Empowering and leading others to do and be more.
As a leader, you can have several goals depending on the commitments of your position. There are many metrics that determine whether or not you are performing a good job. There are financial goals, marketing goals, and development goals. Several priorities are calling upon your attention. Where do you start? What is your number one … Read more
This week’s 5-minute motivation is meant to challenge your thinking about leadership. What does it mean to be a leader and how can a leader start a movement? Do you want to inspire action from your team, your family or community? Derek Sivers discusses the transformation of a “lone nut” into a leader. He uses … Read more
In this week’s #5MinMotivation, the challenge is set. Commit for one week to focus on listening to understand. Listening is the key to effective communication. Without it, communication breaks down easily. Just because you heard something, doesn’t mean you were listening. At work or even at home, mastering this skill can make a huge difference … Read more
The productivity question that every leader must face at one point is, “Do I complete this task myself or delegate it to someone else”? Depending on the situation, completing the task yourself can be a lot quicker. It takes a while to properly train someone to be effective in a new role. What you need … Read more
It is easy to get caught up in the urgency of the moment. There is so much to do in a day that you might be tempted to direct your team’s next actions. After all, being directive gets the job done quicker. However, one trait that successful leaders have is the ability to ask the … Read more
There are so many ways we can evaluate a leader’s effectiveness, but I’ve learned that there are two real tests that a leader needs to pass if he is to achieve and maintain success. Throughout my now over 20 years’ experience as a leader, I’ve been put through these two tests several times. Most of … Read more
The other day, Carl and I brought our kids to see, “Kung Fu Panda 3”. My youngest was extremely anxious to see the movie so we had a family outing. I was expecting to be entertained, but what I didn’t expect was to learn leadership lessons from the movie. Dreamworks does a great job teaching … Read more
Success is one of those words that have many definitions. What success means for one person is different from what success means for someone else. I wrote a blog post about how I personally defined success, “How you measure success”. Here are 56 success quotes that are meant to inspire you to take action in … Read more
If you achieve legendary success as an athlete, you are awarded a place in the “Sports Hall of Fame”. In Leadership and Personal Development, there is not a “Leadership Hall of Fame”. If there was, the name Zig Ziglar would be part of it. Zig Ziglar was a motivational speaker and trainer. Author of over … Read more
It is not an easy thing to do. It is much easier not to do. Having a difficult conversation about an employee’s performance can be a challenge. When you push-off having that conversation because, “you don’t have the time”, or because “you are afraid it will demotivate and make performance worse,” the only person you … Read more
It started off as a dream. As a child, I often imagined what I would do for a living. There were two professions that particularly intrigued me; becoming a teacher and a writer. I got my first full-time job as a salesperson at Future Shop selling TV’s, VCR’s (remember those?) and Camcorders. I moved my … Read more
When my son was in kindergarten, he came home one day with a homework assignment. He had to match human expressions to the feelings they represented. He was excited to tell me that the smile on a face represented “Happiness.” It was so simple then to define what happiness was. As we grow older, it … Read more
Throughout the years, I have had dozens upon dozens of difficult conversations. From laying people off, to discussing attendance issues, to conversations on performance. None of these conversations were easy. There were conversations that ended up going smoothly and those that left me feeling like I missed the ball. The best ones were those where … Read more
Being a leader is not an easy task. To truly excel, one must adopt a mindset similar to that of a polymath, continuously learning and expanding across various fields to inspire and motivate others. This relentless pursuit of knowledge can be as frustrating as it is rewarding. Every now and then, even leaders need an … Read more
My day last Thursday started off by finding out that the company I worked for cut 10% of its head office employees, including 3 of my colleagues who lost their jobs. After the shock, came a variety of emotions. There was a feeling of loss for my colleagues who throughout the years had become my … Read more