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Mentoring is a valuable path toward growth and development. A mentor can share insights from their expertise and experiences to help you grow and develop – and being a mentor can help you achieve clarity and focus as you reflect on your own development. A few pointers to get the most out of mentoring: Start […]

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Your core values can’t simply be words on your website or on a poster in your office; they must be used.  Learn how Amazon uses its core values in my new post on LinkedIn:  Do You Use Your Core Values Or Just Talk About Them? related: Do Your Core Values Have Teeth? Fusion: How Integrating […]

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A lot of wisdom that helps teams wins on the football field also helps leaders win in business. Take for example “look the ball into your hands.”  This speaks to the importance of follow-through, whether you’re playing a game or leading a team. My latest Smartbrief on Leadership shares some of my favorite football phrases […]

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The principles in my book, What Great Brands Do:  The Seven Brand-Building Principles That Separate the Best from the Rest can be applied to employees, employee experience, and employee engagement. For example, in WGBD, I explain that Great Brands Avoid Selling Products.  Instead of simply focusing on selling products or services to customers, great brands […]

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In this, the last in my series of leadership lessons learned from popular TV shows, we learn from Yellowstone.  John Dutton and the cast of characters from the fictional Montana ranch show us that leading doesn’t always involve what we think it does. We learn that when it comes to motivating employees, it depends less […]

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Ted Lasso, the leading character in the popular Apple+ series by the same name, provides an excellent model of exceptional organizational leadership. The leadership lessons from Lasso are about coaching, changing, and character-building. My new Smartbrief on Leadership video explains how Lasso shows what great leaders do — take a look! related: Lesson from Succession: […]

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Succession, the popular show on HBO, conveys helpful business insights including the importance of you using your own product. As a business leader, you must personally and regularly undergo the entire customer experience of your company as an actual customer would.  This will help focus your attention on the most important aspects of your business, […]

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It’s been said that the true test of leadership is how well you function in a crisis.  This seems particularly apt today, given all the layoffs that many leaders have had to undertake recently.  We’ve seen some of the worst examples of leadership recently.  But there is a better way. Leaders who respect, care for, […]

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If you’re struggling to build a cohesive company culture, you’re not alone.  Where and how people work varies so much now that culture-building seems more difficult than ever. Instead of trying to control or quash the different directions your culture seems to be headed, provide clarity and focus to the variations. In this Smartbrief on […]

leadership love

Love may seem out of place in a business context, but it’s actually a key leadership quality today. Employees want to feel their leaders know them, trust them, and care about them as whole persons. And, when they do, they’re more likely to be engaged and motivated to do great work. In my latest Smartbrief […]