Leadership Coaching
Leadership in the Time of Quarantine
The last few weeks have certainly been interesting. The pandemic has disrupted our lives in ways many of us have never experienced before, and there is a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety in our world. How do you lead well in a time of quarantine? How do you rally a team where everyone is…
Read MoreHow Successful Are You?
How successful are you? Your answer to that question will be determined largely by how you choose define success. I’ve found it very helpful to use multiple definitions of success. In fact, I’ve found using the right definition for success in various situations absolutely essential. I’m going to start by naming the three definitions or…
Read MoreSink or Swim
(A version of this post was originally published here on January 8, 2017) I was a kid when The NeverEnding Story came out. There is a scene in the movie where the hero, Atreyu, and his horse are making their way through the Swamp of Sorrows. The swamp can only be passed through safely if you…
Read MoreThe Power of Belief
You may find this hard to believe, but there is one thing that is so powerful that it can destroy everything good you have learned from LEAD 24/7. And this powerful thing with such destructive capability isn’t hiding in the cubical next to you. It isn’t in your smart phone. And it isn’t in your…
Read MoreA Great Purpose for Business
This post is targeted to anyone who, deep down, wants to make a significant positive difference for the good of others. Not just those who want to make other people’s lives better each day, but those of you who desire to make BIG changes in someone’s life, such that they would one day say you…
Read MoreThe Key to Controlling the Elephant
Do you remember the analogy of the rider and the elephant in the book Switch? Each of us has a rider—our rational, logical self—and each of us has an elephant—our emotional, reactionary self. When things are going just fine in our lives, our rider is usually in control; we make decisions based on healthy beliefs and…
Read MoreFind the Bright Spots
My son Marc was expelled from school a number of years ago because of a senior prank that went way too far. He and his friends got up in the middle of the night, broke into their school, and vandalized it. They stole the keys to school vehicles and drove them. You didn’t even have…
Read MoreI’m Listening
Dr. Frasier Crane was the main character on the show Frasier. He played a psychiatrist who had his own radio show in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle, Washington. His radio show had a call-in format. People called in with their problems, and he dispensed advice. The show was a big hit. Frasier was a spin-off of…
Read MoreThe Sweet Spot
Happy Thanksgiving fellow leaders! This week’s post is going to take a new angle on the sweet-spot exercise. During our year of LEAD, we looked at the diagram below several times asking the same extremely important question: How close are you right now to being in your sweet spot—that great place where you are living…
Read MoreLeaning Into Healthy Conflict: A Second Short Story
After writing back-to-back posts on what I believe is our most important topic for West Michigan leaders (Leaning Into Healthy Conflict), I shared a fictional story about the use of this conflict model last week . This week I’m going to share one more short story about conflict. This time it’s a real one, though…
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