I’m often asked about what really matters for leadership success.  At the risk of oversimplifying, I’ve landed on three main functions.  Leaders help, inform, and inspire.  Any other function you might think of can be reasonably subsumed by one of these three. To help means to provide structure in the form of expectations and goals.  It also means facilitating […]

Allow me to introduce Joe.  Joe is a down on his luck vampire and the protagonist in my upcoming book Dancing with Monsters.  Joe has lost his confidence and feels stuck.  A monster’s main job is to scare children, and yet that no longer seems as easy as it once did.  Worse yet, the administration in Monster Land thinks […]

Most employers give people jobs.  That’s good, but they’re missing the point.  To create all of the outcomes we dream of (strong productivity, morale, profits, etc.) you have to give them more.  You must give them purpose. Say it with me:  purpose over paycheck!  Sure, compensation really does matter, but it’s never the best motivator. Sadly, most employees don’t experience […]

I love positivity. I preach positivity. I know as a practitioner and recovering scholar that positivity helps teams and organizations in so many ways. Positivity, in one form or another (kindness, love, caring, etc.), is always among the defining values of successful modern organizations. However, I also know that positivity has limits. It is so […]

[If this helps you in any way, maybe it can help someone else too!  Share this with someone who needs it.  They can subscribe here:  https://bit.ly/3INhSbL.] To blame is to assign responsibility for an unwanted outcome to another person or persons as if they are the main or sole explanation. Blaming is selfish and almost always unproductive.  I’ll admit […]

I love authenticity.  Anything that makes us a little more human is useful.  Leaders often struggle with this idea.  One of the most common mistakes they make is over-projecting confidence and competence while neglecting authenticity. Confidence and competence are, of course, terribly useful traits – but often overindulged.  They help you earn respect and compliance.  However, it’s the authenticity that […]

When you have a little downtime, what do you do?  Many people engage in passive activities to relax.  Television is a popular example.  That can be very enjoyable, but to maximize your brain’s ability, you might want to rethink a portion of your downtime activities.  Your brain needs to sweat! Aside from traditional learning activities (e.g., a book, a […]

We judge professionals using a lot of metrics.  That’s rational.  We consider many common things, including hours worked, clients served, sales made, tasks completed, error rates, etc. This approach, while necessary, creates a very incomplete picture.  It raises the value of talented prima donnas and hurts the value of differently talented nice people. Talented prima donna:  a person who […]

You can’t please everyone.  You don’t want to please everyone! When smart marketers build a brand, they know they are simultaneously trying to attract certain people while excluding others.  Something quite similar should happen in your career.  Too often, it doesn’t, typically because of our strong desire to please others. We try to please in order to avoid […]

Gratitude is beautiful.  We need more gratitude – real gratitude.  A few other things sometimes masquerade as gratitude, so let’s be clear about what it is and what it is not. Gratitude is a sincere feeling of thankfulness.  However, we sometimes experience what I view as a false or distorted sense of gratitude.  For example, gratitude is not: Blind […]