Before I go on, I need to be very transparent with you. As I began noodling around the idea of listing and sharing leadership lessons I’ve learned through my adversities, I was more than a little conflicted; I’m nothing special and I’ve certainly seen people face far more difficult circumstances tha...
I’ve often heard the phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” in reference to adversities we face. From what I can tell, that’s often tied - at least loosely - to 1 Corinthians 10:13. In fact, there’s apparently even a Christian song based on that. All said, I can’t say that I interpret...
I’ve often heard the phrase, “Life is tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid.” As harsh as that may be, here’s some context: I could share dozens of difficult situations I fought through in my teens and early twenties, most of which were self-induced, that could have provided me with far more val...
As I transitioned from being a mediocre carpenter and operating a stamping pressing in a manufacturing facility to my first role with responsibility for getting results through people who have no reason to listen to me, I had no other option than to acknowledge my limits and begin identifying the ke...
Earlier as we looked at maximizing the return on investment in relationships, I stressed the importance of choosing them wisely and nurturing those relationships to ensure everyone involved had ample opportunity for growth. While identifying the key experts we’ll need in our lives in order to compen...
In June of 2000, I was only about a month into my new role facilitating (I’m intentionally not calling it leading and you’ll see why shortly) the 5S implementation across 200,000 square feet of the facility I worked in. In case you’re familiar with the idea, Sorting everything in a work area, Settin...
To lead with influence over authority, to fully utilize the strength of humility, to ever begin to develop others, or to even capture the slightest return on investment from our relationships, we’ve got to realize that we are indeed capable and worthy of all those things. Without knowing your worth,...
In addition to genuine humility, the mentors I’ve learned the most from over the last three decades have all been intentional about learning everything they possibly can from others. To that end, their humility serves them as a gateway to the wisdom they’ve been able to pass on to me and so many oth...
Creating a leadership legacy may seem lofty or unrealistic at first glance but I can assure you it’s not. Since leaving my role in manufacturing in late 2014, I’ve spoken with dozens of long-term employees (many of whom had since retired) who credited Kevin Arnold for his effort in providing them wi...
In What’s KILLING Your Profitability? I referenced how I frequently caught flack from our plant operations manager because employees across his areas routinely bypassed the chain of command by taking issues to behavior-based team members for resolution rather than their immediate supervisors. Throug...
In the first lesson of our Emerging Leader Development course, Cindy and I stress the importance of developing the self-discipline to address issues as soon as they arise, before emotion takes over and we lose control of a situation. All too often, I’ve seen folks in leadership roles opt not to addr...
I’m sure if we were having a conversation over coffee, we could list no less than a dozen reasons someone with leadership responsibility would avoid soliciting honest feedback. Before moving on, I’ll emphasize my intentionality for using the phrase “someone with leadership responsibility” rather tha...
