Human connection is becoming one of the most important leadership differentiators in the age of AI.AI is taking the information job. It’s handling the coordination, summaries, meeting notes, status updates, and, increasingly, the first draft of almost everything. This is the transactional work that used to consume huge portions of a leader’s week, and is … Read more
In 2012, Google spent two years and significant research budget trying to answer one question: what makes a high performing team? Their answer — psychological safety — swept through the leadership world and hasn’t left since. You can’t attend a leadership conference or open a management article without bumping into it. Here’s what bothers me … Read more
When it comes to how to build a high performing team many leadership books will tell you to ‘hire the best people.’ Culture consultants will tell you to build psychological safety. HR will send you a team effectiveness survey. None of it is wrong, exactly. But none of it gets at the thing that actually … Read more
Most dysfunctional teams don’t look dysfunctional from the inside. Meetings happen. Deliverables get produced. People are professional. Nobody is throwing chairs. The signs of a dysfunctional team can be subtle. What’s actually happening is quieter and more expensive: decisions are being slowed by unspoken disagreement. Energy is being consumed by relationship friction that nobody is … Read more
Your first 90 days as a new manager start the moment you get the news. Congratulations — now take a breath, because what got you here won’t necessarily get you through what comes next. A promotion feels like a reward for past performance. And it is. But the moment you step into the new role, … Read more
Most leaders spend time thinking about whether their coach is good. Very few spend time thinking about whether they’re a good coaching client, whether or not they themselves are coachable! That’s a mistake. Coaching is not something that happens to you. It’s something you do — with support. And the quality of your engagement determines … Read more
The coaching industry is largely unregulated. Anyone can call themselves an executive coach. That means the burden of due diligence when it comes to how to choose an executive coach sits squarely with you, and most leaders don’t know what they’re actually looking for. After two decades of coaching executives and building a team of … Read more
Most leaders I work with didn’t get an executive coach when things were going badly. They hired one when things were going well, and they had a nagging sense that well wasn’t going to be enough. That gap between where you are and where you know you could be? That’s the signal that it may … Read more
You’ve probably heard the phrase: “It’s lonely at the top.” And while there’s truth in that idea, our latest Ally Mindset™ Profile data suggests something more nuanced, and more concerning, is happening inside today’s workplaces. Senior leaders are not necessarily alone. But many still feel profoundly disconnected. That distinction matters, because it changes everything about … Read more
Workplace disconnection is becoming one of the biggest leadership challenges facing organizations today. Your team is talking constantly. Slack messages. Zoom calls. Status updates. Meetings about the meetings. And yet people still feel disconnected at work. Leaders tell me some version of the same thing every week:“Collaboration feels harder.”“People seem checked out.”“We’re communicating more than … Read more