Effective Leaders Value Their People

Leaders have always been evaluated based on the two extremes of the tasks that must be done compared to the relationship skills involved in motivating the people who will actually do the work.    The theory was some leaders are born project managers and others are great in customer service. In Read more…

When Management Becomes The Problem

I started working in a management culture that clearly defined expectations and the role of the manager was to make sure the people under them were not making any mistakes.  Every time someone did, a new rule or process improvement was developed to make sure that never happened again.  In Read more…

How To Know You Are In The Right Job

All of us know the price we pay when we find ourselves working with the wrong people in the wrong place.  In all the research Jim Collins has done he has come to the conviction that what we do in our work in not as important as who we do Read more…

How To Change Organizational Culture

According to John Kotter there are many reasons change initiatives fail especially in large organizations.  The number one reason is there is not a clear sense of urgency for change that makes everyone willing to pay the short term price of pain due to change to gain the long term Read more…

5 Steps To Get Honest Feedback

One of the things I experience in my executive coaching over and over again is the tremendous negative cost of leaders  not having a willingness to tell people the truth.  People really do want to know what is expected and where they stand but insecure leaders can’t seem to have Read more…

How To Intentionally Build Great Teams

I have learned more from Patrick Lencioni on this subject than anyone else.  Jim Collins nails the importance of getting the right people on your team but Lencioni takes the next step and talks about how to create the right culture that leverages trust to drive results.  Great post to Read more…

Why Gratitude Is So Important In The Workplace

Most of the behavioral issues I deal with in the workplace are because the person I am coaching has lost their perspective.  They focus in on a series of small hurts and dwell on them to the point they become bitter and negative.  In every situation without exception, the key Read more…

Leadership Is About Promising To Listen Well

We all struggle with the commitments we make either to ourselves about eating a healthier diet or to someone else about something we said we would do and simply forgot. When we want to take our commitment to the next level we start making promises. A promise is defined as Read more…

Ten Unmistakable Signs Of A Toxic Culture

This issue is a really big deal and it’s not only negatively impacting productivity, it’s causing a lot of people to hate coming to work.  They hate it not because of the excessive work load but because of the constant negative drama that consumes everyone daily.  This Forbes post nails Read more…