Chris Lema has been leading people smarter than himself for more than 20 years. He's a blogger, public speaker, product strategist, and currently works at Liquid Web as their VP of Products.
I heard a story last year about two groups of students in a photography course. One group was taught every lesson and asked to apply it to a single photo that would be their only deliverable. The other group was taught every lesson but had to turn in several images every week. As the course …
In a recent article, I read this line: One survey revealed that “39% of jobs in the legal sector could be automated in the next 10 years. What that says to me isn’t that machine learning and artificial intelligence, along with robots, will replace knowledge workers. What it says to me is that there are …
Leaders make sure their staff never stop learning CONTINUE READING
Not every idea you hear is worth pursuing. Not every proposal is worth pushing thru. But there’s a huge difference between rejected a bad idea and rejecting a person. And it’s important to distinguish between the two. When we reject an idea, we should be able to articulate where it fails. We should be able …
Leaders reject pitches & proposals but not people CONTINUE READING
Leaders are responsible for managing execution and performance. In fact, they’re responsible for a lot of things. But the one we don’t talk about as much is the need to make people feel important.
Anyone can have direct reports. That doesn’t make them a leader. But not everyone has followers. At the heart of the issue is how people think about authority and how the deal with trust. Earned Authority / Trust – Most of what we see in organizations, especially in the US, is an earned authority dynamic. …
Leaders have followers, not just direct reports CONTINUE READING
You know how we all have those words that make us look up? Phrases where you know, in your head, what they meant, but it still makes you want to correct them? For me, the phrase pops up when talking about recruiting. I hear it all the time, “I’m trying to hire a product marketer …
Many folks assume that in order to lead well, you need to stay clear of the details – sticking only to the 10,000 foot perspective. I don’t agree. The best leaders I’ve worked with have had an ability to be keen observers and able to ask the right questions so that they can get into …
Don’t let the worst employees define your processes. Years ago I worked for a company that had internet access for all the employee computers but the sites Yahoo! and ESPN were unavailable. It turns out a couple of employees had been spending way too much time checking basketball scores – so the company had eliminated …
Leaders create new opportunities and roles that make the most of a person’s talents, rather than trying to fit people into pre-existing roles.
Sometimes you just need someone to say it. So I’ll be the one to tell you – you can’t do it all. This isn’t a message of focus. It’s not an attempt to tell you to strategically choose what’s on your “to do” or “won’t do” lists. Nope. This is just the recognition that we …