Leadership Succession: Who’s Next Up?

“A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.” – John C. Maxwell In my younger days, I was an aspiring baseball player, relegated initially to the bench for a couple of seemingly endless seasons.  One coach I remember distinctly used to tell us ‘bench-riders’ that we could never just sit there if we really wanted … Read more

Leading From a Distance: Becoming Better at “Distance Leadership”

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” – Max De Pree It seems like every conversation I hear these days is about the challenges of virtual communication and leadership. In the pre-pandemic days, I focused on scheduling “face-to-face” … Read more

What A Great Culture Looks Like

I didn’t always understand what a great culture looks like. In fact, as a young West Point cadet and later as an Army officer, I only had a vague notion of what a culture was at all. We had a set way of doing things, to be sure, but it was pretty much taken for … Read more

Many Points of Light: Developing Your Team for Growth

Each of us, day to day, engage in a discovery process.  When developing your team for growth, be aware of your discovery process as a leader of leaders and adapt to it. To start, examine your role in your organization. Are you the only leader, the only person who provides direction or the final say? … Read more

Creating Opportunity: Where Opportunity Lives

Here’s one entrepreneur’s view on creating opportunity… This is from Biz Stone, one of the original co-founders of social media giant Twitter: “I grew up in a very affluent town, but my parents divorced when I was young. My father wasn’t much involved in my life, and we were poor. Many kids I knew played … Read more

The Backbrief: A Tool For Better Listening

Listening can feel harder to do than ever. That seems even more true in a world where many of us are still ‘socially-distanced’ and dealing with online-only ‘remote teams.’ Now more than ever we can use a tool for better listening that will cut through all the noise. There’s always going to be outside distractions. … Read more