All things leadership

Choosing to own up to a mistake at work led to an unexpected increase in engagement and ultimately generated more leads than the original email had intended.

As a manager, getting good feedback—the honest and unfiltered kind—is difficult. The recipe is a mix of vulnerability and confidence.

Most leaders focus too much on individual talent and not enough on group dynamics. Here's how to expand your awareness to this critical team-building element.

Watch our panel of experts (Kiran Panjwani, Jonathan Raymond, Jo Dennis, Jaeden Schafer, and Salwa Muhammad) discuss how companies are starting to implement AI into their models and the questions forward-thinking orgs are wrestling with as they balance the incredible power of this new technology with concerns about security, privacy, and what it all means for us humans.

We’ve all been there. As team leaders, we’ve tried to strike a delicate balance to keep people committed to their roles while avoiding the pitfalls of micromanagement. It’s a tough act. Micromanaging isn’t just an annoying trait, it’s a creativity killer and a way to undermine team trust. Members feel as if they are under a magnifying glass, always being second-guessed and never fully trusted.

Navigating the intricacies of senior leadership can be a daunting challenge. As an executive, you grapple with balancing a multitude of responsibilities — from overseeing daily operations to charting the course for your organization’s future.

Are you ready to transition from an individual contributor to a company leader? That journey demands mastering delegation, recognizing growth avenues for you and your team, nurturing solid relationships, and offering consistent feedback. To do it all, you’ll need a straightforward, repeatable strategy.

A leader's responsibility is to help their team members connect with the soul of their role. Listen to the podcast to learn more.

How do you deal with your inner critic? ‍Do you let it beat you down and undermine your confidence, or do you have a way to put those self-judgments in perspective?

What are three different types of stress and what can you do to reduce stress as an executive, manager or team member.

How much accountability is too much? How do you know when you're not getting enough? It's a fine line that most leaders and managers struggle with - either by being too hands-off or too much in peoples' faces.

You could say your most important job as a team leader is to do everything in your power to make it safe for them, and to support them in articulating what they see in a way they don’t know to do yet.

Your employees are not going to tell you the truth. You can wish they would. You can want them to. You can tell them each and every day how much you value their opinion and welcome their feedback.

Good leaders pay attention to the details and show up with a growth mindset.

How to get more innovation from your team. Ways to get new ideas. Example of using Good Authority to be more Yoda and less superhero.

How to empower people to do more for themselves. Real world example from the airlines industry on how to use Good Authority. More Yoda, less superhero.

You accept that big change comes in small increments. You talk about the real stuff.

How do you make the pivot from being someone’s teammate to being their boss? Of course, there are the projects and tasks that you’re now responsible for, but what about the changed relationships that are now all around you?

Instead of thinking about your brand promise as a public-facing statement, think of it as an ongoing conversation. It’s a conversation that’s between you and your team, and between them and their work.

Leadership strategy to expose root cause of problems. Stop reacting and instead develop lasting solutions. Empower your team.

In the modern workplace, trusting and letting someone learn from the process of doing his/her job is becoming rare. Many people leaders have to tear their fingers off the keyboard to stop themselves from fixing other people’s issues.

We’ve all heard and experienced the profound truth in the phrase: What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But what kind of stronger?

You can use the three archetypes — Fixer, Fighter and Friend — in more than one way. You can hopefully find that your own dominant leadership style is one more than the other two. Learn what type of leader you ar

I created Refound because I believe we are at a tipping point moment in human history — where the line between personal and professional growth is dissolving.

How leaders can show quiet hard working team members that they are valued. Provide specifics to highlight hidden accomplishments. Boost morale and retention.

They’ve become the holy trinity of modern leadership lingo: transparency, vulnerability, and the big one — authenticity.

At Refound, we aim to cultivate and practice good authority, the kind that leads to accountability and growth.

Starting new conversations and changing the way things are where you work can seem daunting at first. Often we have a sense of what’s needed but we don’t have the right words to put it in motion.

Are you the type of person who attacks the messenger? Or are you the type of person who listens, who internalizes that new information and acts on it?

It’s easy to over-complicate the process of transforming a company culture. Underneath, the story is often far simpler and more personal.

People love working for leaders that are curious & confident enough to keep things moving forward without losing the ability to take a fresh perspective.

Creativity is likely not the first word that comes to mind when you think about the qualities of a great manager. Most of our associations with the word run in the opposite direction.

You see something that needs attention. You go to the person on your team that you think should address it or you suspect is about to. And you know exactly what they should do. You're about to tell them ...

How to be the coach and facilitator of your team. Set expectations for one to one meeting. Focus on team member, development and growth, not just tasks.

When we accept that retrenchment is a natural and necessary part of the growth process we give ourselves, and others, room to breathe.

Have you ever had a conversation with your manager that started as praise and ended up with you having more work? Or, worse, feeling like the praise was a pretext, to soften a criticism, that in one form or another left you feeling that you weren’t doing enough?

Being a modern people leader requires a little vulnerability. It often means not solving the problem and instead, naming the problem; then you can see what happens when you create some space around it before jumping into action mode.

You can build and run a great business and let your values speak for themselves. Because nobody cares about your values. What people care about is whether you embody them.

Like all communication that we try to do quickly, it’s in the delivery where what started as a caring impulse turns to something demoralizing.

Over the last several years, we’ve done manager training for thousands of managers. So why haven’t we called it what it is?

How do you talk with someone on your team about a mistake without making them feel defensive?

Most managers come to believe that gossip, politics, and bureaucracy are the way things are. And they make a decision to put their head down and try their best to get things done in spite of that dysfunction.

With all of the talk about managers needing to give more feedback, it’s worth asking the question: Is the problem a lack of feedback regarding these things, or is it something else?

Saying the words “I’m sorry” does not create accountability. It’s the way most of us avoid it. It’s a nice gesture — assuming it’s sincere — but it is at best the expression of an intention:

How leaders can improve the health and success of their organization by setting up a new leader for success. New roles or projects are opportunities for growth.

It’s a great feeling when you see someone’s strengths come out in the middle of a crisis. You see them find a way to tune out the distractions, to move the necessary forward, and reprioritize without a lot of noise.

What do you do when there is a shocking and alarming event that is impacting your team? Hold an impromptu conversation just to talk and give people a space to share how they feel.

How leaders can talk to team members and increase retention. Use this simple and most important conversation to get your people to stay.

Accountability without mentoring is heartless. Mentoring without accountability is pointless. To create a culture of personal ownership you have to have both.

Here are four things to talk through with your team before you turn on your Out-of-Office message. You’ll be creating an asset you can use for years to come.

The typical review lacks the most important step: moving the conversation to a place where the individual has taken personal ownership and accountability around the messages.

High performers often understand their value and will seek new opportunities if they feel they are not getting the right amount of care and investment from their managers and organization.

These days, most managers are doing some form of weekly check-in with their direct reports. But how do you know if you’re doing them well?

Framing a review conversation as an opportunity for growth is part of a larger mindset shift required to grow as a people leader.

Organizations, big and small, are shifting to real-time performance management. The promise of a culture where employees know where they stand with their manager and where the difficult conversations are embraced instead of avoided is an ambitious goal.

Being a leader in the modern world can feel like barely controlled chaos. How you approach leadership impacts the bottom line.

Two steps to take for yourself and your organization to improve your next opportunity. How to use learning and reflection for career advancement.

Here are three questions to ask the next time you want to say you’re sorry that will turn a polite apology into a profound one: What specific action did you take or not take that created more work, frustration or anxiety for this person?

We need feedback and reflection from our peers (and, of course, our manager if we have one) to see ourselves more clearly.

Genuine apologies from leaders transform team dynamics and build trust. Be specific. What proactive action can be taken? Pay attention to feelings.

Help your leaders level-up with our guide to accountability. We’re giving you and your people free access to the Accountability Dial Mini Course because it’s the vital first step to having productive, human conversations at work.

Steps you can take to retain employees. How to create purpose. Are you enabling growth of high potential employees? How to cultivate standout culture in remote environment.

To say your team lives in a state of change is far too mild. What they deal with is change at a staggering level of depth and pace: a never-ending string of needs, wants, and fears that almost always come from other people, but that they have to deal with. And they have to do it fast and with limited resources.

It’s the key to changing your style from problem solver to cultural leader. Your team will really appreciate it. And if you’ve got a boss, they’ll be thrilled.

I was shocked by what happened next. When it came for my next meeting, Elizabeth walked into the office with a sparkle in her eye and a pad in her hand (full of notes she’d taken).

When you start tracking the people management moments in your day with the same passion and engagement as you do your core technical work, you’re on the right track.

How leaders can give feedback on something from the past. When it has been a while, it’s not only about a potentially uncomfortable conversation but also about breaking into the jam-packed day to create a new meeting or even just a new side conversation.

Here are just a few of the powerful actions you can take that turn intention into action, and will say everything your team needs to hear about your commitment to creating a humane place to work:

We believe that a people leader who communicates with his/her team in a way that is human, continuous, and focused on development has the transformative skill that will lead the organization into the future of work. It’s a world beyond awkward, hurtful and unhelpful interactions, and it will change the lives of the people in your business, and the business itself.

The purpose of a one-on-one is not to have a deep and meaningful conversation with your employee. It’s to inspire them to have a deep and meaningful conversation with themselves.

A team of people who aren’t challenged to think for themselves will default to the easy answers on the hard questions — taking us further and further away from our goal of a delightful customer experience.

A Refound guide for new jobs and new grads

Why better relationships are important for leaders at all levels. How to build meaningful, productive, supportive, collaborative relationships.

I suggest thinking of accountability as a dial with five steps. You start at the low end, and then turn up the dial if necessary.

Here’s a tough question that can lead to great things: Which of our company values are we not living up to that is causing them to be frustrated?

Are you the type of person who attacks the messenger? Or are you the type of person who listens, who internalizes that new information and acts on it?

To lead a team is to develop people: you must do the difficult work of finding what motivates people, encouraging meaningful growth that is connected to a business objective, and being more of a life coach and support system than most managers can imagine.

The next time you want to give someone feedback, or deepen the conversation in a one-on-one, resist the temptation. Bring up a problem that doesn’t have a solution, or that has an obvious one that might not be the right one.

5 ways leaders hurt their teams. Do you dismiss ideas? Do you make all decisions? Are you stepping in to fix problems? How do you hold your team accountable? Are you the team mediator?

Being good at your job means being good at being part of a team. And being a member of a team is all about relationships.

This moment — this crisis, is calling on you. It’s calling on you to have real conversations with the real humans inside your organization (and beyond).

As a people leader, recognizing this trend will help you and your team get through this week (and beyond). Here are three quick tricks you can use to contribute to the wellbeing of your team, no matter how the week goes.

George Floyd was murdered on the streets of Minneapolis. Ahmad Arbery. Breonna Taylor. As a young law student in New York in 1997, Abner Louima’s story (a young black man violated and assaulted by NYPD police) is forever etched in my memory.