It was a cry of despair. The retail employee was waiting to find out if the store manager had decided to move her to a new position as she had requested. After listening to her story, I could see that she really wasn’t being impatient; her request had been made… Read More »How Long Does it Take to Make a Decision?
A common year-end tradition is lists of books experts recommend for the coming year. The lists I see invariably include a number of tomes on ways to be a successful business leader. There are plenty of those lists out there so I won’t bore you with yet another one. Instead,… Read More »How to Find Real Value in Leadership Books
I’m appalled, though unfortunately I guess I’m not really surprised. Amidst all the rhetoric about equality and fair treatment, it turns out there is a lot of inequality and unfair treatment going on. Specifically, ever day now the news brings us another story detailing the sordid details of some new… Read More »I’m Appalled – Enough Already
Command and control (the beast) is not a popular form of leadership these days. Most of the time the method is unnecessary and a sign of a weak and insecure leader who knows no other way to be effective. The most effective leaders find some version of servant leadership (beauty)… Read More »Beauty and the Beast: Servant Leadership vs. Command and Control
Coach. Say the word and different pictures come to mind. Some might think of a favorite sports coach while others conjure images (good or bad) of their drill instructor, or perhaps a favorite teacher. Regardless of the situation, we find that coaches are individuals who provide assistance to someone to… Read More »9 Ways to Create the Perfect Coaching Relationship
We called him Sergeant Joe. He was from Thailand and we could not pronounce his real name. It barely fit on his name tag so he took pity on us and let us call him Sergeant Joe. Three of us brand new aircraft mechanics were assigned as his trainees, which… Read More »A Leadership Story About Sergeant Joe
Are your team members engaged? Unfortunately, many business leaders complain that some of their team members are not reliable and will shirk their responsibilities whenever they can? Since much of my leadership experience comes from a long career in the military, I’m often asked why the military seems to have… Read More »The Three-Step Foundation for Employee Engagement any Leader Can Use
As we went around the table, each staff member introduced themselves with their name and a brief job description. When it was the custodian’s turn, instead of telling us she was the custodian, she proudly announced that she was the “Manager of First Impressions.” It was obvious that the rest… Read More »The First 4 Essential Steps to Achieve Team Engagement
“Sam is a great leader.†“Why do you say that?†“Well, because…†What follows is usually a rather subjective description of certain characteristics that generally follow a pattern of traits we’ve found common to good leaders. As many times as I’ve done the good boss/bad boss exercise with leadership students… Read More »Are you an effective leader? Five ways to know.