Just like parents watching one of our kids drive out of the driveway on that first date, we have to confront our fears and overcome them through trust. It takes courage to allow others to take the reins and make decisions, because they might fail. Something bad might happen. At the very least, the organization might underperform, and you could lose market share in the short run. But where would we be now had our parents not given us the keys for that first date?

An organization “in integrity” is transparent and in balance. This is a tall order and requires strong leadership, clarity of mission and intent, and a heavy dose of persistence. Integrity must be a stated value of every company and be woven into the very fabric of the culture. Team members, to include all leaders, must walk the talk with integrity, on and off the job, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In our experience, a leader who micro-manages a team is insecure. This is almost always the case with young and inexperienced leaders, but with practice and development, these leaders will mature and learn to give team members more and more autonomy and control. We recognize that leadership is a journey and we all develop our … Read more

Listening is a learned skill and sadly, most leaders are very poor listeners. According to Ernest Hemingway: “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” Malcom Forbes wisely observed that “The art of conversation begins with listening.”

As we mentioned in our Opportunity is Calling article, the New Year brings new opportunity to make genuine resolutions you can keep. First, ask yourself: Does your company have a ‘culture of discipline’? Specifically, do you and your teammates do the right thing when no one is looking? Do you and your team gravitate towards … Read more

The holiday season invariably leads to all kinds of resolutions for the coming year: lead a healthier lifestyle, go to church more often, spend money more wisely, lose weight and get in better shape, be a better parent, listen more to your partner/spouse, take some golf lessons, call Mom more often, etc., etc. If you’re like most of us, these resolutions decay as the New Year moves on, and after a couple of months we don’t even remember what we resolved to do. No surprise, then, that the resolutions never happen. For this New Year, we recommend taking a new approach.