This is the last and fourth in a series of episodes about four-letter words. But don’t worry – this and all the other episodes carry a G rating. You can watch the other episodes here.
As the title of this post says, I am talking about the longest four-letter word. So technically, it’s not a four-letter word. But since this series is about “dirty” words, and we often think of dirty words as four-letter words, we are including it in this series.
The longest four-letter word is accountable. And I’m considering it a four-letter word here because most of the time when we hear it, it’s associated with things going wrong.
And as a leader, it’s up to us to change this bad association/assumption and help empower our team instead.
But this won’t happen overnight. We’ve heard this word used negatively for a long time and if we’re going to change its connotation, we must change the way we use it. You must not only use it when things are going badly, you must not only use it with the word “hold” in front of it.
Not I’m going to hold you accountable, but rather I’m going to help you be accountable. I’m going to help you take ownership. I’m going to help you be empowered. Changing it and using it carefully. Changing it and using it differently.
Most of the problems we face today are messy, complex, and have no correct answer. Further, we have no precedence of how to solve them. Kevin chats with Sarah Stein Greenberg, who suggests who shares practical and maybe unusual ways to help you tackle the challenges you face. It is critical to have a curious mind and be intentional with your actions.
Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential, Kevin’s free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you become a more confident and successful leader.
Most of the problems we face today are messy, complex, and have no correct answer. Further, we have no precedence of how to solve them. Kevin chats with Sarah Stein Greenberg, who shares practical and maybe unusual ways to help you tackle the challenges you face. It is critical to have a curious mind and be intentional with your actions.
Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential, Kevin’s free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you become a more confident and successful leader.
In this episode, we’re talking about a four letter word, a four letter word to be careful with.
And that word is lazy.
Lazy is a word of judgment. It’s something that we see inside of their behavior. It’s something that we infer about their intentions.
Like just because someone’s laying on their couch right now, does that necessarily mean they’re lazy? I don’t know. All I know is there’s a difference between judging and observing, and the word lazy is typically used as a word of judgment.
So we use it on others. And then once we’ve labeled them as lazy, it changes our perspective about them and we use it on ourselves. Now, I used to say to myself, if I didn’t get up, when I’d plan to that I’m lazy.
Now I try to remember to say not that I’m lazy but that I didn’t get up when I planned to. Those are two different things. They have two different inferences about myself. And so here’s my point. The word lazy is a label that rarely serves us, whether we’re thinking about ourselves or whether we’re thinking about someone else.
Because the fact is, we’ve all been lazy. But no one is always lazy. Lazy is a choice or maybe a habit, but it’s not a character trait.
We are social beings and our relationships with others are critical to our happiness. That is just one of the ways that Beverly Jones shares on how we can get unstuck and create fulfillment and happiness. She tells Kevin that what works for us as individuals is just as important for leaders. When you manage your happiness, you are more empathetic and better able to motivate your team.
Future of Work Newsletter, a free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you, your team and your organization be more successful in the ever-changing remote work environment.
We are social beings and our relationships with others are critical to our happiness. That is just one of the ways that Beverly Jones shares on how we can get unstuck and create fulfillment and happiness. She tells Kevin that what works for us as individuals is just as important for leaders. When you manage your happiness, you are more empathetic and better able to motivate your team.
Future of Work Newsletter, a free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you, your team and your organization be more successful in the ever-changing remote work environment.
This is the second in a series of videos on four-letter words. This might shock my Grandmother – that is until she watched them to see what these words are and are not. 🙂
The last video was on the most dangerous four-letter word (You can watch that here). And this video is on the hardest four-letter word. Today we’re talking about WORK.
Tweet it out: Your perspective on the word work is an indicator of what you will achieve in life. @KevinEikenberry
What do you do when you don’t know what to do? If the past has taught us anything, it is the future is unstable. Further, we like the change we opt into, but struggle with the change we can’t control. April Rinne joins Kevin to discuss why we should focus on preparing for the future, not predicting the future.
Future of Work Newsletter, a free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you, your team and your organization be more successful in the ever-changing remote work environment.
Bet you weren’t expecting a video title like that on this podcast?!
Well, don’t worry. The episode and the entire topic is totally SFW (safe for work – and anywhere for that matter!) In fact, the four-letter word I’m talking about in the video below is one we hear ALL THE TIME. And in the episode, I’ll explain why it’s so dangerous and how you can ban it from your vocabulary for good!
Do you want compliance, or do you want engagement? Jeremie Kubicek joins Kevin to discuss how we need more leaders worth following. There is a balance of support (not coddling) and challenge (not demeaning) to get the most from your team. Quite frankly, if you are leading and no one is following, you are just going on a walk.
The Daily Email, daily inspiration for leaders sent Monday-Friday every week. Kevin writes a short message to inform, inspire, engage, and focus you on becoming the best you and the best leader you can be.
Today I am challenging your thinking on how you give and receive feedback. And I’m starting by asking you:
How do you see feedback? Do you see feedback as a gift?
Your answer to these questions will help determine how successful you are in both giving and receiving feedback.
We are firmly planted in the digital age. As such, the rules of competition are vastly different from just 20 years ago. Ram Charan joins Kevin to talk about the “new” rules of competition. He also encourages us to ask ourselves each morning how we can use our day and how we can make the people around us more successful. This episode was recorded during Virtual LeaderCon 2021.
The Daily Email, daily inspiration for leaders sent Monday-Friday every week. Kevin writes a short message to inform, inspire, engage, and focus you on becoming the best you and the best leader you can be.
There are a lot of easy reasons that everyone should practice more gratitude, but that is a different episode. In the episode below, I am talking about the value of gratitude as it relates to leaders, and more specifically:
Why are the best leaders the ones who are grateful and regularly show gratitude?
Tweet it out: So many of the things we want as a leader can improve when we show gratitude and appreciation to our team. @KevinEikenberry
Maybe Dr. Seuss said it best, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Jeff Brown joins Kevin to discuss why leaders are the best readers. He shares a plan to help you get into the habit of reading and gives you permission to move away from a book if it does not serve you.
Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential, Kevin’s free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you become a more confident and successful leader.
Are you a victim or a victor? Perhaps we need to start out by defining these terms first.
A victim (for the purposes of this episode) is when someone feels hopeless or incapable of changing the outcome of their situation.
A victor (again for the purposes of this episode) is when you feel as though you have influence and can change the outcome.
Sometimes it’s easier to distinguish between the two when it’s someone else you’re asking the question about…
Tweet it out: We can choose to be a victor in the moment or a victim of our circumstances. Which will you choose? @KevinEikenberry
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Kevin shares the top downloaded episodes of 2021. As he recounts each episode, he shares his lessons learned from the conversation.
Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential, Kevin’s free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you become a more confident and successful leader.
You’ve heard of helicopter parents, right?
These well-intentioned parents tend to hover over their children (like a helicopter) and typically take too much responsibility for their children’s experiences and lives. They of course do this out of love, to protect their children.
Have you ever had a helicopter boss? Again, likely out of good intentions, but their behavior probably felt more like they were overly involved in your job and responsibilities. And I can probably guess that you did not enjoy working for a helicopter boss…
So in today’s episode, I have three questions to ask yourself to help determine if YOU’RE a helicopter boss and to help you watch your behavior so that you are leading your team as effectively and as successfully as you can.
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Unfortunately, many organizations have the mindset that their people are just numbers, data points for financial game. And in the short term, that may work. Ryan Stelzer and David Brendel join Kevin to discuss not only why we need to build workspaces fit for humans (think long term success), but some suggestions on how we get there.
Future of Work Newsletter, a free weekly e-newsletter. It’s full of articles and resources to help you, your team and your organization be more successful in the ever-changing remote work environment.
Culture is a much-used word, at work and in our personal lives. And it’s usually over-complicated.
In this episode, I’m sharing a story from my family’s past to help you better (and more simply) understand exactly what culture is and isn’t.
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Do you think about how much you could get done if you were unburdened from busy work? Juliet Funt joins Kevin to talk about the difference between activity and productivity and what we could accomplish if we just had a minute to think. This episode was recorded during Virtual LeaderCon 2021.
The Daily Email, daily inspiration for leaders sent Monday-Friday every week. Kevin writes a short message to inform, inspire, engage, and focus you on becoming the best you and the best leader you can be.
Several years ago, we started using the words “hybrid teams” to describe a team where there are some people working in a physical office and there are some people who work virtually outside of the office.
And while we started using this word well before the pandemic made it a household term, we believe that it’s an even better word than we ever realized.
In this episode, I’ll explain why “hybrid” is the right word for right now.
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Burnout is a real problem across the globe. In fact, the World Health Organization identified burnout as a workplace phenomenon in 2019. Jennifer Moss joins Kevin to discuss the why of burnout (it’s not just workload) and ways to prevent it. This episode was recorded during Virtual LeaderCon 2021.
The Daily Email, daily inspiration for leaders sent Monday-Friday every week. Kevin writes a short message to inform, inspire, engage, and focus you on becoming the best you and the best leader you can be.
Don’t let that title scare you. I am not turning this into a health series and I am not selling any supplements.
A few of months ago, I decided I wanted to get rid of my “COVID 19”. Pounds that is. So I studied up on intermittent fasting and then I went to work. And not only did I find that it worked for me, I also found some overall life and leadership lessons that I think might work for you.
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As a leader, we want to have a positive and important effect on our team. Through her research, Vanessa Bohns has found we often feel ineffective, or inadequate, or believe we said the wrong words. She joins Kevin to discuss why we don’t always recognize the influence we have and how that can lead to lost opportunities or misuse of power.
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Persistence is good and virtuous. But it’s also hard. And telling someone to be persistent seldom goes all that well. We may know it, but don’t want to hear it – or even know what to do with the advice when we hear it.
Many years ago when I was at Purdue, I was having a conversation with a friend who was in the process of interviewing for jobs after college. She was getting frustrated and when I gave her the advice to simply be persistent, I was met with the response referenced here above. She wasn’t thrilled.
So then I added a simple word to my advice of persistence. And that two word phrase is something I still use today in my own life and in coaching others. Check out the video below to learn more about the power of persistence.
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