My daughter’s Little League recently held their Field Clean-Up Day. This event takes place at 9:00 AM on a Saturday in the middle of April. We live in Michigan, so the weather is usually windy, rainy and the air temp hovers near 40 degrees Fahrenheit. This year, it snowed. Ostensibly here’s what’s supposed to happen: » Read More
When you look back on your career, how will you gauge your leadership success? Being a leader can be a thankless job. Some days, it’s hard to feel like anything positive is being accomplished, isn’t it? It can be tempting to think that nobody notices and that your actions don’t really amount to much. Why » Read More
Are you a trustworthy leader? You probably answered with a resounding “Yes!” and perhaps a bit of indignation. The subject of one’s trustworthiness is a tricky one — have you ever met anyone who wholeheartedly agreed that they were untrustworthy? Not many, I’d bet. That’s because people mistakenly equate “trustworthiness” with “personal integrity.” Both attributes » Read More
There’s been an exciting project going on behind the scenes within Lead Change, and now it’s time to pull back the curtain to give our community a sneak peek. We wrote a book! A virtual community of 21 authors (all contributing authors to the Lead Change Group) came together to share their wisdom and perspectives » Read More
As a leader, when you encounter a team member whose moral compass seems to be pointing in the wrong direction, how do you handle it? Early in my career, my compass got a little off track and I’m forever grateful to the leader who helped me regain direction. My first job out of college was » Read More
In a blog post titled “C is for Silly: The New C-Suite Titles” Forbes.com blogger Jenna Goudreau explores the proliferation of titles elevating people to “Chief” or “C-level” status. The central premise of her piece was to question the relevance of so-called “vanity” titles like Chief Internal Evangelist or Chief Listener. In Goudreau’s post, marketing » Read More
One of my most memorable lessons in leadership and its attendant responsibility came via the improbable pairing of a wise high school teacher and a spiky-haired toy. . . The guy who sat behind me in Mrs. Crawford’s English Lit class liked me. A lot. This was a total mystery to me because I did » Read More
Leadership Lessons from an Outspoken First Lady The passing of former First Lady Betty Ford on July 8th of this year has received extensive coverage in my local media market because I live in Mrs. Ford’s home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Over the past several weeks, there have been many TV and newspaper tributes to this » Read More
“Jeff, when you’re a leader, there’s going to be at least one person at any given time who thinks he was put on this earth to be your greatest critic.” This nugget of wisdom came from Jeff’s mentor many years ago as Jeff assumed the first of many influential leadership positions of his career. It’s » Read More
The concept of MBWA still has legs. Here’s how to capitalize on it. How much time should a CEO spend interacting with company employees versus external partners? More than you might think, according to research conducted by the Harvard Business School faculty. There is evidence interacting with “insiders” (employees and their board of directors) is » Read More
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