Peter Drucker famously said that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. We find another strategy killer is willful blindness - when people block out the uncomfortable realities of their world. When combined with Jim Collins’ findings in Good to Great around how businesses need to simultaneously confront the brutal facts of their present situation yet never give up hope that they will persevere in the end, confronting the willful blindness that we all have is needed for success in business and life.

Creating a more equitable workplace requires acute intentionality, and the willingness to do so is growing. Like me and several of my clients, you may also be at a crossroads and asking, “Where do I go next on this journey? How do I help the people around me get further down the road, too?”

It’s the eve of an election in the midst of a global pandemic. My guess is that when it comes to serving up hot topics, this year your workplace is giving the Thanksgiving table an early run for its money.

It’s undeniable how hot things are in our country with an ongoing global pandemic playing out in the backdrop of our fractured States of America. It’s likely your team is feeling the heat, and before you even realize it, anger and fear trumps you and your team’s own knowing of how to show up and move forward together.

Leadership at its essence is about leading a team or company from “here”, the current state to “there”, a preferred future state. When leadership is viewed through the lens of leading others from ‘here’ to ‘there’ the similarities between great leaders and great navigators becomes more clear.

A weed free lawn or garden is not normal. Weeds will take root and grow unless someone takes intentional action to prevent them from growing. To extend the metaphor to the leadership of teams, leaders are the gardener and their team is the garden.

All leaders need to fight against the leadership flaw of “It’s not what you preach – it’s what you tolerate.”

Business owners have a seemingly never ending number of battles they need to fight to the point it can make them blind to the biggest issue they need to resolve – that massive five ton elephant in the room!

We’ve all been there. Maybe it's a small issue that’s snowballed into a larger one or that nagging feeling we get when we know we need to address an issue with a colleague, boss or teammate. Navigating conflict is hard.

You’ve likely experienced being on a team with a leader that lacks self-awareness. They’re the type that have a difficult time recognizing how their emotions, words and behaviors affect other people. They tend to have difficulty engaging the hearts and minds of those around them. They also usually have a hard time empathizing with others, leading to an inability to “read” other people and often being “misread” by others.

A friend was recently recounting a story I’ll never forget: He was driving on the highway with his wife and three boys on their way home from Christmas break.