Courage Does Not Allow Us To Bully

There is strength. There is courage. There is assertiveness. None of them have room for bullying.

When leaders cross the line from courage to bullying they may feel immediate gratification but they have planted the seeds of long lasting and critically damaging conflict. If people cannot obtain what they are entitled to fairly, they will find another way. And that other way could be bad for the leader who created the disparity.

No matter how committed we are to a cause, to a mission, to a goal, it is never our right to impose any of that on others.

The courage of our convictions does not allow us to disregard the rights of others.

There is no license for that, ever.

-- Doug Smith

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The Benefits of Supervisory Training

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"An enemy is a person whose story we have not heard." -- Gene Knudsen Hoffman Without contrary evidence it always seems like we're right. Even WITH contrary evidence we get stuck often defending our story, our view. The story may not be wrong, but it is surely incomplete. Listen. Ask questions. Understand. Learn. High performance leaders look for common ground. -- doug smith

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What's the problem with anonymous feedback? The list is long. When people can say anything they want, without any accountability, they are sometimes rude. The feedback becomes exaggerated. Not knowing what to do with it (who do you try to please?) it frustrates the person receiving the feedback. Anonymous feedback encourages anti-social comments. It opens up a level of venting that is not healthy for either party. And, rather than building relationships, it tears them down. The best place for anonymous feedback is the garbage. It's too easy to be negative when no one knows who you are. Hold people accountable. Teach them that two-way communication is responsible, respectable, and useful. Let's keep the trash talking on the basketball court and build relationships of worth at work. -- Doug Smith

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