In August 2015, I sat in a room with John Maxwell for what was the closest I had been to him in the decade and a half that I had been studying his work. If I’m being honest, I was completely overwhelmed. This session was just prior to the event where I would complete my initial certification to use ...

Assuming we’ve fulfilled the part of our leadership responsibility that lies in tying our organization’s mission, vision, and values to a definite purpose and we’ve invested the effort to recognize what our team members have shown us to truly drive them, we have the key pieces in place to help them ...

As we started looking at ways to provide a clear picture of the purpose each of our team members are working toward, I shared how Pat Lencioni defined “immeasurability” in The Truth About Employee Engagement. Just to be sure that’s fresh in your mind, here it is once more:

Employees need to be ab...

The Law of the Edge states that the difference between two equally talented teams is leadership. Leadership is the key to success!

Chapter 15 begins by reminding us that teams always look for an edge. Sports teams create new plays to outsmart their opponents and win games. They trade for what they ...

My primary focus in writing What’s KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!) was to absolutely drive home one single point to every business owner, executive, and manager it could possibly reach. That point, detailed through each separate chapter, was how much impact effective l...

Early on in this look at Leading With a Clear Purpose, I shared examples of close friends who have dedicated (and risked) their lives through careers serving others; military, fire, and law enforcement. In detailing those, I even provided some average starting wages for police officers and firefight...

Over the years, I’ve referenced the preamble to the Declaration of Independence numerous times in articles on our website as well as lessons in our Leading At The Next Level program. Just in case it’s not fresh in your mind, I’ll share it once more here - directly from the National Archives website:...

Earlier, we looked at how important it is for anyone in a leadership role to paint a clear picture of the organizational purpose they’re working toward so each member of their teams could have something tangible to connect with. While that was a broad reference that I only touched on in passing as w...

As we work to verbalize a purpose each of our team members find fulfillment in and connect with, something they can rally around as a genuine purpose in their life, it won’t be as simple as throwing the proverbial mud against the wall and hoping something sticks. This will require us to be very spec...

Please don’t mistake me referring to something as being simple for thinking that I’m saying it will be easy. Even when we’ve invested the time to listen to what our team members are telling us and we’ve paid close attention to what their behaviors are showing us, we’ll still need to be incredibly in...

When we cast a vision we know requires more teamwork than our people are currently demonstrating, leaders need to message The Big Picture. The team must hear that the goal is more important than the role and help their people see the big picture. 

Everyone on the team matters. The more we help each...

The things we learn by asking our team members the right questions, and actually investing the time to listen to their replies, and by intentionally observing their behaviors provide a tremendous framework for understanding what makes them tick - even with the occasional mismatch between what they’v...