High Performance Leadership

Can we talk about it? When a problem is bothering you, can you share that trouble? Do you have people who will listen without judging to your concerns? Do you know a confidante who will hold your secret fears in trust long enough to hear them out? Problems require communication. Deep communication. Listening with curiosity. Speaking with clarity. Knowing what matters and keeping focus on the clear boundaries of a larger vision. Problems are part of the journey, why not make them part of the conversation. The bigger the problem, the greater the need for deeper conversations. Talk your problem over. Build the relationships you need to deal effectively and with respect to the problems at hand. That's how it works best. -- Douglas Brent Smith Curious? Explore our workshop  Centered Problem Solving .

Is there any problem that you would give anything to solve? Fortunately, we aren't all so obsessed (and I use that in a positive way) with a single problem that it is all that we can think about, all that we can work on. But what if there were such a problem in your life? How would you react? What would you do? We have before us no end of problems begging for noble solutions. World hunger. War. Pollution. Energy. Boundaries. Education. Problems bigger than any single person. Have you embraced one major problem with the intent of making a positive difference? What problem would you give your life to solve? Take you time, you don't need to answer that this minute. But you probably do need to answer it. -- Douglas Brent Smith Are you interested in working with a group of creative, clear, compassionate and courageous people to learn centered problem solving and apply it to your work? Bring our Centered Problem Solving workshop to your location or inquire about attendi...

How well do you know the people on your team? Do you know what motivates each person? What their interests are? How happy they are at home? What they want to do when they grow up? Work is more than work. Work is also relationships. Successful supervisors build strong relationships with their team. Some even socialize with them. You may not need to socialize outside of the workplace with your team members, but it does help their performance (and your results) when you know a lot about them. When you show that you care. Supervisors succeed by getting to know their people. What can you do today to get to know your people a little more? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Do you manage performance problems? Coaching people to achieve their goals when they are experiencing performance difficulties takes skill, practice, and patience. What do we say? How do we encourage them? How can we be most helpful? It's important to identify the source of the problem. Find out if they truly lack the skill -- which is an indicator that training could help, or do they lack the willingness -- which is a completely different situation. Most leaders are happy to provide the training that their team members need in order to be able to perform at their best and achieve their goals. What training is available though to help someone who is unwilling to put the work in that it requires to succeed? My experience has been that there is no magic training for that kind of situation. Willingness is an inside job. Team members must be willing to learn, to grow, and to develop the ability to achieve their goals. A lack of skill requires patience and teaching. A lack of wi...

Do you want to get ahead? Do you want to advance your career? Achieve your goals. Make your boss look good. Align your work with the mission of your organization. Build powerful teams that get things done and delight their customers. In short, develop into a successful leader. Successful supervisors tend to get promoted. And by the time that they do, they are ready for it. What's next for you? -- Douglas Brent Smith Do you want to help the supervisors in your organization to advance their careers? Bring our workshop " Supervising for Success " to your organization.

Have you ever been tempted to ignore a problem? I have. More than once to be honest. And it never helped the problem to ignore it. That unmotivated team member doesn't magically turn it around. That broken process just stays broken. And that unhappy customer gets noisier. Sometimes we hesitate about dealing with a problem because we aren't even sure it is a problem. Maybe it's just the way things are and we need to learn to live with it. Maybe it's a fact of life. If we have no control or influence over the situation, it may be a fact of life. Calling something a problem doesn't make it a problem, but ignoring it might. What do successful supervisors do? What do centered, high performance leaders do? - Determine how much of the situation you control or influence - Analyze the root causes of your situation (what's really going on?) - Ask for help from the people involved in the situation. What's their view? - Deal with situations when they firs...

Do you constantly work to improve your productivity? As long as I've been working the search for greater productivity has been part of every job. Make it better, faster, smarter, cheaper. If possible, take yourself right out of the process. Not the best strategy for a comfortable status quo, but let's face it, there is no status quo. That's why focus is so important. Not just making things better but working on the right things. Seeing the path to the vision. Minding the mission. Productivity is focus.  Without focus, what's the point? Are you focused on your vision today? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Does your team see you as a strong leader? Think about this for a moment -- would you want to report to a weak leader? How would it feel if your boss did not stand up for you and your team members? How would you like it if you knew your main competitor had no respect or fear (yes, I said fear) for your leader? No one wants to work for a weak supervisor. People want to know that you've got their back when they slip into trouble. People want to know that when things get tight you won't grab the fastest, easiest, people-cutting measure to wiggle out of it. People want to know that you have belief behind your strategy. Being strong does NOT mean yelling, bullying, bossing, or arrogantly ordering people around. Those are all sure signs of character weakness. Showing strength means that even when you feel fear, you face into it with the confidence of practiced skills, learning, and reliable relationships to support you. It takes time to develop that strength. It takes train...

Don't people remember the craziest things? After you've completed the biggest project you've ever worked on, after you've dramatically improved your team's results, after you've been a poster-model for the best centered leader on the planet what some people will remember is that little mistake you made. They'll remind you of your mistakes just when those mistakes have almost disappeared from your own memory. Just when your sleep patterns are returning to normal, someone will remind you of why it was disrupted in the first place. Supervisors don't have to remember all their mistakes -- other people will help you with that. Our job as leaders is to learn from those mistakes. And next time -- maybe make some new ones. It's not a bad thing -- it's part of being a high performance leader. -- Douglas Brent Smith

Do your problems ever seem bigger than they really are? It could be a wonderful day filled with opportunities and fascinating connections with other people and someone we get fixed on a problem that gives us permission to feel unhappy. That seems like a poor choice to me. I've done it though. Have you? One thing I've learned about my problems -- even as I work to solve them -- is to keep them in perspective. Compared to other problems, how do they look? Compared to other people's situations, how dire is this really? Especially knowing that with the right process and resources I'll be no doubt solving my problem, what exactly is troubling me? I served for a while as a volunteer fire fighter. There's nothing quite like moving into a burning building or carrying a power saw on a roof to cut a hole in the top so the fire can get out to give you a sense of perspective. Suddenly, the little problems of the day fade away. My oldest son is a paramedic. Every tim...

How does it feel to be stuck in the middle? Maybe you know what I'm talking about -- stuck in the middle of your organization with tough customers above you, tough team members below you, and fascinatingly frustrating peers beside you. The life of a supervisor is one surrounded on every level by challenges. It may be the toughest spot in the organization. Supervisor may be the toughest job because you can always be over ruled from above, undermined from below, and ignored from your peers. What's the solution? Lead on level ground. Find ways to leave everyone's title at the door. Think of people as peers -- no matter where they sit in the organization. Your boss is a person with needs and dreams. Your direct-reports imagine themselves as critically important (and they are). Your peers want and need your help in more ways than they can express. It's all much more easy once you believe -- and behave -- as if titles are must less important than goals. People a...

As a leader, how much do you share with your team? When it comes to leveraging your success and keeping your team positive and performing, sharing is a powerful tool. Successful supervisors share what they know about the organization, including upcoming changes and strategic moves. They share their own personal goals. They share the resources needed for their team to achieve its goals. The list could be very long. The challenge to many leaders is that they don't share enough. Centered leaders know that by sharing the whole is made greater than the parts. By sharing, you do not diminish your excellence but rather increase it. I'm not talking about private, personal details about your life. Share those if you want to, but that's not what I mean here. Successful supervisors share generously the details of their work, their vision, their values, and their goals. Supervisors succeed by sharing knowledge, power, and responsibility.   How are you doing at sharing? What...