Skip navigation
To be a great leader, you can’t fear being seen as the bad guy/gal. And I’m not just talking about obvious ‘bad guy/gal’ situations like telling someone “you’re fired” or “you’re not getting a raise this year and here’s why.” I’m also talking about simple situations like telling someone “I need you to change the way you submit that form.”
Have you ever been in one of those team meetings, virtual or face-to-face, where a few big personalities just dominate the space? They usually talk louder than everyone else, and if the boss or team leader isn’t speaking, all you hear are their thoughts, their ideas, their yeas and their nays. 
When I ask leaders, “What’s the No. 1 thing that wastes your time and hinders your productivity?” the nearly universal answer is “meetings.” Whether it’s wasteful meetings that don’t resolve anything, meetings where everybody talks just to hear themselves speak or meetings where decisions never get made, meetings are often hated and typically wasteful.
Imagine that it’s Friday afternoon and your boss walks over to your desk and tells you the following:
Boss: I need you to come into work this weekend to help finish the Johnson proposal.
You: When is it due?
Boss: Monday at noon. We hoped to have it done today (Friday)
Most impatient seeming bosses aren’t suffering from some chronic character flaw. More often than not, they just have a particular communication style that likes things at a high level, without too much detail, and a focus on cutting-to-the-chase. And for the record, that describes a lot of bosses
The average person checks their email about 15 times per day. But a recent study from researchers at the University of British Columbia found that when people were limited to checking their email just three times per day, their stress levels decreased significantly.
We’ve all had the situation when an employee walks into our office with a problem they want us to solve (or dozens of problems they want solved). Maybe they walk into our office and say, “I need your help boss, that other division won’t respond to my emails about giving me the data I need to finish my report.” And then they stand there waiting for us to solve that problem.
One big mistake many leaders make is delivering advice instead of constructive feedback. People often think it’s nicer to phrase criticisms more gently by injecting words like: should, would, ought, and try. The problem is that by using these words, your constructive feedback becomes advice.
Today’s organizations want to hire self-motivated, self-leading and self-sufficient people. Companies want people who are internally driven to give 100% effort at work; not people who require bribes, babysitting or cajoling to give maximum effort.
Whenever we talk about Hiring for Attitude the discussion typically turns to what are the best and worst interview questions to ask. Now, there is always some group of people that will start asking pop-psychological kind of weird, goofball sort of questions. 
