Not so long ago, a gentleman who had recently joined a civic organization I’m a part of sent an email to several other members of the group inviting them to catch up over lunch or coffee individually with hopes of getting to know each of them better since he was relatively new to the area. After a f...
As I dug a bit deeper into the SHRM article I referenced last time, I liked how they tied servant leadership back to early Eastern culture citing Laozi, a 5th century Chinese philosopher as suggesting that “when the best leaders finished their work, their people would say ‘we did it ourselves.’” Tha...
I closed last time by promising to share some things that just about anyone can apply to earn genuine influence and lead the team they supervise or manage more effectively. While that may seem like a pretty lofty promise, I really believe it’s much simpler than it’s usually made out to be…
Just to ...
I truly believe that one of the most essential qualities of leadership is serving the team we’re leading. Unfortunately, the idea of serving those team members is often mistaken for catering to those team members, which doesn’t serve anyone!
As we worked through that quality of service in the last ...
Whether it’s what we intend or not, the message we send someone is a huge part of why effective communication is so important! If we want strong relationships that yield overall happy lives, we have to be very intentional about delivering a message the person we’re interacting with can receive rathe...
As we consider each area that we can take responsibility for controlling that we’ve worked through to this point, there’s one thing that ties back to every single one… And without being very intentional about how we control this final thing, the control we’ve assumed for each of the others is likely...
We’ve been looking at different scenarios where team members aren’t performing to the level they’re capable, whether that be through their words or their deeds. In some cases, it can be very intentional. But there are certainly times where they’re just not aware that more is needed.
For the most p...
A number of years ago, I was scheduled to visit some job sites with the field supervisor at the company I was working with. I met him at the warehouse just before 5am so I could have some time with his team members as he was making sure they each had the materials they would need at each of their jo...
I closed the last post with a commitment to share an example I’ve personally seen of someone who turned their ripples into waves by selflessly serving the people around them. I’m not gonna do that; I’m going to share two… (but I could easily point to dozens more!)
Yesterday afternoon, I had a conve...