As leaders, the systems we create to help us manage our own routine and workload are critical - especially if we’re going to have a real shot at keeping even the clearest purpose top of mind. But we DO NOT have the luxury of stopping there! Building similar routines into our entire...
If we’re going to lead with a clear purpose, providing the oh-so-necessary clarity for the team members who are counting on us, having a firm grasp on a purpose of our own that truly is rewarding can be the difference maker when we need to push through the tough times - and there will most...
Leaders offer growth and development options because they want the best for their people. As leaders, we have a responsibility to build our people and the way our people are built shows up in our culture every day. If we build values of service, integrity, accountability, responsibility, this...
If we’re serious about giving our best team members a solid reason to stay by providing them with purpose and we’ve invested the energy into understanding the reasons that drive their behavior, we should certainly have a solid foundation. But when we can connect all of that to how...
Even when we begin to recognize what’s killing our profitability, start to dial in on the right prescription for addressing it, and come up with some simple solutions that can have a strong impact, we’ll miss capturing a significant amount of our best potential results if we allow our...
No, not the 1991 single by Extreme! I’m talking about what you and I need to provide to set the tone in our organizations - especially since we’re far more likely to get what we are then just what we want!
Whether they’re listed in the employee handbook, on a document in a...
Periodically, a parade of managers would gather around those nifty bulletin boards I mentioned last time and they’d expect the area lead person to give them a run down of everything that was plotted on all the charts they were supposed to be updating each hour. In the cases where the lead...
We’ll soon start working through the tangible benefits an organization can expect from an effective employee orientation program but before we go too far into the HOW, we have to nail down the WHO and the WHY! Otherwise, any steps we take won’t likely make the impact we’re...
Christopher Columbus supposedly said “You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” I say supposedly because variations of that quote seem to be attributed to at least half a dozen folks, not the least of whom were Winston Churchill and William...
Not only do we need to provide a daily example of deliberate leadership, showing our team just how engaged we are in working toward the initiatives we’ve set, we also need to make sure our behaviors that show this engagement directly translate back to those objectives! This is where we...
A while back I heard Carly Fiorina differentiate managing from leading by saying, “Managers produce results within existing constraints and conditions. Leaders change or challenge existing constraints or conditions.” As I closed the last post that worked through a practical approach...
I got us started down this path last time by stressing that someone in every organization needs to take responsibility for charting the course. I also emphasized that while it typically needs to be the business owner or CEO who casts the primary vision, they absolutely need to be able to count on...
