Followership

At the risk of oversimplification, there are two macro “messaging problems” that come up a lot in our work. Problem #1: the speaker knows what they want to achieve, has a general goal in mind, but has not put enough thought into the details of the message and how they will achieve the goal. They […]

So much of the psychology of our business culture is about teams, working together, looking for the “win-win” scenario… and that’s all good. Those are good things to work towards. But can we be part of a collaborative environment, and still be able to ask the hard and uncomfortable questions? I hope so, because it’s […]

In all the communication coaching that we do, one question seems to come up all the time. “How do I get my leader to realize he/she needs some coaching as well?” Most leaders are really good at identifying your areas of possible improvement. But the very best ones are also good at identifying their areas of possible improvement. If […]

At The Latimer Group, we often say, “no one leads all the time.” And today, we would like to dig into that a little bit more. Take a look at the image above. The yellow figure is usually the one that gets all the attention, much of the acclaim when things are going well. Many of […]

What makes a great speaker? The qualities that immediately come to mind are things like confidence, expertise, poise, concision and great storytelling. These are all incredibly important pieces of not only engaging an audience but also persuading them. But there’s another aspect to excellent, convincing communication that can be easy to overlook: respecting your audience. Why respect? […]

My wife Emily and I have recently been going through some old files in our basement, clearing some stuff out and making some much-needed room in an already-crowded basement. And whenever one starts opening boxes from long ago, two things always seem to happen. You find some stuff, and wonder “why did I ever keep that?” And […]

How good a leader are you? More importantly, how good a follower are you? And most importantly, have you ever thought about the connection between the two? We spend billions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of hours each year teaching and learning how to lead. But we spend comparatively little time teaching and learning […]

In all the communication coaching that we do, one question seems to come up all the time. “How do I get my leader to realize he/she needs some coaching as well?” Most leaders are really good at identifying your areas of possible improvement. But the very best ones are also good at identifying their areas of possible improvement. If […]

(Writer’s Note: We pulled this one from the archive today, for two reasons: First, this concept of followership continues to be an important one, from our perspective. And second, my creative juices were not flowing this morning… I needed a little help from the archive! But in all seriousness, you can’t have good leadership inside […]

We have been doing some poking around our blog archive lately, and have come across some older posts that were really popular… and that still resonate. And this one is one of our most popular posts ever. We think the point is just as true today as when we first posted it six years ago. […]