Are You Like Most People?
Dear fellow listeners, Here is a fun quiz: the phrase "seek first to understand, then to be understood" comes from which of the following? The LEAD 365 segment on high impact listening. The LEAD 365 segment on leaning in to healthy conflict. Steven Covey’s book The 7...
Why Feedback Is Uncomfortable — and What To Do About It
Many people struggle with giving negative feedback because they don’t want to hurt the other person or strain the relationship. But plenty of people struggle with giving positive feedback to others.
A Great Leader and a Great Speech
Leaders, We have an unusual posting for you this week. Last week was "V Week" for those of us who enjoy college basketball. "V Week" is named for Jimmy V, also known as Jim Valvano. Valvano was a great college basketball coach who got terminal cancer and gave an...
Truth and Love
Today's post was originally published on February 8, 2016. Truth without love can be mean, and love without truth can be a lie. Today's post is a review of a skill that I think it is the most important skill needed in West Michigan leaders. It is the willingness and...
Top 10 Trust Walk Takeaways
All of you who have been on the two-day retreat as a part of building great teams have done the trust walk. My favorite part of that exercise is not the first part when there is no talking; it's not the second part where you can talk but the one person is still...
Say It Isn’t So!
Building an incredible team is so important that it's one of the main branches we focus on in the Do portion of the DoKnowBe Tree. We've heard from many of you that you are spending time and effort building your team and you're seeing results, which is awesome! And...
Update on Leading by DESIGN and LEAD 365
We've had an exciting year, and this seems like a good time to update all of you LEAD 365 alumni on how our purpose and vision is progressing. I’m guessing that most of you remember our purpose/mission (the reason Leading by DESIGN exists), which is to make West...
Leading Inside, Outside, Inside, and Out Again
Of the many definitions people use to describe leadership, one of my favorite definitions is "the ability to influence and motivate others toward a common vision or goal.” I like it because of two words: influence and motivation. I like influence because it has...
Excellence in All Things – Really?
This posting might get me in trouble in West Michigan. It might even get me in trouble with my team. But there’s something I believe about great leaders that I feel needs to be said. After saying it, I’m more than happy to hear any rebuttals. After hearing those, I...
Trust
Trust is at the heart of building great teams. Without it, a cascade of negative things that hurt the team takes place: reluctance to have healthy conflict, unwillingness to make commitments, avoidance of accountability, and a failure to look at real results...