There are five process-related conversations that can help your team maintain better focus, dispel fear, and manage expectations. In this episode, I share the five conversations and how to implement them effectively. First a few ground-rules. Do not steamroll your team with these and if you’re a team member, don’t barge into your manager’s office …

On this episode, we do a quick habit check-up to ensure that you’re protecting your viability as a leader. The old saying says “As goes the leader, so goes the team.” To be effective, you need to model not only work ethic and character, but also what it looks like to be a healthy creative …

There are ghosts haunting the halls of your organization. They are invisible assumptions, false and limiting narratives, and other types of “rules” that limit the kinds of ideas your team members will introduce, who will collaborate with whom, and how your team functions. In this episode, we discuss the nature of ghost rules and how …

The hardest transition to make when you step into a leadership role is the one from maker to manager. When you are early in your career, you are primarily evaluated on your ability to do the work – to control it, shape it, and make it great. However, once you transition into leadership your job …

There is a big difference between telling the actual truth and telling people what you wish was the truth. Some leaders think that to inspire their team they must always have a positive vision, so they translate that belief to “I must ensure that team members feel like everything is going great.” However, this is not driven by a …

In many ways, leadership is about risk mitigation. You want to channel resources and team effort in the direction most likely to generate the results you want, while at the same time minimizing the potential downside of getting it wrong. This is especially challenging when doing creative work, because the downside of getting it wrong …

One of the more concerning dynamics of the “everything is on the record all the time” world is that changing your mind – especially in a highly public way – has become SIN NUMBER ONE. If a politician or business leader evolves in their understanding of a topic, we call them a flip flopper. If …

The Herding Tigers podcast is back! We’ll be featuring leadership conversations, interviews, and tips for helping your team do its best work each day. Leadership is only lonely if you’re doing it wrong. On this episode, discover the two types of relationships that every creative leader needs. Join my weekly in-person meetups at CreativeLeaderRoundtable.com. 

If you have talented, driven, creative people on your team, conflict is inevitable. Conflict isn’t bad, it’s just a by-product of the creative process. However, how you handle conflict will determine the health or dysfunction of the team. On this episode, we share three core principles from Herding Tigers about dealing with conflict in a …

It’s human nature to want to assign blame. Since the dawn of time we’ve assigned unseen causes to effects that we can’t explain. We even find ways of off-loading blame for our vices (the devil made me do it!) and our shortcomings (it’s just my nature.) Much of this blame-shifting is in the effort to …