When we talk about leadership traits, we refer to personal qualities that are defining the effective leaders. There is this common misconception that the best leaders in the world are simply naturally gifted. This is not actually the case. Just like all the other skills, leadership traits will be acquired with practice and time. Peter […]
Accountability
10 Traits of Leaders Who Can Hold People Accountable
Getting things done effectively in a startup requires total individual and team accountability. You can’t afford excuses and multiple people doing the same job. In my view, “taking responsibility” is the core element behind accountability. Many people hear responsibility as an obligation, but I hear it as “the ability to respond.” Unfortunately many people don’t […]
Self-Leadership: A Prerequisite for Teamwork
Building effective teams requires building self-leaders. Let’s start with teams first. Is it better for organizations to be more like a natural (wild) garden or an orchestra? One of these models is not better than the other—they reflect different purposes. A natural garden has beauty, freedom of expression, and individuality that cannot be reproduced in […]
Thoughts on Agility
Agile is one of the “hot” business buzzwords these days, right along with digital, transformation, and disruptive. (You get double buzzword bingo points if you can use, “disruptive, agile, digital business transformation” in a single sentence on a PowerPoint slide.) But much of what I see under the “agile” banner is far from agile. The […]
8 Change Leadership Strategies for Sustainable Results
Most change initiatives fail. This is a fact that too few leaders truly understand. Change is never easy. People are resistant to it and people will not just change because you tell them to. All it takes is one leader who wants to make their mark on a company to leave a sour taste, and […]
2 Harsh Lessons I’ve Learned from Starting an Online Business (and Failing)
Starting a business and branching out on your own is difficult. Let’s not beat around the bush here. It’s a staggeringly different reality compared to the one so many of us are accustomed to in our comfortable, cozy desk jobs. I’ve always been passionate about online business, especially affiliate marketing. It’s something I discovered at […]
3 Indisputable Traits of a True Leader
I was flying to a business meeting with an associate when he told me he didn’t think I was a very good leader. (Ouch!) Sensing that God had sent a messenger to tell me that I lacked humility, I took the bait and asked him why. He explained that it was because he’d never seen […]
Top 10 Tips for Business Planning
I was asked once again for my 10 top tips on business planning. I can’t do that without noting the different uses of business plans in different situations. I ended up with more than 10 tips, but they are more specific to context. 5 Major tips for all business planning Form follows function. Like anything […]
The Importance of a Distinctive High-Performance Culture
All companies strive to have their team arrive each day highly motivated, ready and eager to do what it takes to get the job done. However, this is more of an ideal than reality. Motivation comes and goes, performance targets are achieved one month only to be missed the next, and achieving a high performance […]
How Leaders Create Buy-In, Accountability, and a High Performing Work Environment
Change is never easy, but it is necessary. As a leader, you are accountable for making change happen. If leaders want their people to buy-in and be accountable for their actions, they need to display effective leadership behaviors. In my experience as a leadership change consultant, and as I have discussed in How to Get Your Team to […]
