Most likely, if you’re in any sort of leadership role, you have to make presentations from time to time. If you’re a pastor, you’re likely preaching with some regularity. If you’re a manager in your workplace, you’re likely leading team meetings on occasion. Here are five tips that may help you improve your presentations—I found…
Productivity
Two Ways to Create Urgency
John Kotter, Harvard Business School professor, has written extensively about the need for leaders to first create a sense of urgency when attempting to implement change or launch a new initiative. Kotter has stressed that most change efforts fail because leaders are unable to create sufficient urgency. Urgency helps foster both focus and action. Without…
Links for Leaders 4/15/16
It is nearly impossible to keep up with advances in technology, even in the workplace. New types of communication and productivity tools seem to be created every day, and it can be overwhelming at times. One thing that doesn’t change, though, is good management. Much of the role of a leader is to lead and…
Links for Leaders 2/5/16
It’s easy to slip into the idea that you don’t need the church. Christians, whether you’re leading in the workplace, the home, or someplace else entirely, you must know that your leadership will falter if you do not have the church to keep you accountable. Selma Wilson shares four reasons we need the church. Just about…
Three Differences Between Busyness and Productivity
There is a mammoth difference between teams and leaders who run around being busy and those that are truly productive. Busyness can give the allusion of productivity as people are doing things, as meetings are happening, and as emails are being sent and read. But not all busyness is valuable. In fact, busyness can mask…
My Five Favorite Personal Productivity Tools
People often ask me what tools or systems I use to maximize productivity, to stay organized, or to complete tasks. My answer is typically perceived as underwhelming, as I don’t have a project management system (though I am not against them) and the tools I do use are a bit “old-school.” The five productivity tools…
Links for Leaders 12/18/15
“Are you a hurried leader? Out of breath most of the time trying to keep up? Are you drowning in emails, things to read, people to call, and not enough time on your calendar?” Selma Wilson asks tough questions in one of her latest posts on how to be a wise, confident leader. New research…
Links for Leaders 12/4/15
Creativity is important in a number of roles in any given organization. But sometimes, creativity can be absent and hard to muster. How do we keep ourselves, and our teams, creative? Here are four helpful suggestions. “Email, boring ol’ email, can be your most effective form of communication,” writes Mike Lukaszewski. Even with the popularity…
Links for Leaders 11/20/15
Perhaps one of the most universal needs in the workplace is the need to feel productive. Whether you’re a C-Suite executive, a mid-level manager, an assistant, or otherwise, you wish you were more productive. Here are five simple tips to improve your productivity. “Lack of curiosity is deadly in changing times. Vision, courage, and energy,…
Leaders Must Create More Capacity, But How?
Wise leaders apply their best thinking to the most important things. This is, of course, easier said than done because of the sheer volume of things that leaders are asked or required to think about. Because we are finite and flawed, we have a limited amount of mental capacity. For a leader, there are always…