Leadership

8 Ways to Lead More, Better

Leaders who accept their own limitations and find out what they don’t know demonstrate a sense of humanity and realness to others. People can see when leaders try their best and sincerely care about them. In return, the result is cooperation and comradery, further supporting the goals of the organization and making the workplace more… Read more »

Want to Lead? 18 Leadership Training Options for Feds

The United States Office of Personnel Management has been working for awhile now to better enhance leadership development to keep qualified employees moving into management positions. This has included developing a training framework for future leaders, as well as defining performance metrics for the SES. Still, agencies have been given a fair amount of leeway when itRead… Read more »

Measuring the Drapes Before Getting to the Office

The presidential transition is a year and a half away, and everyone is already talking about it. Who are the candidates? Who’s going to win? What policies will they bring to the table? Yet few raise the question: How will he/she actually implement the policies? What exactly does the President do when first getting toRead… Read more »

Stopping the Mega Problem of Micromanaging

This post is a follow-up to an unanswered question from GovLoop’s recent training, Critical Conversations. Want more topics and information like this? Make sure to register for our upcoming training summit in July, the Next Generation of Government Training Summit. Read the following statements and decide if you agree or disagree with each: Most of my time isRead… Read more »

Cereal, Soda, Cigarettes and the Annual Federal Performance Review – Hope for Humanity!

If we can get smarter about what we devour, we should be able to do the same with the disdained annual performance review. Thankfully, we are. Perhaps nothing in the HR field is under as much attack these days as the annual performance review, an event typically loathed equally by both employee and manager. As… Read more »

How To Find Your Priorities (and Stop Working Overtime)

The hour hand is creeping towards 5pm, but your to-do list is only a little over halfway done. The day’s been one never-ending chaos train as emails, impromptu meetings, and emergency tasks are thrown at you. Some of it can wait until tomorrow, but there’s still that one – let’s face it, two – major tasksRead… Read more »

“Bureaucracy” – Iron Cage to Social Network

I hate word “bureaucracy” because it degrades public sector workers at all levels. For many reasons, countless pejorative metaphors, theories, and political actions about public sector workers have decorated the iron cage. Public sector staff can weave webs supporting real collaboration, see contacts outside the hierarchy and rules; they seek out connections with people who… Read more »

Haters Gonna Hate, So What Can You Do About It?

This post is a follow-up to an unanswered question from GovLoop’s recent training, Critical Conversations. Want more topics and information like this? Make sure to register for our upcoming training summit in July, the Next Generation of Government Training Summit. While my distaste for cilantro is legendary and I’d rather clean a chicken coop than watch aRead… Read more »

The Wolf PACT of Innovation – What Alan and Gov Have In Common

Back in 2009, the movie the Hangover introduced us to the ultimate Wolfpack. In the film, the oddball character Alan, played wonderfully by Zach Galifianakis, toasts his future brother-in-law during his bachelor party. “You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as aRead… Read more »