Responsible FOR is what we hear about all the time, but upon closer examination, is much better reserved for very specific occasions where there are clear and obvious capacity limitations for other folks involved. Responsible TO, on the other hand, is very different. Here the dynamic is less reactive and instead calls for more autonomy and allows more freedom of action.

Where in your life have you done really well through your own efforts? And more importantly, where do you think you can shift your thinking to open to the possibility of seeing how much better you could be with the benefit of a few lessons?

The smartest paths to doorways that open up to future Leadership OF teams, projects, divisions, etc... is one marked by finding opportunities to “step up” and seize opportunities for embodying qualities of Leadership IN your current team, project, and/or division..

Every profession has its own internal comparisons that separates the true “Pros” out from the “pretty goods,” and this dynamic holds true from Plumbers and Electricians to Politicians and Engineers. It’s the commonality of these internal standards across professions that I want to focus on here.

From the bedroom to the Boardroom, and everywhere in between, interpersonal conflict will inevitably occur from time to time. Minor disagreements at home and petty turf wars at work can be annoying and costly in different ways, in both emotional and energetic capital.

I recently wrote about how unconscious commitments or fears can leak into our decision-making process and really hold us back from our true Leadership potential. These underlying emotional currents are powerful forces that can hold us back, either by slowing us down or by pushing us to look for safer routes forward. On the other hand, these deeper energetic forces can also add energetic oomph into our decision-making. In fact, many times they are required to push us over a hump of indecision or to firm our resolve to commit to a course of action we are otherwise conflicted about.

Sound judgement is one of the most critical ingredients of effective Leadership. At its heart, judgement is simply the comparing and contrasting of options and alternatives, exploring perspectives that yield clear value distinctions between choices.

This pithy expression is thrown around fairly commonly in the Air Force, especially amongst high performers like my wife and her fellow Officers in Executive Service. I say “pithy,” because it is most often heard or used in the context of acknowledging the challenges of bureaucratic inertia, outdated and inefficient processes, or other systemic obstacles that must simply be acknowledged rather than overcome.

Your Leadership Effectiveness Quotient (LEQ) gives you a single numerical score to quantify and measure the effectiveness of your leadership

Is it worth it? How many times have you asked yourself some version of this question, or had it asked of you? A few months into a new relationship, and some red-ish flags start to show up. Do you continue to invest in the relationship? Several weeks with your new hire and they just aren’t getting up to speed. Do you persist in trying to train and develop them?

Finding the optimal ROI on time, money, and energy (TME) expenditures and investments is one of the most important skills of effective leadership, especially when it comes making meaningful progress in more complex goals like improving “efficiency,” “profitability,” or even “office culture.” One helpful tip for finding some balance in the mix is to pause from time to time and Remember the Asymptote.

Pushing for Clarity has long been a cornerstone of my personal learning process. Whether through a lightning flash of insight or the slow creep of a dawning realization, I find great value and satisfaction in seeing finer distinctions and greater resolution emerge in my ideas, thoughts, and concepts.

Goals and guides are big part of our lives these days. Getting clarity around what they are and how we relate to them can be the crucial difference between achieving success or ending in failure. This can be particularly important when embarking on a change or growth trajectory, as often times we have a lot at stake and are marshalling significant resources to apply to our work. A question I often ask my clients here is simply “North what? North Carolina, the North Star, or the North Pole?”

The Big Dipper is probably the most well recognized constellation for us moderns living here in the US. However, other cultures in other times have looked at the exact same chunk of sky and seen instead a bear (Greek), a stretcher (Pawnee), a chariot (Celt), and a coffin (Arabic).

“You need to be more _____!”

I hear this phrase a lot. Most of the time it’s my own voice in my head with the blank being things like “patient with the kids” or “focused during your workouts at the gym.” Other times it’s what my clients are relaying to me from their annual review at work or even just from a casual sidebar conversation with a colleague.

I hear these two words being used interchangeably quite often, but the differences between them are very stark and important to keep in mind in any kind of strategic thinking situation. No more so than when facing important choices in our VUCA world that have real consequences in your life and those who depend on you.

Last week in Tackling Debt, pt 1 we did a walk through exercise using Fundamental vs Significant in planning out an approach to Debt Management. We walk through the first 3 steps of tracking our spending, building out a budget, and getting into a stable place that reliably yields a good sum of “extra money” to dedicate each month to our Debt Management plan. We are now ready to begin Step 4 with our resulting extra $500 per month in hand. Obviously this is a simplified scenario, but the general principles will hold true for any complex priority landscape.

Last week I wrote about Fundamental vs Significant, but only gave a simplified example of how that distinction can clarify a complex information landscape. Let’s examine this more deeply with a peek into our everyday lives to a place where you likely have your own experiences of complex prioritization – Debt Management.

Where do you start when attempting to make significant changes in your life? Or when facing the maelstrom of our VUCA world with pending decisions that need to be made, how do you identify the most important factors that need to be considered? Or once you’ve identified multiple important factors, how do you further prioritize among them? This points to the real question underneath it all – what do I need to be doing today to achieve the desired outcomes of tomorrow?

“It’s crazy out there!” tops the list as the most common sentiment I’ve been hearing from my clients for the last few years. Now I am adding “It’s crazy IN HERE!” to that list, as even our inner circles of colleagues, friends, and family are shaking up more and more.