Moments
With
Marty

Over the course of your leadership career, you will deal with people from all walks of life, many different cultures, and a range of socio-economic backgrounds. You’ll also see just about every dimension of human frailty, and the issues that many of us face daily. In any team, you’ll have a cross section of the […]

Many business owners experience a common problem as their business grows. The attributes that made them successful initially – e.g. innovation, hard work, tenacity, sales skill – become obstacles to future growth…  Once the business reaches a certain scale, founders need completely new skills – leadership skills. This is no different to any transition in […]

If you want to build a team that outlasts others, you need each and every individual to be able to handle pressure. And this starts with you. You set the tone for what happens in times of stress, pressure, and crisis. Just ask yourself, “how do I handle pressure?”. Some leaders hide, avoiding the issue […]

I talk a lot about high performance. But what about the people who find themselves doing relatively mundane, repetitive, or low-skilled jobs? We tend to imagine occupations like cleaners, fruit pickers, and production line workers when we think about mundane jobs. But many people in your team could also be doing some mind-numbing work, to […]

There are many ways to get your team to do things. The type of power you use to get results is all-important. But we rarely think about it. Some types of power are more sustainable than others, so be careful to wield your leadership power deliberately, not just let it flow subconsciously, based on your […]

You’ll often hear people explain away someone else’s success by saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know!” It’s easy to discount another person’s achievement by putting it down to their position of privilege… to believe that the only reason they made it was because they received a leg-up, or a head start… […]

What if your people knew exactly what to expect from you? What if they understood your style, the objectives that drive you, and the things you value the most? Most of us never give our people a window into these answers, and they have to learn what we expect largely through trial and error. I […]

If you’re in it for yourself, your people will never be in it for you. Ever.  I observed this throughout my corporate career, and came to see it as a fundamental truism of leadership. Self-seeking leaders can’t get the best out of their people, because it’s almost impossible to rally them to a higher purpose.  […]

We generally talk about stress like it’s a bad thing. Putting people under stress is something that many leaders try to avoid. Why? Well, if you put people under stress, then maybe they’ll feel bad and won’t like you anymore. And because of our natural conflict aversion, we want our people to like us. We […]

It’s important that we understand how all the little choices we make add up to potentially significant consequences – but in reality, there are big decisions and there are small decisions.  So what are “high-impact” decisions… they’re the ones that really test you… the ones that scare you a little (or maybe a lot)… the […]