“I worked hard this year!  I deserve a bigger bonus!”  I heard this complaint almost annually in 15 years in various sales leadership positions.  Sometimes it was a valid complaint.  Most of the time it wasn’t. “You receive a salary for effort.  You get a raise or a bonus for results.” I like people who […]

Twenty-five years ago, I thought I had it all figured out. I believed I understood leadership, and I understood marriage. Boy was I naive! I look back now and see how many leadership lessons marriage has taught me.

Leadership is fun – right up until you have to make those first tough decisions. Everyone goes through this transition from eager new leader ready to change the world, to the realization that the decisions involved in leading are a lot harder than they look from the outside.

The victim mentality is everywhere. In business, in non-profits, in schools, and in homes that mentality destroys any opportunity for team and individual success. When a leader embraces the victim mentality, the best case scenario is the leader will be marginalized and ignored. The worst case scenario is the rest of the team become victims […]

Many leaders would rather eat a bug than admit to others they made a mistake or expose a weakness. Exposing your own failures is not a sign of weakness. Hiding your failures is! Nobody believes we are perfect. In fact, when we own up to our own weaknesses, we are rarely telling them anything they don’t […]

Our actions create followers more than our words do. The actions of an introverted Leader of Character will lead a team to excellence before the eloquent words of hypocritical extrovert.  Thank goodness politicians are not the only examples we have for leadership. Rarely do their words match their actions. They may be great speakers, but […]

You can be an unethical rule follower. All organizations have rules and regulations people must follow. But many organizations fail to consider that we can all be unethical rule followers. Just because we do not break the law or a corporate regulation does not make us a person of Integrity.

If you want an easy life, then ignore this post. Character is not that complicated a subject to discuss. But, character is hard to do.  That is why so few of today’s leaders do the hard work required to exercise character.

We are not going to candy coat this blog with euphemisms. Let’s just be honest with ourselves. A liar tells lies. A coward is too scared to do what is right. An egomaniac puts himself first. When we use a euphemism to describe our behaviors, it is usually a tool to make us feel better […]