Influence > Position or Title!

As we started down this path, I shared a piece of John Maxwell’s story about how he learned that influence was far more important than a title or position when it came to getting anyone to follow you. And let’s be honest: if no one is following, we ain’t leading!

To provide a...

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Driving Long Term Results

Whether it’s been through the customized approach to Developing Effective Trainers that I just explained or any of the other resources that Cindy and I have developed to helping leaders address the things that are killing profitability in their businesses or teams, we’ve always worked...

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If They’re Not Rowing At All, Rowing Harder Isn’t Likely…

About a dozen years ago, I was offered a position with global responsibility for the behavior-based safety process within the company I worked for. The fellow who had been in the role for more than a decade was retiring and since I had supported him by working with most of our facilities across...

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House Cats or Barn Cats…

While the strong mentors Jordan had helped him maintain a strong public image, there were still areas where he led teammates in a less than positive direction… I’ve referenced the difference between the influence Michael Jordan earned and the positional authority Jerry Krause relied...

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According to Who?

Last time, we looked at how Jordan’s performance pulled other players to higher levels, whether they were playing with him or against him. Some of that was sheer competitive nature and some was out of desperation to prevent looking completely foolish… Regardless of the reason, the...

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Leadership Contributions - The Impact of His Influence

From the time he joined the Bulls, it was very clear that very few approached the game like he did. Turning around a team that was rumored to drink beer and smoke cigarettes at halftime, and do far worse in their hotel rooms after the games, wouldn’t be a simple task! The contributions...

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Building Deeper Connections With...

In The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, Patrick Lencioni mentioned that two of the signs were important for every team member to understand if we want them to have a clear picture of how they can engage and why it matters. We’ve already hit on IRRELEVANCE and we’ll touch on something...

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Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Having made a case for why it may not serve us all that well to focus only on ensuring our employees’ happiness or satisfaction, and working to actually engage them ties more directly to the results we need to achieve, we should probably take the time to define employee engagement before...

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Did You Set Clear Expectations?

Whether you’re leading a small department or a large organization, there’s never a shortage in things that need your attention… Even after those business owners and executives we’ve been looking at have invested the time and energy into leading their teams effectively and...

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Systems for Accuracy and Precision

Several years ago, Cindy and I led a session covering The DISC Model of Human Behavior for a local client where a friend of mine was one of the participants. He and I had served on a board together prior to that so I had a solid understanding of his day to day responsibilities and I knew that he...

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How Do You Measure Success?

We closed last time by touching briefly on how critical it is to be able to measure tangible results as we work to avoid many of the reasons for why leadership training fails. Leading up to that, we looked at the wide variations in what’s even referred to as leadership training and we dug...

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A Firm Grip on an Empty Sack...

I had worked hard, doing all I could to hone the skills I needed to become truly effective in the role I held. I had really studied some of the most effective trainers, both within and outside of the behavior-based safety world, so I could excel in something that was incredibly difficult for me...

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