It's Time to Lead

Why does your business exist?  No matter what kind of organization you are leading, whether you are an executive in a huge corporation or a solo entrepreneur, you have a concept of what your business is about.  How you think about that question will greatly determine what your business looks like a year from now. [...]

Watching culture change happen within a business is something that makes a lasting impression.  There are many organizations that don’t understand why culture is so important and many more that want to change it but don’t know how.  I’ve even read articles like this one, that suggest it may not even be possible. Culture change, to [...]

I was working with a leader recently who wanted the people on her team to treat their relationship differently.  Because she was approachable, compassionate and empathetic to her team, they began to share every trouble, woe and bit of drama in their lives with her, often when there were pressing business issues that needed 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’ve had the good fortune throughout my career to work with some incredible leaders. But for every great leader I’ve been around there were dozens of individuals who could have been great leaders and never were. I’ve known many people who have had the skills, the knowledge and the experience to lead people effectively and [...]