The 90th Percentile: An Unconventional Leadership Podcast

Details: There is high-interest today in how managers can be better coaches and how companies can use external and internal coaches more effectively to enhance and sustain any development activity. The Zenger Folkman company has published a good deal about the positive impact of coaching on helping leaders be more effective, including how that impacts customer satisfaction, employee engagement, re...

Details A high-potential employee is usually in the top 5% of employees in an organization. These people are thought to be the organization’s most capable, most motivated, and most likely to ascend to positions of responsibility and power. To help these employees prepare for leadership roles in a thoughtful, efficient manner, companies often institute formal high-potential (HIPO) programs. In this...

Details If you have ever been lost while driving in a car, your natural reaction is to slow down. When we are uncertain about which direction to head, our natural response is to slow down, look at a map, ask questions, and proceed cautiously forward. We have measured resilience and confidence for several years and noticed a significant decline since the pandemic. The combination of uncertainty and...

Details Most of us begin a new position with energy and a desire to impress. Our effort is high. Our passion is infectious. Our enthusiasm helps us to excel quickly. But for some, work becomes mundane and repetitive. They lose some of their passion, and their work can begin to feel like a chore. Eventually, some of those executives who had initially loved their careers enter the dimension we call...

Details How would you describe the culture of your organization? Some might say, “It’s the smell of the place,” or, “It’s how things are done around here.” However, the ultimate summary statement on the topic may have been Peter Drucker’s familiar saying, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” In this episode, we discuss how changing your leaders can change your culture. New Self-Directed Course Learn...

Details Over the last couple of years, we have all experienced the importance the empathy in the workplace. We’ve had a rough time and it’s important to know your boss actually cares about you. Last year, the character Ted Lasso appeared on Apple TV’s new hit comedy show and taught us all some profound lessons in kindness. But he also showed his weakness in his lack of competitive drive. In this e...

Details If you choose an individual to lead you to victory or safety, chances are you will choose the most confident person. Their confidence will inspire and motivate you to achieve great things. That’s what makes them great leaders. But there is a darker side to the confidence that erodes trust and turns away once eager followers. That side is the overconfidence that is considered arrogance. In...

Details Occasionally, people read articles about the best approaches to giving and receiving feedback and may think, “That all sounds great, but what do the most effective leaders actually do?” To answer that question, we combined a self-assessment measuring feedback preference with 360-degree evaluations of leaders to discover the common attitudes of the best leaders about feedback. In this episo...

Details Some of the most challenging relationships we have to learn to manage in this life are the ones we have with our co-workers. Because we spend a lot of time with them, probably even more time than friends, and we don’t always get to choose who we work with. Amy Gallo is a workplace expert, bestselling author, contributing Editor at Harvard Business Review , and Host of the Women at Work Pod...

Details Is it possible to be a high-standards, results-driven leader while at the same time building an engaged, fun-to-work-with team? Many people would contend that doing either of these things well makes it almost impossible to succeed at the other. And yet our examination of 360-degree assessment data from more than 60,000 leaders showed us that leaders who were rated in the top quartile of bo...

Details Chances are you think you’re a great listener. People’s appraisal of their listening ability is much like  their assessment of their driving skills , in that the great bulk of adults think they’re above average. What really makes a manager a great listener? Many assume that it involves three components: not interrupting the speaker, following along with facial expressions, and being able t...

Details You can’t make every worker happy, surely, and should a business even try? Evidence from our recent research suggests, actually, that the answer is yes. Or rather, our evidence shows that managers are giving up far too soon on their disgruntled employees, making them less productive than they could be, exposing their companies to unnecessary risks from thefts and leaks in the process, and...

Details Leaders are experiencing more demands for compassion at a time when there’s not a lot of room for compromise on what they have to deliver. Do they have to choose between kindness/compassion and the expectations for performance? We wanted to understand how we maximize support and, at the same time, drive performance. In this episode, we are exploring the link between leading with kindness a...

Details Most managers want their employees to be curious and experimental, to take the initiative and develop new products and solutions. But, as it turns out, managers also like to micromanage and control outcomes through safe, predictable processes. As a result, managers end up stifling the very experimentation they want to foster. In this episode, Sara Critchfield shares four things managers ca...

Details No one expects ever to be described as an arrogant or complacent boss. Most leaders we know have the assumption that their career will be akin to a musical crescendo. It may start quietly and slowly, but they believe that as they age, more responsibility will come. And because of their years of experience, they will continually improve at making decisions and inspiring those they work with...

Details Executives in every company we work with express concerns about their ability to attract and retain managerial talent. The solutions for most organizations are to either recruit young workers directly from school and invest in their development, pirate leadership talent from competitors, or find it internally. Of these alternatives, we strongly advocate that organizations first take a clos...

Details The audiobook version of The Trifecta of Trust: The Proven Formula for Building and Restoring Trust is on sale at AUTHORS DIRECT . The audiobook can also be purchased on AUDIBLE , NOOK , GOOGLE PLAY , KOBO , CHIRP , AUDIOBOOKS.COM , and SCRIBD . If you devote a third of your life to your job, then it is worth focusing on the one trait that will significantly increase your speed. This chapt...

Details Due to the pandemic, the past few years have ushered in the past century’s most significant shifts in working environments.  According to data scientist at Ladders projections, 25% of all professional jobs in North America will be remote by the end of 2022, and remote opportunities will continue to increase through 2023. We have had a couple of years to work the kinks out of this new way o...

Details Download the new eBook, Inspiring in the New Era . A lot has been written about what inspiring leaders DO.  From their moving speeches to their magnetic ability to connect. How could you dismiss their powers of persuasion? We often picture inspiring leaders as fearless and attractive because we see them in the movies defeating all odds. But inspiration comes in many forms, through many beh...

Details Why do managers avoid giving praise? When talking with managers about giving feedback, we often hear comments such as, “I did not sleep the night before,” “I just wanted to get it over quickly,” “My hands were sweating, and I was nervous,” and “They don’t pay me enough to do this job.” Because of this anxiety, we find that some managers resist giving their direct reports any critical feedb...

Details In a society that showers attention on those in power, it is valuable to remember that those in the C suite are not the only ones doing the remarkable everyday work that causes organizations to excel.  Much of the excellence comes from the host of people who conscientiously get work done and constantly look for ways to do it better. In this episode, we’re talking about extraordinary perfor...

Details Conjure up the term “bad boss,” and what comes to mind? Scenes of red-faced people berating subordinates in public. Smarmy souls taking credit for other people’s work or saying one thing and doing another and cutting remarks. Yelling. Feel free to continue — we’re sure you can. In this podcast episode, we’re digging into what really constitutes lousy behavior and if you might be entering t...

Details The variety of shortages causing major disruptions has rippling effects that seem to grow more consequential daily.  But the one shortage that is the most concerning to us is HUMAN ENERGY. Every employee is under constant pressure to perform as we are being asked to do more with less–to  be more productive and effective and to reach greater levels of profitability . Languishing. The great...

Details Increasingly, science and technology are occupying a much more significant role within companies and consumers. But leaders in STEMM organizations are finding a lack of gender diversity, difficulties in retaining female talent, and in the agility of leadership. Researchers from Zenger Folkman and Arcadia compared 360 feedback from  16,419 STEMM leaders with 57,706 non-STEMM leaders, reveal...

Details Each individual has their decision-making tools in their back pocket, ready to utilize for every choice regardless of how different they are. However, if we truly want to become better at the art of making decisions, then we need to break out of these patterns and see things differently, even if that pushes us away from our comfort zones. In today’s episode, we are digging in better to und...