Courage is not about not having fear. Courage is having fear and doing something anyway.

At a recent leadership intensive, we split a room full of leaders into teams and asked who wanted to lead. Almost nobody raised their hand.

These are leaders, at a leadership event, and still most of them sat on their hands.

- Why so many capable leaders avoid raising their hand for the role, and what is actually happening underneath the excuses like I'm too busy or somebody else would do it better

- The real difference between courage and confidence, and why waiting until you feel ready is the one thing guaranteed to keep you waiting forever

- Why people want to be led by someone who actually wants to lead, and what a reluctant leader costs their team even when they are technically doing the job

- The specific moments in leadership that demand courage, from having the hard conversation you keep avoiding to simply saying I don't know, and why each one builds the muscle for the next

- A story about a cold call I avoided for four straight days, and the one I almost avoided the same way, and what changed when I didn't

This week, find the one place where you are playing it safe, whether that is a conversation you are avoiding, a hand you have not raised, or a risk you keep putting off, and do the thing anyway.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8944058/

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The manager everyone thinks is incompetent probably isn't. She just never got trained.

82% of UK managers are what's called accidental managers, promoted without ever getting the skills or training to actually do the job…so what do you do about it?

You’ll learn everything you need to know about leadership training & development for your team including;

- Why what looks like incompetence in a struggling manager is almost always a training gap instead, and how that one reframe changes the entire conversation you need to have with them

- The six main ways to invest in leadership development, what problem each one actually solves, and how to know which one your team needs right now

- Why the old week-away training model barely works, and what the research actually says you need instead to get people to change their behavior and keep it

- How to build the business case that gets your leadership training budget approved, by tying it directly to a business objective the person signing off on it already cares about

- The one leadership myth from your MBA that's wrong, and why what looks like the Peter Principle is actually just leaders never getting the training they needed to succeed at the next level

This week, figure out what leadership development you, your team, or your organization actually needs, check whether it is already in next year's plan, and if it is not, start building the case for how it gets there.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8944058/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/leadershipmindsetgroup

Your mind messes with you, and until you know that, it's going to keep holding you back.

Today, you're going to learn exactly how it does this and how to make it work for you instead of against you.

- The simple fact versus fiction tool for catching the exact moment your brain starts inventing a story that has nothing to do with reality

- Why a great presentation, a good piece of feedback, or a clear win can still get twisted into self doubt, and how to stop that story before it takes hold

- How to rewrite the story you are telling yourself about someone who seems distant or hard to read, and why that one shift changes how you actually show up with them

- What to do the next time your ego tells you that you are not qualified, not ready, or not the right person, and why that story is almost always the least accurate one available to you

- How to teach this same tool to the people you lead, so you can catch them in their own made up stories and help them get back to what is actually true

This week, find one story you are telling yourself that is causing you stress, draw a line down the middle of a page, write fact on one side and fiction on the other, and be honest about which side each thought actually belongs on.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8944058/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/leadershipmindsetgroup

Doors are open for the Team Performance Accelerator, Michael's three month live programme on building a team that takes ownership without you standing over it. Six live sessions with Michael, starting October 6th. Enrolment closes September 28th.

Details here: rmichaelanderson.com/podteam

A tool every leader needs is the ability to turn negative, complaining people into a positive, effective member of the team.

The problem is, if you don't know how to do this, you often make it worse.

Here's a simple yet powerful model you can use that does just that. In fact, as you’ll hear, it even works inside of a prison.

- The three roles in the drama triangle, victim, persecutor, and rescuer, and why you are probably playing one of them right now without realizing it

- Why rescuing someone in a victim mindset actually validates their negativity instead of fixing it, and what that costs you as a leader over time

- The exact questions that move someone from complaining about the past to creating a positive future, and why "what is your desired outcome" works better than almost anything else you can say

- How to be firm with someone who is venting without becoming cold or dismissive, and where the real line is between consoling someone and enabling them

- Why catching yourself in victim mode is harder than spotting it in someone else, and the one question that exposes where your own ego is hiding it from you

This week, find one place where you or someone around you is playing the victim, identify who the persecutor is in that story, notice if you have been stepping in as the rescuer, and then ask the one question that starts moving things forward: what is the outcome you actually want here.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8944058/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/leadershipmindsetgroup

Doors are open for the Team Performance Accelerator, Michael's three month live programme on building a team that takes ownership without you standing over it. Six live sessions with Michael, starting October 6th. Enrolment closes September 28th.

Details here: rmichaelanderson.com/podteam

One of the most frustrating things for a manager is that their team's not performing, and they don't know what to do about it.

The pressure starts mounting more and more. They start to doubt themselves, and things get worse and worse for everybody involved.

The solution is to evaluate your team on these five pillars and then put in a strategy to solve it.

- The five pillars that separate high-performing teams from the ones stuck firefighting, and the one score you'll walk away with that tells you exactly where to focus first

- Why hiring your way out of a broken culture never works, and what actually happens when you throw a new headcount at a team with no clear expectations

- The real cost of keeping a B-minus player on an A-player team, and why it’s causing your best people to check out or leave

- What separates a leader who manages from one who actually leads, and why AI is about to make that gap the only thing that matters

- How to build a culture that runs on its own momentum instead of one you have to hold together by sheer will every single day

Scorecard Download: https://rmichaelanderson.com/teams-scorecard

This week, score your team honestly across the five pillars, culture, purpose and vision, team makeup, engagement, and leadership, and identify the one pillar that's actually holding you back…because here's the thing, it's usually not the one you've been working on.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8944058/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/leadershipmindsetgroup

Doors are open for the Team Performance Accelerator, Michael's three month live programme on building a team that takes ownership without you standing over it. Six live sessions with Michael, starting October 6th, limited to 30 leaders. Enrolment closes September 28th.

Details here: rmichaelanderson.com/podteam

When trust disappears from a team, even small disagreements can turn into defensiveness, gossip, blame, and conflict...so how do you turn it around?

In this episode, Michael breaks down a five-step process for helping a team move out of dysfunction and start rebuilding trust. And it doesn't begin with forcing everyone to get along. It begins with understanding why people are defensive in the first place, including how you might be contributing to the dynamic as their leader.

Michael walks through what to address, what to say, and how to set clear expectations so you're not simply hoping the conflict will resolve itself.

- How to recognize when ego and defensiveness are driving conflict, including when your own reactions may be adding to the problem.

- Why leaders need to bring unspoken tension into the open before a team can actually work through it.

- How to set clear expectations, get genuine agreement, and hold people accountable for rebuilding trust over time.

Look at the conflict or lack of trust on your team and ask yourself which part of the five-step process needs your attention right now. Do you need to understand where ego is showing up? Name a problem that everyone is avoiding? Set clearer expectations? Get agreement from your team? Or start holding people accountable? Choose the step your team needs most and put it into action.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8944058/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/leadershipmindsetgroup

Never let someone come to you with just a problem. They need one to three solutions already worked out, because that is the moment a follower starts becoming a leader.

Here's the thing. A VP I coach ran a time audit and found he was spending five hours a week with one newer team member. His first instinct was to just cut that time back. That would have backfired.

- Why cutting back time with someone you have been over-supporting can blow up in your face if you handle it wrong, and the simple reframe that gets their buy-in instead of their anxiety

- The real difference between internal and external processors. One of your team members might be talking too much simply because that is how they think, not because they cannot decide

- The exact standard to set so people stop bringing you problems and start bringing you solutions. This one shift does more for someone's leadership growth than almost anything else you can teach them

- How to use phases to structure your relationship with a growing team member, so every stage has a clear, motivating focus instead of feeling like an open ended obligation

- The coaching questions that push someone to actually decide instead of staying stuck. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is refuse to decide for them

This week, the next time someone comes to you with a problem, ask for their one to three options before you help solve it. If they do not have any, send them back to think it through first. That one habit is what starts turning a follower into a leader.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

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A burned out team does not need better processes. It needs a leader who knows where they are going. The thing keeping your people stuck has nothing to do with their workload.

- Why the loudest negative person on your team is currently setting the tone for everyone else, and what you have to do about it before anything else can shift

- The difference between empathy and direction, and why leading with one while missing the other leaves your team feeling unled no matter how hard you are working

- Why workload data and process improvements cannot fix a burned out team culture, and what your people are actually waiting for from you

- How to show up to your boss with a plan and a specific ask instead of a list of problems, and why that one shift changes what help you can get

- The exact moves to make in the next two weeks to start turning the energy in your department around

This week, write the one paragraph narrative of where your team is going in the next 12 months and schedule the one conversation you have been putting off with the person whose energy is pulling the room in the wrong direction, because those two things together will move more than any process improvement you could make.

Ask me in the Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8944058/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/leadershipmindsetgroup