Articles for category: Leadership

September 4, 2018

Greg Thomas

Be the Glue

I wrote this presentation a few years ago on how to Build a Great Team but I forgot a critical element to it all. The Glue – you need someone who is the glue on your team. Maybe it’s your Manager or Team Lead or maybe it’s the one that’s setting up Virtual Machines on a daily basis. But whether it’s one person or many or rotates between a few – you need that Glue. That Glue is what holds teams together, keeps them going through the hard times, let’s them shine in the good. If you’re building your team

September 3, 2018

Greg Thomas

The Following Leader

Don’t rock the boat. Don’t ask the hard questions. Take No for an answer. Don’t try and prove them wrong. Don’t try out new ideas. Go along with the popular vote. Don’t stand up for anything (and the same goes for sitting down). Stay in your lane. Don’t believe that you can be more. As the saying goes – “Smile more, talk less”. And become the leader that follows everyone around, never making a critical decision, never changing course, never taking a leap and never failing. But always being “there”… whatever “there” is… whatever “there” the Following Leader is trying

Learn from Others

The best way to learn is to learn from others. Learn what they have done to become successful. Watch what they do (and stop talking about it). Don’t share the fact that you’re learning from them. Listen to what has and has not worked. And then, ask questions, get feedback on your approach, what are you doing that works and what are you doing that is not. Or, keep doing what you’re doing and hope you figure it out at some point.  You probably will… at some point… or you might never… all you had to do was ask.

August 16, 2018

Greg Thomas

Lead their Weaknesses

We pick teams based on strength and accomplishments. And when we put them all together we expect magical things to occur. But sometimes the better approach is to Lead by their Weaknesses – not to showcase and single out where everyone is weak (I hope this is obvious) but rather to make a note where they need help, make a plan, figure out what needs to be done and focus your energies there. If you are already pumping out code morning, noon and night with ease that’s not where I’m going to help you.  Where I’m going to help you

August 13, 2018

Greg Thomas

The Unsubscribed Subscription

I still look at emails I want to unsubscribe from and go – “but if I unsubscribe, they’ll know I’m a real person, that I exist, maybe they won’t take me off their list”. And when I do unsubscribe, I immediately get the email back that says – “It might take a week to remove you from our list”.  When I picture this, I think of my subscription being sent to headquarters in an envelope labeled “Unsubscribed” that has a stamp on it.  Someone must now open it with a letter cutter and then carefully pour over my request for