The C3 Leadership Blog: practical writing on leadership by Dr. Bill Dickinson
Decision making
Your real job is to build better decision makers
When decisions keep traveling to the most senior person, the organization has not built the capability to make them. · 4 min read
Strategy
Strategy takes a fifth of the week. The Priority Plan makes the rest count.
What 60,000 hours of CEO time reveal, and how three priorities and six SMART goals keep strategy alive. · 4 min read
Feedback
Closing the feedback loop
Feedback is the part of the job leaders know matters most and practice least. The fix is a question and a rhythm. · 5 min read
Emotional intelligence
Every organization runs on two systems. You have likely only ever funded one.
How confidence, fear, credit, and trust travel between your people is a system. Someone should own it. · 4 min read
Facilitation
You are facilitating more than you realize
Seven practices for the meetings, one-on-ones, and hallway decisions you are already leading. · 5 min read
Leading in the age of AI
When the best idea in the room isn’t yours
AI is doing the analysis well. What it cannot do is lead people, and that is quickly becoming the whole job. · 6 min read
Selection
The gap in leadership you cannot train your way out of
Before you invest in a program, ask whether the right person is in the seat. · 5 min read
Promotion decisions
Visibility is not a seat requirement
Presence is easy to see. It is not evidence of judgment, influence, or the capacity to lead people. · 6 min read
Career passages
The four passages every leader has to cross
Each crossing hands you a new source of value and asks you to set down the old one. · 8 min read
Decision rights
How to ask your boss for the decisions you should own
The twenty minute conversation that turns a title into a mandate. · 6 min read
Delegation
How to delegate a decision, not just a task
You hand someone the work and you keep the decision. The decision is the part that grows them. · 7 min read
Enterprise thinking
How to think like an enterprise leader instead of a department head
At Director level you win your function's argument. At VP level you sometimes lose it on purpose. · 7 min read
Alignment
Eight signs your leadership team is not aligned
Ask three leaders where the company is headed and get three answers. Each sign has a move. · 8 min read
Developing people
How to grow leaders on your team, not just strong performers
Strong performers deliver. Leaders decide. The second one has to be built on purpose. · 8 min read
Self-awareness
What your 360 review will tell you that nobody says to your face
Bill's own 360, what his team actually wrote, and the two moves he made after reading it. · 9 min read
Letting go
The expertise that got you promoted is now holding you back
At every passage you have to choose, on purpose, which strength you will let go stale. · 7 min read
Self-check
Seven signs you have not let go of your old job
A short, honest read on your calendar, your escalations and your updates upward. · 6 min read
Leadership development and executive coaching. Based in Atlanta, working globally in virtual, in-person and hybrid formats.
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