Recently our country has been overloaded with far too many incidents of leaders in business, sports, and politics who have been exposed or destroyed through “leadership” failures. The headlines, tabloids, and blogs today continue to tell the sad stories of people whose flaws are now pubic domain as well as late-night comedian disdain. This is […]

If you’re interested in raising the caliber of performance in your organization, consider these 10 tips to get people to start delivering exceptional results: No Excuse is an ‘Acceptable’ Excuse Most managers are too tolerant of excuses. Don’t be. An excuse means the job didn’t get done. And if you are truly committed to results, then […]

As many of you know, I am a huge advocate of character as the foundation for great leadership.  It’s been my experience over the past 30 years both within university and business, that the character of the leader has more to do with ultimate success than anything else, including competence, courage, and certainly more than […]

Years ago, I had a very difficult boss. One-on-one he wasn’t a bad guy. He was warm and likable. But in a group—particularly in meetings—he become another person. Dr. Jekyll became Mr. Hyde. He would suddenly become cold and aloof. If I, or someone on my team, reported good news, he either didn’t acknowledge it […]

“Change” is a dirty word for some people. But love or hate it, change is here to stay, and every business owner and manager must be effective at leading their teams through both small and large changes. How do most managers manage change? Most successful managers I know are leftbrain, bottom-line, sequential problem solvers. They […]

Mistake #1: Failure to plan. The most frightening and common mistake leaders make is to have no plan or template to follow before, during, or even after a crisis occurs. During a crisis, a leader must align three critical strategic elements: the Goals, the People, and the Resources. The goals define the “What” – that is, […]