I used to work 100 hour weeks.
I still do, on rare occasions. But back when I was first producing my weekly comedy TV show Almost Live!, they were routine.
And most of those 100 hours, especially the final 24, were in panic mode. I spent much of those 24 hours trying to hide the panic from my staff.
So why was I in such a panic? Because the pressure was overwhelming, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
Each week, we had ...
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Do you regularly find yourself in high-pressure situations? If you’re a leader (or a lion tamer), the answer is probably yes. And if that’s true, then it’s also true that you’re expected to produce under these high-pressure situations, right? In fact, that expectation to produce only adds to the pressure!
And that actually increases the chance that you’ll choke.
So how do you do it? How do you keep from choking in the big moments—the ones that really count?
There are few things more challenging to a leader than having to lead your team through a major change. You hear all the usual whining from your team:
Honestly, they sometimes sound like babies, don’t they?
Fine then. Let’s talk about babies. Specifically, let’s talk about birth.
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They are the heroes, the icons, the legends. They are the leaders in sports, science, and business who “rise to the occasion.” The ones who “do their best work under pressure.” People write books and make movies about these singular luminaries.
The only problem is that it’s not true.
Despite what we’d like to believe (because it makes for a great story), people do not “rise to the occasion.” “Rising to the occasion” implies that some people do their best work under ...
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How do you measure success? Money? Fame? Applause?
It’s a deceptively difficult question, but one that’s critical to keeping your team productive, loyal, and engaged.
The question is deceptively difficult because it seems there would be as many answers as there are people on your team, or in your organization, or even in the world. Surely every person has his or her own criteria for success, right?
Wrong.
It turns out that there ...
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Leadership is not for wimps.
Wimps don’t like pressure, and leadership is all about pressure. When I was leading my TV team to over 100 Emmy Awards and 10 straight years of #1 ratings, there wasn’t a single week where I didn’t feel pressure—sometimes extreme pressure!
It’s probably the same for you too, isn’t it?
Now, your specific pressures may not be the same ...