Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 18, 2022

One of the big differences between leaders who shape the bigger picture for a company and those that hit a ceiling and stay stuck in their functional roles is that the big picture leaders are way better at influencing their colleagues. I’ve had some amazing big picture leaders and influencers as executive coaching clients over the years and was talking with one of them last week.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

Consider this post a public service announcement. If you don’t have a peer coach, you need to go recruit one. It will be one of the best things you do this year for yourself and your newly recruited peer coach. How do I know that? Because I’ve had scores of leaders tell me so. As I’ve written here before, peer coaching is an important component of just about every leadership development program we offer at the Eblin Group – whether it’s the Next Level Leadership® group coaching program, the Next

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Next Level Blog

JULY 12, 2022

One of the leadership communications distinctions I’ve been thinking about a lot this year is the difference between communications that are episodic and those that are longitudinal. Back in January, I wrote a post about how leaders need to pull the thread through so their teams can see how their work fits into the longer arc of the work. Lately, I’ve been advising a lot of clients on how to frame their communications for C-Suite executives who, because of the nature of their jobs, are bombarded

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Next Level Blog

MAY 3, 2022

I love it when I learn from the people I’m coaching. Fortunately, that happens a lot including as recently as a few weeks ago when I was talking with Rishi, a country manager on a leadership team I’m coaching. In a prep conversation for an upcoming team coaching session, I asked Rishi what’s been working lately with the team he leads. Among other things, he mentioned that he’s been giving his team the latitude to make their own decisions and then own those decisions.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 15, 2022

The one thing that I think all of my clients agree on is that they’re sick of meetings. That tracks back to the quantity of meetings they have in a day or a week – way too many, and to the quality of the meetings they attend – too often, they’re tortuous and inconclusive. In other words, a painful waste of time. There’s a lot out there about how to run a good meeting so I’m not really going to get into that here.

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Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

In over thirty years of either working for senior executives, being a senior executive, or coaching senior executives, I’ve come to a few conclusions. One of them is that, too often, there’s an overemphasis on strategy and an underemphasis on culture. When that’s the case, the outcomes usually aren’t the greatest. There’s a reason the late, great Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 11, 2022

So, this is usually the week when your good intentions for the year smack up against the reality of the work at hand. In the words of the great philosopher, Mike Tyson, “Everybody’s got a plan until they get hit in the jaw.” As the meetings mount and the emails accumulate, that clarity and sense of calm you developed over the extended holiday break can start to fade.

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 4, 2022

In the last month of 2021, Wharton professor Adam Grant wrote a widely-read and quoted column for the New York Times titled There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing. As is his gift, Grant described something many were feeling but couldn’t quite articulate. The suspended animation aspect of the past two years and the feeling of a lack of control over our circumstances have left many of us in a state somewhere between depression and flourishing.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2021

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about when things have to be perfect and when “good enough” is good enough. It probably won’t be the last. As happened a couple of weeks ago, just about every time I work with a new cohort of leaders in our Next Level Leadership® group coaching program , someone ends up choosing the 360-degree feedback behavior, “Effectively differentiates between efforts that require perfection and those for which “good enough” is sufficient,” as a focal point for their pe

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Next Level Blog

NOVEMBER 23, 2021

Back in the days when I led leadership workshops in physical rooms, I would illustrate the power of transformational listening by having my leaders break out into groups of three and take five minutes each to answer the question, “What are you grateful for?”. Each person would take a turn speaking to that question while a second person listened not just with their ears but with their eyes, their smiles, their nods and, occasionally, a hand reaching out to touch the hand or shoulder of the speake

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Next Level Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

Here’s something that might make your head spin. Next week will mark 20 months since the day we all learned that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were quarantined with COVID in Australia and the NBA shut down its season on a dime when a player was diagnosed with COVID during pre-game warmups and the arena was cleared of fans. In the United States, March 11, 2020 was the day the pandemic got real.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 12, 2021

What does it actually take to get promoted to a bigger job? I’ve been in a lot of conversations about that question over the years. Often the question comes from a high potential leader looking for advice. Sometimes it comes up with a manager who wants advice on how to answer that question from an ambitious team member. As a public service to both groups, I’ll share my own observations drawn from a few decades worth of experience as an executive, executive coach and someone who’s written a book

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of sharing an auditorium with dozens of motivated young college men from the HBCU North Carolina Central University and other institutions. I know they were motivated because they showed up at 8:30 am on a Saturday morning for the Durham Success Summit’s (DSS) annual flagship event. They then spent the day in conversation with President Obama’s former aide and “body man”, Reggie Love ; learning how to build their personal brands, getting career development

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Next Level Blog

JULY 13, 2021

If there’s one topic that’s a common denominator in many of the conversations I’ve had with senior executives over the past few months, it’s how to handle the issue of employees returning to the office. Other than the ones who have said that everyone can work remotely, I haven’t talked with or heard of any companies that have really figured it out yet.

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 29, 2021

Occasionally, I get to work with an executive coaching client who’s exceptional at communicating with their colleagues. When I talk with the client’s colleagues about what makes them exceptional, one of the big differentiators is that the executive shares with them what they need to know before they need to know it. As a result, the colleagues feel valued by and appreciative of my client.

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Next Level Blog

APRIL 26, 2021

A few weeks ago, I had an online Q&A session with a senior executive following a keynote presentation I did for her company’s annual senior leadership summit. Like a lot of organizations, this company has a senior leadership team conference at the beginning of the year – either fiscal or calendar – to lay out their themes, goals and plans for the next 12 months.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 30, 2021

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to coach the members of a couple of different corporate senior leadership teams. The coaching approach I use for leadership teams is a lot like the one I use for individual leaders. We start with self-assessment and colleague feedback for each team member to identify strengths that can be leveraged in new ways along with the one or two development opportunities that would make the biggest difference if the leader moved the needle on them in a positive

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 9, 2021

It was one year ago this week that COVID brought things to a screeching halt in the United States. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they were sick with COVID and quarantined in Australia. The NBA and other professional and collegiate sports leagues were suspended. Offices shut down and many of us started working from home. What we thought would be a few months of living and working on a restricted basis has turned out to be a year and counting.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 1, 2020

The publication date of this post, December 1, 2020, marks the 20 th anniversary of our leadership development company, The Eblin Group. Over the past two decades, colleagues, friends and clients have often asked my wife, life and business partner Diane and me how we’ve grown the business over two decades and what we’ve learned along the way. There’s a lot to say and share about that for sure – more than one blog post can address.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 20, 2020

In case you’ve lost count, you may be one of the many of us who are in month eight of working from home. Based on the plans of companies like Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Aetna, Mastercard and others, it looks like a lot of people are going to continue working from home well into 2021 and, in some cases, forever. That means this is a good time to take a look at where you can up your game as an online leader and communicator.

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Most of the organizations I’m talking to and observing during the pandemic recognize the need to up their levels of innovation and agility. After all, if you need to pivot your business model and set yourself up to succeed in whatever environment presents itself next, you need to have those two qualities embedded in your culture. Some companies have been successful in pivoting quickly, while others have found it more challenging.

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Next Level Blog

JULY 27, 2020

What verb tense is your mind spending most of its time in – present, past or future? How about the members of your team – what time frame are their minds working in? You might consider those questions to be a bit weird or out there, but if you stop and examine the nature of your language and the quality of your thinking, you may find they’re more relevant than you’d initially think.

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Next Level Blog

JULY 21, 2020

Gary Burnison , the CEO of recruiting and leadership development firm Korn-Ferry writes a weekly email every week which I subscribe to. Not surprisingly, a lot of his notes the past several months have focused on leading during the pandemic. This past week, Gary offered a pointed metaphor to describe where he thinks we collectively are in the process.

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Next Level Blog

JULY 7, 2020

As I’ve been writing about the past couple of weeks, the allostatic load of the extraordinarily stressful period we’re living, working and leading through demands that we be more mindful about the routines that can help us be both effective and healthy. I’ve already written about physical and mental routines. This week, I want to talk about relational routines; the ones that address our basic need for love and belonging and that also help keep us alive.

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Next Level Blog

JUNE 17, 2020

I’ve had a lot of conversations with corporate leaders over the past couple of weeks that have all focused on variations of the same question, “What can I do to help end racism?” This is one of those times when I’m glad that the conventional wisdom on how to coach others is that it’s more about the questions than the answers. I’m good at asking questions, but on the topic of ending racism, don’t have a lot of answers based on long-term personal experience.

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Next Level Blog

MAY 26, 2020

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post that made the case that we’re all at the beginning of Phase 2 in our response to the global pandemic. To recap, Phase 1 lasted for about 8 weeks, depending on where in the world you live and, for large organizations at least, was about quickly reinventing how work was going to get done with many people working from home.

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Next Level Blog

MAY 5, 2020

One of the bright spots for me of this life-changing era we’re all living through is the stories of human connection that I hear from the executives I speak with every week. Again and again, they share moments or emails that demonstrate how tough times can bring out the best in leaders and their teams. I’m struck by how the moments that matter most are the ones in which leaders share themselves as human beings and encourage their team members to do the same.

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Next Level Blog

APRIL 21, 2020

If you’re an organizational leader it’s likely that you’ve heard of VUCA somewhere along the way. First developed by Warren Benni s and Burt Nanus and popularized by the U.S. Army War College at the end of the Cold War, VUCA is a framework that leaders can use to think about how to respond in environments that are: V olatile, U ncertain, C omplex, and A mbiguous.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 31, 2020

In times of crisis, complex decisions often have to be made and implemented quickly. It can be challenging to coordinate and obtain buy-in on those big decisions even when the stakeholders can get in a room together to hash it all out. In the new “Work from Home” (WFH) era sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, being in the same room isn’t an option. That can lead to some predictable conflict-management problems that you can avoid with a little foresight and creativity.

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Next Level Blog

MARCH 17, 2020

As everything started to shut down this past weekend, I spent a good bit of time on Monday scrolling through my LinkedIn and Instagram feeds to see how some of the best-known people in my field of leadership development are handling this new reality. Brene Brown held a virtual church service on Sunday morning. Simon Sinek is filming short videos where he’s answering questions from readers.

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Next Level Blog

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Ever had a manager who told you they had an “open-door policy?” Who knows, maybe you’ve even declared that yourself. The open-door policy implies that your team members or colleagues can come to you with anything. That desire to be a transparent and open leader is admirable. The problem starts when people knock on the proverbial door (and knock and knock) and no one’s home.

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 22, 2020

One of the things I’ve said for a long-time as an executive coach is that if you get colleague feedback that you need to be a better listener, take the feedback and start working on it. The positive leadership ripple effects from doing a better job of listening are enormous and wide-spread. Problem-solving, team-engagement, relationships and results all improve when leaders listen better.

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Next Level Blog

JANUARY 8, 2020

Life is better when you have fans – people who know and appreciate you, support you and can’t wait to see what you do next. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a rock star, Instagram influencer or a professional athlete. All of us need fans. Fanocracy. In a recent conversation with David Meerman Scott , co-author of the new book, Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans , I learned a lot about how to find and connect with your fans.

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Next Level Blog

DECEMBER 11, 2019

The best leaders I work with as an executive coach encourage open and honest dialogue. They’ve learned and understand why it’s so important for the people on their team and in their organizations to be completely comfortable with speaking up. First, you really want people contributing their best ideas on a regular basis because that’s how you win. Second, if your people aren’t contributing, speaking up and sharing the truth as they see it, you’re going to be flying blind as a leader.

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Next Level Blog

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

When you’re the leader, you have to keep things moving. To avoid being the bottleneck that slows your team’s work to a crawl, you need to make decisions on a timely basis. In a fast-paced environment, it can be hard to gather all the information you’d like to have when making important decisions. That can definitely affect your confidence in making the tough calls.

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Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 2, 2019

In watching and working with top executives and their teams over the past few years, I’ve come to a fresh conclusion. Preparation is the new leadership differentiator. You might argue that preparation has always been important. I would agree with you on that but would contend that preparation is in shorter supply than it used to be. As pretty much every organization continues on its quest to do more with less, it’s become common for executives and managers to show up for meetings and conversatio

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Next Level Blog

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

One of my mentors, Harvard professor Ron Heifetz, likes to say that leaders can either be on the dance floor or on the balcony. In the fast-paced world that we live and work in, it can be all too easy to spend most of your time dancing and not enough up on the balcony observing what’s working, what’s not and what adjustments you need to make to live and lead at your best.

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