Blog
By: Josh
In my previous job as a faculty member at West Point, I had the responsibility of selecting a few cadets (of the 130 in the organization) for specific leadership positions each semester. This gave those selected cadets a focused opportunity to practice their leadership in a supportive envi...
By: Josh
What’s the most important thing you say as a leader?
We may believe that what we say doesn’t matter much. But communication is an essential leadership skill and requirement. What we say, how we say it, and even what we don’t say sends clear signals that create bigger ripples than we likel...
By: Josh
What are you gaining from your reading efforts?
What about the audiobooks you listen to?
Or podcasts? The magazines, online articles, and blogs?
How are all these nurturing your continued development as a leader?
A young leader that I mentor recently reached out expressing concerns abo...
By: Josh
Leaders change and make change. We are in the business of making people and organizations better, which requires change, both of us and of our organizations. It is one of the defining obligations of leadership, separating it from common management.
Although envisioning a hero-leader leadi...
 By: Josh
What does this situation require?
How can I add the most value in this moment right now?
Is it the right kind of value that’s needed?Â
These are questions we should aim to ask ourselves in any interaction we have with someone on our team to maximize the developmental impact of the mome...
By: Josh
Goal setting can be a powerful developmental tool that provides focus and structure to our growth. We have previously explored the importance of well-defined SMART goals and how to tie them to our identities to make them meaningful.
But I learned a hard lesson several years ago in using g...
By: Josh
Do you show empathy up the chain towards your boss and your higher headquarters staff? This is a common leadership blind spot, where we prioritize building internal team cohesion, but unintentionally make our boss and upper management out to be the villains…to become the infamous they we a...
By: Josh
I never thought I’d learn so much from, and be so impacted by, a children’s book of all things.
But in Cori Doerrfeld’s The Rabbit Listened, protagonist Taylor endures a significant loss. As he experiences the roller coaster of emotions in response to the loss – anger, sadness, depression...
By: Josh
How many levels of management exist between you and the most junior members at the baseline of your organizational chart? For me, it’s five right now. That’s five echelons of subordinate leaders between me and the people who ultimately carry out our organization’s mission every day. That’s...
By: Josh
When asked to produce a list of the best, most desirable qualities in a leader, many people tend to include the word “authentic” in some way. Our team at 3x5 Leadership even considers leading authentically to be one of the 10 important habits of intentional leaders.
If authentic leadershi...
By: Josh
Who is the worst boss or leader you have ever had? What made him or her the worst?
More importantly, what did you learn from them and that experience? Have you thought about how you have grown from it?
We have all had bad bosses, poor leaders over us, and less-than-ideal work experiences...
By: Josh
It’s inevitable – we will always be working or associated with THAT person.
Maybe it’s a boss who is self-promoting and self-serving. He routinely takes all the credit for success, shares the blame with you and others when something goes wrong, and he doesn’t listen to anyone let alone sh...
By: Josh
“With all that we’ve discovered here, I’m worried about our vision. Should we change it?”
These were the expressed concerns of a leader whose team I was working with during their “Culture Conference.” Through a series of team-based exercises, we spent two days exploring the science and ar...
By: Josh
In 1987, Paul O’Neill took over as CEO of Alcoa, the Aluminum Company of America. A century earlier, the company’s founder invented the process of smelting aluminum and Alcoa had enjoyed long-held success up to this point – consistent investors, strong returns, and a solid handle on the ma...
By: Josh
What are your organization’s defined values? Do you know them?
What about your people, do they know your organization’s values?
More importantly, what do these values do? How do they guide the day-to-day attitudes and behaviors of individuals and the collective group?
I remember spendin...
By: Josh
I was standing among a small huddle of senior leaders within my organization and witnessed a really interesting conversation take place. All the leaders were very experienced, serving in senior positions amongst their 700-person departments. In this huddle, they were talking casually with ...
By: Shawn
Organizational norms often elevate leaders to near-mythical entities, as if they exist in a realm entirely separate from the very teams they are tasked to direct. Leaders are often viewed solely as organizational decision-makers, and rarely do you hear a leader characterized as a teammate...
By: Josh
Where does humility rank on your list of most important leader qualities? I imagine it is not necessarily one that makes it toward the top of many of our lists, let alone a quality we initially think of at all. Socially, groups tend to rally around bold, brash, and charismatic characters ...
By: Josh
Several years ago, I was transitioning out of a job managing a mid-level team of about 100 people (company command for the Army readers out there)Â and into a new role in a different organization. I loved this team and had given everything I had to them over the 18 months I had the privileg...
By: Josh
Having moved into a new role on a new team a few months ago, I have felt a bit overwhelmed with what seems to be a mountain of tasks requiring immediate attention. While my team and I have been working diligently to get into a sustainable rhythm, we have been in a sort of crisis mode worki...
By: Josh
Are you a critical leader, a pessimistic one, or an optimistic one? Let’s consider a thought by famed businessman and leadership author, Max De Pree:
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.”
This has l...
By: Josh
Why should people follow you? What makes you credible in your peoples’ eyes and the eyes of the organization?
Popular leadership author, John Maxwell, describes that if you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following you, then you are just taking a walk.
So, why are peo...
By: Josh
Leaders are busy. We have meetings, engagements, emails, decisions to assess and make, and the hope to manage time to enable personal growth and reflection…all in a single day. And we still strive to get out of the office to be with and pour into your family. It’s easy to get consumed with...
By: Josh
How do you solicit and receive feedback as a leader? Do you? How regularly if so?
We require feedback for our growth as leaders. Nothing is more important for our self-awareness than understanding how people view and receive us. We can reflect, take self-assessments, and gain new informat...
