Leadership

My friend and colleague, Mark Nevins PhD of Nevins Consulting, published a piece I wrote on Feedforward, one of the most effective techniques for professional and personal development I know of. His introduction begins The Power of Feedforward Effective executive coaches and leadership development experts have long been aware of a powerful technique called "Feedforward"—its name is meant to differentiate it from "Feedback." Even if you don't think you know about this technique, you probably do, and using it more often is bound to make you more effective in both your professional and personal lives. Our colleague Joshua Spodek does a superb job explaining Feedforward, so we asked him to share his explanation with our readers. If you like his writing, check out his enlightening…

Short post today. I wanted to record something I wrote and liked while writing my book draft: Leadership isn't about getting them to do what you want. It's getting them to do what they want. I think the mainstream picture of leadership is the opposite. This view suggests learning more about the people you want to lead, putting their interests first, choosing your team appropriately to the task, and working with their motivations as much as their behavior.

Reading isn't doing. Watching videos isn't doing. Learning about research isn't doing. Only changing your behavior changes your behavior. What is your behavior while reading and watching? With regard to other people, it's passive and non-interactive---the opposite of leadership, which is active and interactive. Watching videos about leadership is like watching videos about lifting weights or running. You don't lose weight from watching others exercise, you don't get strong from watching others work, and you don't learn to lead from reading about or watching others lead. Nearly every book or video on leadership and most forms of professional development talk about leading. I'm not saying don't read or watch them, but don't fool yourself into thinking that reading or watching them improves your leadership. It…