Principle Driven Leadership

Conflict plays a crucial role in effective leadership. In this episode, Seth explores whether you and your team are embracing conflict too eagerly or avoiding it altogether. He explains how understanding the relationship between healthy conflict and trust can transform your leadership approach. Drawing from his extensive experience as an executive leader and coach, Seth illustrates the principles...

In this episode, Seth delves into the importance of fostering collective effort within teams and organizations. Drawing upon his extensive leadership experience, Seth shares valuable insights into the detrimental effects of losing sight of a shared vision in favor of individual or team aspirations. Through a poignant narrative, Seth recounts the story of Emilia, a leader in a dynamic online market...

In this episode, Seth delves into the critical importance of maintaining standards within a team or organization. Drawing from his extensive experience as an executive leader, Seth emphasizes the essential role of leadership skills in helping you better influence others to effectively create durable results . Through a compelling narrative, Seth illustrates leadership pitfalls by recounting the st...

In this episode, Seth delves into the intricacies of crafting and refining leadership principles. He begins by emphasizing the importance of principles in providing clarity and guidance for yourself and others, and distinguishes principles from mere values by their actionable nature. Seth illustrates the process of crafting principles through examples like "Doing Less Lets You Achieve More" and "A...

The episode begins with an exploration of what draws individuals to leadership roles, their clarity about their identity as leaders, and the challenges they face in prioritizing tasks for themselves and their teams. Seth Dobbs emphasizes the significance of personal motivation in shaping one's path and approach to leadership. Using the example of a leader named Marcy, the episode illustrates the c...

Seth Dobbs discusses the common misconceptions about leadership, particularly the idea that being a leader is superior to being a manager. He emphasizes the importance of balancing leadership and management skills for success. He shares a Japanese saying: "Vision without action is a daydream, action without vision is a nightmare." He further demonstrates this saying by sharing two stories. Story 1...

Welcome to the Principle Driven Leadership Podcast, where Seth Dobbs shares principles of leadership along with actionable examples to help you become the best leader you can be. In this season, Seth explores why we lead and the importance of leadership in our ever-changing environments. He discusses the core definition of leadership and introduces the three fundamental principles: providing visio...

In this season’s final, and most personal episode, I explore the concept of leadership as a transformative journey by drawing parallels between leadership and my love for hiking in the Colorado mountains. I’ll describe the challenges and preparations involved in ascending 14ers (mountain peaks over 14,000 feet) such as the lack of oxygen, the absence of tree cover above the treeline, a...

Are you caught in a loop of unfulfilled empowerment? If you find yourself struggling to propel your team forward, despite assertions of empowerment, it's time to recalibrate your approach. In this episode, I delve into the heart of empowerment, shedding light on its often-misunderstood core.  Autonomy is the muscle that drives progress, the freedom to craft and steer the vision, fostering inn...

Today's episode revolves around the crucial aspect of embracing mistakes and understanding that growth often stems from them.  In the episode, I explore two contrasting leadership styles, featuring Kai, a solid yet error-resistant leader, and Tessa, an innovative leader who empowers her team to learn from mistakes. Tessa's team thrived due to her supportive approach to mistakes, resulting in...

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the need to be involved in every decision? Or doubted your team's ability to perform without your constant guidance? In this episode, I dive deep into the concept of creating autonomy within your team and the transformative impact it can have on your leadership journey. Through a compelling story of a VP named Eli and the challenges he faced, I explore the drawbac...

In this episode I challenge the traditional approaches to leadership as I dive into the age-old question: is it better to ask for permission or forgiveness? Discover why both paths can lead to demotivation and hinder lasting success. Join me as I explore the stories of Boss 1, the permission-based leader, and Boss 2, the forgiveness-driven leader. But don't worry, I won't stop there. I’ll un...

How comfortable do you feel taking time off? How well does your team make decisions in your absence?  In this episode, I discuss the importance of creating more leaders within organizations to ensure its long-term sustainability. I share a story about Evelyn, a leader who struggled to delegate and empower her team, resulting in high stress levels, low team motivation, and an inability to take...

If a perceived problem isn’t preventing you from reaching your vision, is it really a problem? Being able to recognize what is and isn’t a problem  enables you to filter out the noise and focus energy where it really matters. Without this focus you will find your team or organization spinning their wheels with endless distractions or worse, ignoring things that actually need atten...

It’s impossible to have all the answers for anything you might encounter, yet many leaders feel they need to do just that. Assuming you as the leader have to provide all the answers is limiting - it hinders your growth and it suppresses input and expertise from the people you lead. The enabling principle Getting to Right is More Important Than Being Right provides guidance on how to navigate...

Conflict typically takes place when debating solutions but is often rooted in solving different problems. This is one of the most subtle barriers to problem solving because we get so caught up in the solutions themselves that we don’t check if we’re aligned on the actual problem. By design, we should lead teams with people that bring different perspectives as diversity of thought helps...

One of the most insidious forces in an organization is the slow erosion of principles and values.  It typically starts small and subtly and there’s usually a “good reason” to make exceptions “just this one time”. But over time this creates new norms regardless of what values you have posted on the office walls.  The enabling principle of Course Correct Early is a leadership drive to hold...

“Leaders Resolve Problems” is the second core principle of leadership. Every team and organization has problems. The measure of a successful organization is not an absence of problems, but rather how well team members rally to resolve them. “Leaders Resolve Problems” doesn’t mean fixing everything that comes your way as a leader, but rather ensuring your team is in an environment that can effectiv...

Meetings are an essential part of a leader’s day yet so many of us hate them. So many of them could just be an email. Your time is precious, so getting good at meetings right will improve your overall impact and help you keep a more positive mental state. There’s a lot of meeting advice out there that centers on the agenda. I think agendas are good, but they’ve been elevated to a stature that far...

It’s impossible for you as a leader to instruct everyone you lead every day in what to do and how to do. Trying to will leave your team uninspired and unmotivated. The enabling principle “People Thrive When They Own Their Work” helps unlock the power of a clear Vision. Giving the people you lead enough clarity in what you’re trying to achieve and the space to achieve it helps them to: Feel connect...

Trying to *do* too much can actually lead to you *achieving* fewer things than you’d like. The enabling principle “Doing Less Lets You Achieve More” reminds you to focus first on what you want to achieve and to limit the energy spent on what you “do” to laser focus on your goals. While some might think that saying “yes” to every opportunity will help you succeed, that can often lead to you being o...

Simply taking a bunch of actions can add up to nothing…or worse! Actions without outcomes can take you in the wrong direction. The enabling principle “Bias to Outcome > Bias to Action” centers your focus on what needs to be achieved. A bias to outcome helps align and filter actions in service of achieving meaningful results. It’s difficult to get alignment if everyone is focused solely on “doin...

“To the person who does not know where they want to go there is no favorable wind.” -Seneca “Leaders Provide Vision” is the first core principle of leadership. To be clear, a Vision is more than a pithy vision statement . A Vision: Gives a strong sense of purpose to unite teams in making clear decisions Has enough information to provide clarity on what you want to achieve In combining those two, p...

Want to improve your leadership skills, one step at a time? In the Principle-Driven Leadership Podcast, Seth Dobbs, (published presenter, trainer, and author) shares insights and leadership advice based on his years as a C-suite executive and leadership coach. These insights center around three core principles of leadership: Leaders Provide Vision Leaders Resolve Problems Leaders Create More Leade...