Alignment: How Recalibrating Roles Works

We’ve talked about organizational relationships and the need to maintain alignment of expectations. I’d like to add that expectations are intertwined with roles. If we are to achieve alignment, we need to calibrate our understanding of our respective roles in the broadest sense.

Aligning on Roles

We may know what our titles and jobs are. We may even be 80 to 90% accurate in knowing what our respective roles are. However, situations and circumstances are constantly changing.

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The Red Thread of Leadership

The red thread that shows up in my logo, iconography, and this site has a story to tell. A story about what’s possible in your leadership relationships.

A Chinese legend states that the gods tie an invisible red thread around the ankles of those who are destined to meet and help each other. Like the red thread, these relationships may stretch and tangle, but will never break.

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Alignment IS Possible

Are colleagues not fulfilling their commitments to you? Are you struggling to fulfill your commitments to them? Can you imagine having a different experience in your working relationships—one in which expectations are met and commitments are fulfilled? This is possible.

In the race to coordinate and collaborate to achieve our shared goals, we often overlook the opportunity to discuss the three areas that help us create alignment in our working relationships. Our expectations of each other, our specific roles, and our mutual commitments. By clarifying these, we can efficiently and effectively execute together.

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Culture through Conversation: 5 Starters for Leaders

Leadership happens in conversation. Leaders initiate conversations that would otherwise not take place in which the future changes for all stakeholders.

We use language to influence outcomes. Yet it’s not just the words we use that make the difference. Conversations happen in a context. The relationships that leaders cultivate create the context for conversations to happen effectively and efficiently. In this way, leaders define organizational culture—the relationship context in which work gets done and results are delivered.

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Influence: How Leaders Easily Accelerate Results

“How can I lead someone if I don’t have any authority?” I’ve heard that question repeatedly over the years from individuals inside all kinds of organizations—from hierarchies and bureaucracies to matrix and network-oriented structures.

The question itself raises an issue about how we define leadership influence—the natural ability to have an effect on others within the context of relationships—and authority—the power that comes to someone through hierarchical position or subject matter expertise.

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