You don't control the people you lead, and yet their performance is essential to getting the results you're responsible to get. This is one of the great vulnerabilities of leadership, and the way you handle it can be a source of leadership credibility.

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Teams and leaders really struggle with priorities. Priorities used to be singular, representing only the most important thing. But now we seem to drown in lists of priorities that really aren't priorities at all, but rather a list of important things. Setting priorities isn't about deciding what's important and what's not. It's about deciding which important things you're actually going to do with the time and resources available to you.

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We know that we need managers to take care of people so people can take care of our customers, our clients, or our patients. But who is taking care of the people who are taking care of the people?

The "manager squeeze" is a top issue to solve in the near future. Managers are more stressed than ever, and if you want to retain managers, employees, and customers, start by taking care of managers. In this episode, I describe the issue and two things you can do this year to help: First, executive teams need to start by taking care of themselves so they have the capacity to take care of those they lead. Second, make it a regular practice to connect with the managers you lead to listen, empathize and help.

Ask questions or learn more about Andy and Lead Forward Co. using the information below:

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Website: ⁠LeadForwardCo.com⁠

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Articles cited in this episode:

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/510326/manager-squeeze-new-workplace-testing-team-leaders.aspx

Communication is hard when we're using the same word to mean several different things. For example, a common phrase like "You're not listening" could mean that you're interrupting me, that you're not following my instructions, that you're not understanding what I'm saying, or that you're not letting me influence you. Communication gets clearer when we use the right words to say what we mean.

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I'm not into trust falls, but my kids decided that they are. In this episode, we talk about trust and the different ways it starts, the way to build and maintain it over time, and the vulnerable nature of trust itself.

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It's hard to lean into your strengths, or to lead others to lean into theirs, if you don't know what a strength really is. In this episode, we explore the anatomy of a strength and how the ingredients of a strength create the unique characteristics of each individual's best features.

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We all know that employee engagement is a huge part of business success. But leaders struggle to engage employees. You don't get engaged people by strategically extracting value from them. You might get engaged people when you create reciprocity, where you do something for them and they do something for you in return. But the best way to get employee engagement is to create success for people.

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Leaders know that people are like baked goods. They have unique strengths and characteristics depending on the ingredients. No one can be everything. But the good news is that there are plenty of great ways to be a leader or to be a person, and our differences are what make us who we are.

Ask questions or learn more about Andy and Lead Forward Co. using the information below:

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Great leadership doesn't happen at the top; it happens at the front. It's not about flat organizations or horizontal org charts. It's about changing the way we think about leadership.

Ask questions or learn more about Andy and Lead Forward Co. using the information below:

Email: [email protected]

Website: ⁠LeadForwardCo.com⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/lead-forward-co⁠