Mark Graybill

The bullying-awareness climate marks an interesting turning point in human civilization. I don’t recall such a public focus on bullying before, even though bullying is something most of us have seen or experienced in our lives. We have an opportunity to evolve, so I hope the energy and momentum behind

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Mark Graybill

Management author Bob Lewis once said, “Based on what I’ve seen, over the past few decades, the performance appraisal process (really, practice) has become increasingly bulky and time-consuming for both managers and those they manage. What is the payoff for the additional time and energy diverted to this activity? So

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Mark Graybill

Effective leaders actively work to break the glass ceiling. For those who are not familiar with the term glass ceiling, it is a metaphor for the unseen but stubborn barrier preventing women from reaching the upper echelons of corporate America. The glass ceiling is an interesting concept, and the book

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Mark Graybill

A significant part of leadership effectiveness is motivating the team. Motivation is a hot topic in organizational science, but answering the question “what motives people” and producing effective solutions has been met with limited success. Intrusive Leadership Previously, I’ve written about the soft side of leadership and how subtle people

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Mark Graybill

First, what is your definition of a good leader? In the article Characteristics of Leadership Effectiveness: Implementing Change and Driving Innovation in Organizations by Gilley, Dixon, and Gilley (2008), we find a simple but operational definition of a good leader for our use here. According to the article, a good leader

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Mark Graybill

The leadership fundamentals of trust and transparency are probably the most important fundamentals of leadership that stand between ordinary results and extraordinary results. But what is transparency? If you Google “leadership transparency,” you find countless articles from reputable sources such as Harvard Business School, Forbes, and professional associations and leadership

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Mark Graybill

Thinking about remarkable leadership, it was over a decade ago, upon the recommendation of a friend, I read the book Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (Arbinger Institute). I thought I was in for an intense course of remarkable leadership study from the title, but I was comforted

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Mark Graybill

Leadership fundamentals is a rich subject. Countless leadership concepts and techniques are available at our fingertips. We all tend to have fundamental ideas about leadership we learned from what we read and from others who are leaders in our lives. We often unwittingly generalize leadership fundamentals from our experiences and

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Mark Graybill

There is much to say on the topic of soft leadership skills and leading your direct reports. Not only are typical leadership concepts at play, but you are also shaping future leaders, whether you intend to or not. Direct reports will teach values, practices, and interpersonal scripts. They will also

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Mark Graybill

Years ago, my son, a new age-worthy boy scout, asked me about a topic he’s heard before and was mentioned more often in his new scout unit. He asked: What is leadership? I often share variations of the answer I gave him years ago, and to be honest, I don’t

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