A Matter of Mistakes

We have been blessed with the opportunity to serve hundreds of CEOs since we started our leadership advisory business. Our clients lead Fortune 1000 enterprises, mid-market companies, and smaller, growth businesses. We continue to grow with them and learn from them. So, in this series, we will share the best leadership advice that one of…

Connect to Contributions to Fulfill the Need for Appreciation

Charles Plumb was a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, one of the original Top Gun pilots, and a pilot in Vietnam. On May 19, 1967, during his 75th combat mission (five days before the end of his tour), his plane was shot down. He ejected and parachuted into enemy hands, where he spent six years in…

The Power of Connection

Healthy leaders create emotional bonds with their teams. We are wired to seek connections in our world. Humans are social creatures by design—and healthy leaders know and prioritize this truth. They excel not only at connecting directly with their team members, but also at helping team members connect with one another—in healthy ways. We often…

Connect to Meaning to Fulfill the Need for Purpose

Healthy leaders are bridge builders. One important bridge they build is between a team member’s work and a bigger purpose. There are two levels of purpose that leaders connect employees to: organizational purpose and team purpose. Organizational purpose relates to making the world a better place or improving the human condition through work.  For instance,…

Clarify Vision to Inspire Action

About 350 years ago, a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year, they established a town site. The next year, they elected a town government. The third year, the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year, the people tried…

Respect People and Perspectives

Before you show your team members compassion, you must first show them the most basic form of respect: acknowledging them and their perspectives. Simply acknowledging someone and their challenges can make things better even if it cannot make things right. Many well-intentioned leaders often fall short in this area. It’s not that they don’t want…

Lead with Empathy and Compassion

Seeing the human behind the employee starts with empathy and compassion. These are two fundamentally different but closely related concepts. Empathy is an awareness of others’ emotions and feelings. Compassion is an emotional response to empathy and creates a desire to help—it converts a feeling into action. A healthy leader taps into these two sides…

Gandhi on Customer Service

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Customer service initiatives tend to resurface with new packaging every so often as leaders re-learn the importance of the customer to their businesses. Although the environment changes, the fundamentals of leading a great organization have been stable for decades, and some would argue even centuries. For example, here is a poignant quote for today’s leader…