In case you didn’t read my blog last time, please take a look. It’s about an important exercise you can do—creating, writing, and communicating your leadership point of view. Where did you get your image of what a good leader looks like? What beliefs about leadership led you to become a leader? Sharing your leadership […]
The Power of Your Leadership Point of View
Pop quiz: What is your leadership point of view? By that I mean, what are your thoughts about how you lead others, and where did those thoughts come from? I learned from Noel Tichy, author of The Leadership Engine, that the most successful leaders have a clear, teachable leadership point of view and are willing […]
Let’s Celebrate Love
I love the month of February because on Valentine’s Day, we officially celebrate love. A few years ago, my colleague Michele Jansen sent me a wonderful thing. A group of professional people posed the question “What does love mean?” to a group of children. The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone would […]
Determining Your Personal Values
For the past couple of blogs, I’ve been writing about the three-step process of creating a compelling personal vision. We’ve explored the first step: writing your life purpose. My last blog showed how to complete the second step: envisioning your picture of the future. This week I’ll explain the third and final part of creating […]
Writing Your Personal Life Purpose
It’s so easy to get caught up in our cell phones, emails, and deadlines that we often forget to step back and look at the big picture. So, as you read this, pause and ask yourself these questions: • Why am I here? • What do I really want to be in the world? • […]
Finding Your Significant Purpose
Maybe it’s happened to you: You have a vision of what you want to accomplish. You begin to tackle the job. Suddenly, hours have flown by and you’re astonished by what you’ve achieved. When work is connected to what we deeply desire, we can tap into energy and creativity we don’t even know we have. […]
Moving from Success to Significance
Several years ago, my friend Bob Buford wrote a great book called Halftime (Zondervan, 1997). One of the key points he makes is, later in life, most people like the idea of moving from success to significance—from getting to giving. But you don’t have to wait until your life is half over. If you want […]
Love versus Stuff
Over the past week, those of us living in southern California have had a whole new complication thrown into our busy holiday schedules: wildfires. For me it’s a reminder of the lesson I learned ten years ago, when our long-time family home burned to the ground in the massive Witch Creek fire of 2007. The […]
Managing By Values
Many years ago, I heard John Naisbitt give a speech on his book Reinventing the Corporation and was intrigued by a concept he called “Fortunate 500” companies. We all know about Fortune 500 companies that are ranked on revenue, profits, and market value. But John defined Fortunate 500 companies as organizations measured by the quality […]
Walk Your Talk
A few weeks ago, my blog focused on leading by values and the importance of communicating your organizational values clearly and constantly. Another critical element for leaders to practice is what I call walking your talk. Leaders must make every effort to become living symbols of their organization’s value system. Walking your talk means that […]