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“The frozen middle” is how executives often describe mid-level leaders who shrug off senior-level direction. Even for something as simple and vital as conveying messages to the rest of the workforce, those mid-level folks sometimes appear to think “Insulate” rather than “Communicate.

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Here is the simplest, most powerful way to energize teams, to improve their collaboration, and to help them make smarter and more innovative decisions:

The essay below isn’t our usual essay on leadership, but we hope you’ll take about seven minutes to read it and benefit from it. We believe there are a couple of opportunities worth harvesting from the COVID-19 challenge.

First, history will judge organizational leaders by how they lead in these difficult times.

“Revitalizing squadrons” was named General David Goldfein’s top priority when he took over as US Air Force’s Chief in 2016. Executive Leadership Group was asked to provide organizational behavior expertise to the Air Force team directed to tackle the problem (hey, they hire the very best!) and led by Maj General Stephen Davis.

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The masters of innovation–Netflix, Salesforce.com, Google, Tesla Motors–aren’t trying to innovate. They are trying to dominate. These winners keep winning because they know which rocks to break and which targets to shoot for.

“How can leaders stay in touch with reality – and out of the headlines?” Wendi and I wondered this aloud over dinner with Dr. Christine Hunter and husband Bob.

Leadership transition is fraught with folks who leave a mess behind. C-level transition, especially, can have an aspect of political pragmatism that leaves a stinky mess.

“What’s the first thing we do to help clients find money?” That was the question Wendi and I set out to answer when we had a forehead-thumping déjà vu. Although we didn’t phrase it quite that way, we did answer that question here about two years ago. The answer still seems pretty timely, so we’re running it again, minus a couple of typos:

We stand corrected. That was after having carelessly made the assertion that no foreign power had successfully occupied Afghanistan since Alexander the Great. Now, “standing corrected” is the problem of being a dilettante in front of a smart guy like Prof. Peter Dutton at the U.S. Naval War College. “Nope,” he said. “Genghis Kahn did it, too.”

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Henry Ford said that failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.

But many of us begin again with no increase in intelligence. Or, we don’t get smarter because we won’t risk failure in the first place.