Mentoring/Coaching

Turn mistakes into opportunities

Leaders who excel at developing ­talent use every opportunity to squeeze in a learning moment. ­Mistakes, especially, are a prime ­opportunity.

Girl Scout pioneer teaches all to lead

Frances Hesselbein, who led the Girls Scouts of the USA from 1976 to 1990, was named the “Best Nonprofit Manager in America” by Fortune magazine. But what makes her truly remarkable as a leader isn’t that so many people think of her as an outstanding leader. What’s exceptional is the way she gets others to think of themselves as leaders.

Get tough with a 'Dr. Jekyll'

Q: “Tom, a long-term employee, recently transferred into my unit. He has a reputation of being 'difficult.' On good days, he’s productive and upbeat. But on bad days, he’s critical and hostile. Unfortunately, the bad days outnumber the good days. I’ve tried to be supportive, but he’s exhausting me! What can I do?”

Coach people from the inside out

When you’re coaching or mentoring, focus on removing interference. Look at the person you’re coaching in terms of what’s inside that you can help get out. Focus on where they want to go and what’s getting in the way. Ask yourself, “Am I reducing interference or increasing it?”

Creating a can-do culture

Today's football players at J.E.B. Stuart High School now come from Jordan, Bolivia, Morocco, Sudan and about 80 other countries. Football culture is new to many of these boys, some of whom quit every year because they can’t figure out why coaches yell at them. Still, coach Roy Ferri teaches them to win—to bury bad attitudes, to stop making excuses and to emerge victorious.

Keep a tight hold on top talent

Getting good employees these days may seem like shooting fish in a barrel, but keeping the best people never has been and never will be easy. A full quarter of your highest-potential employees may plan to jump ship within a year. Mistakes to avoid:

After you make the wrong call

Some mistakes are memorable not because they provide pyrotechnics but because they show character. Case in point: Major league umpire Jim Joyce this summer made the most important call of his career, and it was wrong. His mistake cost Detroit’s pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game. After reviewing the video, Joyce immediately admitted that he’d blown the call.

Is the Internet dumbing you down?

You may remember a stir about two years ago over whether the Internet is “making us stupid.” Now that question is being explored in long form, through a book that looks into the issue. And a book is just the point.

The value of strengthening your skills

A statewide leadership program in Kansas is training people how to get things done. Bob Sage is a case in point. Promoted to police chief of Rose Hill in 2002, he wanted to learn new ways to teach and lead. “Cops are alpha males, and everyone is trying to be leader of the pack,” he says. “You tend to have a real dominant personality.” The Kansas Community Leadership Initiative taught him different ways people learn and various approaches to lead them.

5 traits of the most admired leaders

Among the many things I like about our group coaching program, Next Level Leadership, my favorite is when high-potential leader participants share with each other what they learned in their senior-executive shadow days. I’ve kept notes about the senior executive traits that the group coaching participants admire the most. Here are five traits of that show up on the list again and again:

Quick Search


Advanced Search

Leadership Topics