Moments
With
Marty

I used to say that, with any team, nothing happens unless a leader makes it happen. But, to be more accurate, I now say that nothing different happens unless a leader makes it happen! A leader… that’s you, right!? To make any serious change requires a change of culture—the way we do things around here—and […]

A low accountability culture doesn’t happen overnight. But as it evolves, the barriers to performance inevitably grow. Weak accountability permeates the culture, and leaders resign themselves to the fact that gaps and overlaps are inevitable. Then, they rationalize that strong single point accountabilities aren’t necessary, or that they’re subordinate to some notional concept of better […]

One of the most important roles that a leader plays is to set the right standards for performance and behavior that the team is expected to rise to. Sometimes, we think we’re setting an appropriately high performance standard but the exceptions we make indicate otherwise. How do you actually set the standard? Now, I’m talking […]

If it was easy to build a diverse organization, everyone would have already done it. There’s a couple of limiting factors that I’ve learned from experience make this an incredibly difficult pursuit. The first thing is that disadvantage is historical. When you’re trying to fix historical anomalies, the people who are already in the senior […]

Many leaders claim to have built high-performing teams. Many of them are completely full of shit… and in my experience, most can’t even clearly articulate what a high-performing team is! If you want to build a high-performing team—I mean, really want to build a high performing team—then there’s going to be some pretty tough leadership […]

Is leading from the front a good thing? Well, the short answer is yes, but it comes with one major caveat. I’ve seen many leaders doing the work of people below them and then painting this as a virtue by saying, “I’m leading from the front.” This concept is completely flawed, and it’s a dangerous […]

We sometimes forget what the true purpose of leadership is. It’s not to entertain your people during their working hours, and it’s not to focus on helping them to live their best lives. The higher up you go in any organization, the less you can achieve yourself, and the more you need to rely on […]

What is busy work? As the name would suggest, it’s activity that keeps you occupied, but doesn’t necessarily create value. It’s justifiable to anyone who happens to ask, based purely on the hours of effort it consumes. Busy work often has formal authority behind it. For example, you may be bound to follow a process […]

If you need to be liked, and you have aspirations to be a leader, you’re going to find yourself in trouble pretty quickly. Virtually everything you do as a leader puts you into a potential conflict situation. Seeking popularity will stunt your leadership growth, dull your decision-making, and feed your tendency to procrastinate. Popularity doesn’t […]

Why do so many leaders choose to avoid hard conversations? In my experience, it’s much more about a lack of will than a lack of skill. Let’s face it, it’s not that hard to avoid them. For a start, it’s likely that your leader isn’t having the hard conversations with you, so you won’t feel […]