marketability as an employee. Consider a recent article, by George Anders that stated that empathy would be the number one sought after skill in the workplace is 2020.    Empathy, or the ability to put oneself in

Why I Hate Employee Handbooks

I don’t do employee handbooks.  Wait, I made an exception for a wonderful client and just finished up an employee handbook a few weeks ago.   But I don’t do employee handbooks, or maybe the better thing to say is, I don’t like them.  Here’s why: Most of the content in them these days implies that you can’t trust your employees. Most of the content in them these days implies that you think your employees don’t remember the lessons they learned in kindergarten. Most of the content in them these days is written for the exception rather than the rule.  In

What is Your Smart Phone Teaching You about Communication?

In the leadership classes I teach, I get more complaints about Generation Y’s communication skills than almost anything else in the class (other than possibly their apparent lack of motivation).  Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about the 4 Cs that are a must have to employers, and communication is one of them. Apparently, the generation that has, for the most part, always had a cell or smart phone in their hand, is lacking in communication skills.  We all are lacking in this area, but the smart phone is an easy scapegoat.  A prime example of the shift in

Do you want to go to timeout?

THE LAW OF EFFECT LEARNED FROM DISCIPLINING A TWO YEAR OLD “Do you want to go to timeout?”  “Do you want a spanking?”  These are two things my husband and I find ourselves saying to our two year old more often than we’d like when he misbehaves.   Of course he doesn’t want to go to timeout and of course he doesn’t want a spanking, but in our misdirected way of discipline, it seems to be the easiest way to try to get him to behave without actually having to follow through on a consequence. A dear friend and parent coach