Tag Archives: purpose
Catching Organizational Culture
February 13, 2018 | | Leave a comment
Guest Post by Marcella Bremer I’m delighted to host this guest blog from Marcella Bremer, author of Developing a Positive Culture. Marcella’s work focuses on the practical steps that anyone can take to develop a positive culture. She draws on research and field work to offer a range of tools to engage others and contribute to a constructive and productive workplace. Did you ever “catch” organizational culture as it happened? Maybe not consciously, but you did. Just like the deeper layers of values, a culture is represented and sustained in the daily (inter)actions. What do the routine, mundane interactions within …
Posted in Leadership Matters
Tagged collaboration, engagement, postive culture, productivity, purpose, resourceful, results
Making the Most of Meetings
December 12, 2017 | | 3 Comments
Love them or hate them… meetings are a permanent feature of the business landscape. Getting things done in organizations frequently requires bringing together multiple minds, perspectives and experience sets. Complex problems cannot be solved nor innovative opportunities leveraged via emails, knowledge management systems, reports, or texting. This type of work demands the melding of minds and ideas—something that meetings are uniquely designed to enable. The problem is that in recent years, other ‘real work’ has increasingly been eclipsed as meetings have grown in number and length. And too much of even a good thing has become too much. According to …
Posted in Leadership Matters
Tagged meetings, participation, physical space, preparation, productive, purpose
Coaching Mastery: The Art and Practice of Developing Others
November 29, 2017 | | 2 Comments
Guest Post by Kevin Cashman I’ve been a fan of Kevin Cashman since first reading The Pause Principle nearly five years ago and have followed his work since. Kevin is a leadership luminary and Korn Ferry’s Global Leader of CEO & Executive Development. His most recent effort Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life, Third Edition, is an exploration of eight powerful ‘mastery areas’ that will support leaders at all levels of the organization. I’m delighted host this guest post from Kevin! Leadership is more than a job. It is a sacred calling with sacred responsibility. That …
Posted in Leadership Matters
Tagged agility, authenticity, awareness, character, contribution, courage, leadership, purpose, service
Leading with Wholeness in a Disruptive World
Guest Post by Wendy Tan I’m delighted to host this guest blog post from my friend, Wendy Tan, author of Wholeness in a Disruptive World. This really is a book whose time has come—at a time when we need it most. Wendy offers a wholistic/holistic look at at what it means not just to be successful and happy—but also human. Filled with practical, actionable and inspiring advice to support deep integration, Wholeness in a Disruptive World is a user’s manual for the soul for anyone operating in today’s fragmented, VUCA environment. Wendy’s post provides a great preview of her book …
Posted in Happiness Matters
Tagged anchor, balance, clarity, identity, purpose, responsibility, values, wholeness
The Dynamic Duo of Vision and Strategy
January 18, 2016 | | Leave a comment
Some things just work better together. Bread and butter Soap and water Table and chairs Love and marriage Batman and Robin In these examples, each item has value in and of itself. Yet combined, the pairs take on a more striking, pleasurable and powerful quality. The same holds true for vision and strategy: leaders who are able to master both and leverage them with their teams will drive unbeatable results. But many managers and supervisors find they might be talented or effective at one and struggle with the other… which makes perfect sense. The two tasks require very different skill …
Posted in Leadership Matters
Tagged accountability, communicate, competency, leadership, purpose, strategy, vision
How Do Your Employees Define Success?
When employees succeed in their careers, so do their teams, departments, functions and organizations. As a result, businesses work diligently to develop systems and processes to promote career development; leaders grapple with how to help people reach their goals given structures that are flatter and leaner than ever before. Too frequently though, these efforts are based upon assumptions that may not be accurate for all employees. They center on promotions and pay increases….which, in today’s business climate can be in short supply. But, the good news is that these factors may not play as prominent a role in an employee’s …
Posted in Career Matters, Happiness Matters, Leadership Matters
Tagged achievement, career development, energy, engagement, enjoyment, goals, learning, purpose, satisfaction, work-life balance
Meaning Matters
Earlier this year, Emily Esfahani Smith wrote an article in The Atlantic titled, “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy.” Now, I’m not ready to throw in the towel on my pursuit of happily ever after… but it’s hard not to take note of the frequent mention of ‘meaning’ in articles, books, and other works of thought leaders. Gary Hamel counsels managers to see themselves as “entrepreneurs of meaning.” In Good Business, Csikszentmihalyi dedicates significant energy to the “making of meaning.” AndMcKinsey Quarterly ran an article last month dedicated to “Increasing the Meaning Quotient of Work.” According to psychiatrist/neurologist/Nazi concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl, …
Posted in Leadership Matters
Tagged helping, meaning, motivation, positive emotions, purpose, satisfaction
Sustainability and Focus
Sustainability gets a lot of attentions these days… and rightly so. As a society, we’re bringing greater consciousness to the preservation and endurance of the environment, energy, and more. Yet, there’s one precious natural resource that rarely gets the same attention. And for too many people, it’s reaching dangerous depletion levels. How sustainable is the personal energy you bring to the focus you deploy against your goals, mission, and purpose in life? Throughout our upbringing, school and work experiences, many successful individuals have learned and honed a potentially destructive form of focus: the forced and fierce variety. You may recognize …
Posted in Leadership Matters
Tagged achievement, burnout, focus, goals, personal energy, purpose, success, sustainability
10 Ways Running Can Make You a Better Leader
Leadership is life. As a result, we can find lessons all around us that inform our ability to inspire, motivate, guide and deliver results through others. In the past, I’ve shared the connections I experience between leadership and my favorite avocation, paddle boarding. Sandra Mills shares her connections between leading and running in today’s guest post. Effective leadership is important for successful team performance in business, education and sports. Personally and professionally, the ability to take control of the reins and set an inspiring example can benefit both the leader and those being led. Individuals who are seasoned runners probably already understand …
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged clarity, confidence, decisiveness, determination, fearless, focus, humility, integrity, leadership, passion, purpose, running, Sandra Mills, self-awareness
Team, Group, or Train Wreck?
Teams and teamwork are among the most frequently written about and searched for topics in business today. From senior executives to frontline supervisors, leaders everywhere are looking for strategies to get the most from others. The first and most fundamental challenge they face lies in vocabulary… because the term ‘team’ is used very casually and with little precision. In most organizations, any collection of people is referred to as a ‘team’; yet very few of them actually are. Many are just groups… and there’s nothing wrong with that. Others, however, are complete train wrecks. Consider Your Collection What about the …
Posted in Leadership Matters
Tagged accountability, business, communication, conflict, contribution, employee, goals, leadership, mission, purpose, respect, roles, team
Preview the Book
Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go
When you help employees grow….engagement, retention, productivity, and business results will grow as well.
Recent Blog Posts
