It's Time to Lead

Last night, as I was telling the kids goodnight, I noticed that the movie Tin Cup was on television.  I’m not a huge movie buff but that’s one of the classics in my opinion.  I happen to walk through the room just at the beginning of the scene where Roy McAvoy, with a chance to [...]

Most of the companies I work with dedicate some percentage of their revenue toward developing the leaders in their business.   One of the discussions we often have up front is the difference between spending money to train leaders and investing to grow them. I spend money on a nice dinner; I invest in my retirement.  [...]

Often, when organizations are trying to make change happen, it comes down to a couple of levers that they need to pull to start the motion.  It might be organizational structure, or process, or communication.  Almost always, it’s a combination of things that need to be addressed in order to cause change to happen.  But [...]

I’ve worked with a lot of folks lately who have had a change in careers or are looking for a new one and one thing keeps becoming clearer to me as I have conversations with these folks.  It’s not about the ground gained, it’s about the potential created. So many people who were focused on [...]

I recently wrote an article about how leaders focus on things a little differently than others and that it’s not that they engage in different activities, as much as it is how they engage.  Leaders tend to think differently about their daily activities and focus on a different outcome, so they get exactly that.  One [...]

One of the most common questions I get when I am working with leaders who are trying to make a shift in how they lead themselves and others, goes something like this:  ”How am I supposed to do all of this other leadership and people stuff when it takes all of my time just to [...]

I met a business leader recently who was telling me about the challenges he was having with getting people in his organization to step up and take responsibility.  He felt like he was ready to turn more of his operation over to others in the company so he could stop working 70 or 80 hours [...]

I had an opportunity to speak to business owners from across the country recently at their annual convention.  Prior to my keynote address they gave out several awards to members of their group.  There was one individual who, it seemed, hardly had time to sit down before she was called back to the stage to [...]

One of the attributes I have noticed in nearly every great leader that I’ve worked with is that they know how to get back up after they fall.  I don’t think they fall any less than the rest of us, or any less hard.  But they don’t lay there very long. I actually believe that [...]

One of the most basic questions leaders often ask is how do I get the people in the organization to do what the organization needs them to.  I was working with the president of a multi-billion dollar business when he said, “my biggest problem is that I know exactly what the people in this business [...]