Level 2: The Follower Culture

It’s more organized than Level 1. It’s also more rigid. In We’re All In, I described what I witnessed as a young officer in the U.S. Army in West Germany in the mid-1970s. It was, looking back, a perfect example of a Follower culture at scale. The Army was in crisis. The clash of a … Read more

From Compliance to Commitment: How Adaptive Leadership Transforms Organizations

The old directive leadership style no longer works. Discover why a culture of commitment and adaptive communication are essential for executive success. Recently I sat down with George Torok, host of Your Intended Message, a business communication podcast, to discuss how Adaptive Leadership and effective communication are inseparable. For decades, many business leaders operated under a … Read more

How Remote Work Broke Connectedness

And How Leaders Must Repair It When the pandemic struck in early 2020, businesses did what they had to do. We shut down offices. We sent people home. We improvised. It was the right call. But it came at a cost most of us didn’t fully see until later. In the rush to preserve safety … Read more

Global Unrest And The Leader’s Burden

  Over the course of my military career, I learned early on that uncertainty was part of the fundamentals of strategic planning. The prominent military theorist Carl von Clausewitz described it this way: “No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Conditions shifted. Sometimes the ground literally shook beneath our feet. But what stands … Read more

What’s Happening to Us? | Part 3: What Does Work-Life Balance Mean Now?

This is the latest entry in a series of blogs based off the latest Level Five Associates book, The Power of Being All In. What Does Work-Life Balance Mean Now? The events of the past few years have transformed our workforce and our workplaces.  As described in The Power of Being All In, our workforce … Read more

Take More Ownership of Time

Having trouble finding time? In 2016, a weekends-off initiative was unveiled at J.P. Morgan called “Pencils Down.” The media was quick to highlight the move by the financial giant as a radical step: “The initiative…is unusual in a high-powered corner of Wall Street where 100-hour weeks are considered by some as a badge of honor … Read more