A Leader’s First Customer

I believe making responsiveness a priority is considerably easier when we understand just how much impact it has. Think about it, would you even consider not responding to a customer or client who represents tens of thousands in profit for your company? I’d guess most of us would put our...

Continue Reading...
Of Course You’re Busy, But It’s Not an Option!

With a clear picture in your mind of someone you know who always says “I’ll get back to you on that” but rarely does, and a firm understanding for the importance of being responsive as a leader, let’s consider one of the biggest challenges I hear from folks with leadership...

Continue Reading...
Whatever Happened to Accountability?

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a front row seat watching Cindy handle a situation. In most cases, my highly DRIVEN behavioral style takes complete control and I immerse myself in issues like this to “help” her… After all, I started out as her bodyguard and that’s...

Continue Reading...
Meet Their Needs, Exceed Their Expectations!

Now that we have a solid definition of servant leadership to work from, and we’ve looked at some servant leadership practices that will help us meet the needs of our team members based on their own behavioral style, let’s close the loop with some final thoughts on how we can move this...

Continue Reading...
Don’t Just Get It Right, Get It Correct!

Before we close the loop on what we can do to exceed expectations for the folks with the final primary behavioral, I’m going to insert a quick plug for the complimentary session Cindy and I are hosting on Friday, Feb 12 at 2:30p on How Top Leaders Set the Tone for Recruitment &...

Continue Reading...
Just be Nice...

As I closed the last post, I referenced one primary difference between the folks with either of the last two styles we looked at and these final two styles we’ll be working through; the need to tone it down a bit as we work to exceed their expectations…

Before going too far with the...

Continue Reading...
Extra Energy and Excitement

While exceeding expectations with the DRIVEN folks we looked at in the last post will often involve less sizzle and more steak, the next 30% - the INSPIRING ones - may actually enjoy the sizzle! Once we have that clear picture of what they expect, we can go above and beyond with this Fast-Paced ...

Continue Reading...
Driven to Exceed Expectations

In a large majority of the initial conversations I have with folks around the DISC Model of Human Behavior, I’m told “I’ve taken an assessment. I’m a D (or an I, or an S, or a C)” and that’s about as far as they take it. Interestingly enough, statements like...

Continue Reading...
Aligning Intentions with Perceptions

Even after doing all the things we’ve looked at through the last several posts to ensure we’re on the right track to being able to exceed expectations with each person we interact with, there can be a huge gap between what we intend and what they perceive! Nearly all of us have grown...

Continue Reading...
Not On or To Them, but FOR Them!

I got my first taste of behavior-based safety in late spring or early summer of 1998. Cindy and I had only been dating a few months at that point so I was still teetering on the edge to say the least… By the time I went through the two day training process required to conduct behavioral...

Continue Reading...
What Do You Expect from ME?

Once we’ve worked to ensure we’re very clear about exactly what it is that we provide for our customers, our clients, the team members we lead, or even our family, we’d each do well to invest some additional time into making sure we understand just what it is they’re...

Continue Reading...
Clarifying Expectations

Over the last several weeks in this series, as well as through a few separate lessons in our Leading At The Next Level program, I’ve heavily stressed the importance of EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS and how doing that consistently puts us in a very small percentage of society. In the LinkedIn...

Continue Reading...
1 2