Great Expectations
A primary responsibility of leadership is to communicate expectations, both with words and actions. When leaders carefully and consistently set expectations, they engineer a flourishing work environment. However, when leaders abdicate their duty to communication expectations, chaos ensues. Here are six rules of thumb to follow as you set expectations in your organization. 1) Set…
Read MoreThe High Road Principle
“It’s nothing personal; it’s just business,” is a commonly heard phrase in the workplace. However, I tend to disagree with anyone who tries to impersonalize business. At its heart, commerce is a human enterprise, founded upon relationships between people. Most of us spend a majority of our waking hours in our business or at work,…
Read MoreRecapturing Momentum
As any cyclist can attest, the difficulty of a race depends largely on the terrain. The strenuous challenge of peddling up a mountainside exhausts a rider, but the thrill of cruising downhill requires little to no energy at all. Wind also factors into a cyclist’s journey. Driving into a howling headwind saps a cyclist’s strength,…
Read MoreBig Mo Comes to Those Who Know and Do
How do leaders generate positive momentum? It’s very simple: by learning and then applying what they have learned. In the knowledge economy, leaders are distinguished by their ability to process information and put it to use.There are three ways in which leaders interact with information, and each impacts momentum. 1) Ignorance The recipe for perpetual…
Read MoreA Leader’s Inner Circle
Months before President Obama took the oath of office he began assembling an inner circle of advisors. He and his transition team painstakingly pored over the qualifications of candidates to identify the strongest leaders for cabinet posts. In methodically vetting future leaders of his administration, President Obama demonstrated that he understands the law of the…
Read MoreCall Lost: Why Leaders Lose Connection with Those They Lead
Wireless technology has forever altered the way we communicate. These days, payphones are practically nonexistent, and landlines seem headed for obsolescence, too. It’s hard even to remember how we lived before the advent of the mobile phones. However, as wonderful as cell phones can be, we have to put up with the nuisance of dropped…
Read MoreSuccess Lessons from America’s First Family of Football
What are the odds of a child in America growing up to play quarterback on a Super Bowl winning team? I’m not sure, but I’m guessing the chances are less than one-in-a-million. Now, what are the odds of two brothers playing quarterback for the Super Bowl winning team in back-to-back years-maybe one-in-a-billion? Yet, that’s exactly…
Read MoreLeading in 3D
Samsung and Panasonic have elevated home entertainment another notch with recently released 3D televisions. Now you can wear the funky 3D glasses in the comfort of your living room to watch feature films like Avatar in an extra dimension. With four of the top ten films in 2009 produced in 3D, electronics manufacturers anticipate a…
Read MoreLeading a Life of Intentional Influence
In the classic Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is given a tremendous gift: the opportunity to see what life would be like without him. As he wanders through a world that has no memory of his existence, George is dismayed by the plight of his friends and family. Devoid of his influence,…
Read MoreDiscipline: The Path to Potential
He may have been the most naturally gifted baseball player of all time. He was clocked rounding the bases in an incredible 13 seconds. Yet, his speed was nothing compared to the power of his hitting. It’s been said there were home run hitters, and then there was this man – in a league of…
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