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The first step in finding your personal purpose for work and life is to look back over the experiences of your life thus far. If we rush forward, without time for reflection on what we have learned so far, we miss important lessons. “Life is a succession of lessons which must
A couple of weeks ago I shared with you the importance of knowing why you work and how you can put into words your purpose of leadership. While we’ve tried to make the process simple, knowing where to begin can often be difficult. Over the next eight weeks, I’d like
A couple of weeks ago I shared with you the importance of knowing why you work and how you can put into words your purpose of leadership. While we’ve tried to make the process simple, knowing where to begin can often be difficult. Over the next eight weeks, I’d like
Last week I shared with you the importance of knowing why you work and how you can put into words your purpose of leadership. While we’ve tried to make the process simple, knowing where to begin can often be difficult. Over the next eight weeks, I’d like to share with
Recently, I had the opportunity of attending at the Atlanta Renaissance Dinner at the High Museum featuring wine, music, art, terrific speakers, and over 100 works of art by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The purpose of the dinner was to advance diverse leaders in top leadership across all sectors
In this last blog post discussing the themes of Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership by James W. Sipe and Don M. Frick, we are talking about Moral Authority. This topic begs a definition if we are to have a meaningful conversation. My personal favorite is this definition of moral authority:
Systems thinking has been in the leadership conversation for years, probably most notably associated with The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. But, I had not thought of it as a trait of servant leaders until I came across The Systems Pyramid in Seven Pillars Of Servant Leadership by James W.
In American culture, we admire and celebrate individual contributors. We hold up CEOs, celebrities, entrepreneurs, community leaders who have accomplished great things, and we attach those great things to a person, more often than a team. Even in our sporting events, we tend to celebrate the big name player, over the
Two weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing Ken Blanchard, author of many books including the One-Minute Manager, and Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines. The two of them sat on the conference stage in two big comfortable living room chairs and talked to the audience about their
How many places have you worked where they saiud: “we put our people first?” And how many places was it a true statement? Putting people first is an essential pillar of servant leadership based on the writings of Sipe & Frick in the Seven Pillars Of Servant Leadership. But the
Be a person of character is an important trait. There is an initiative being taught in school systems called Character Counts. The curriculum teaches six essential values to being a person with character: responsibility, respect, trustworthiness, fairness, caring, and citizenship. Those are all traits I would like my children to
For the next several weeks I will be blogging about the essential traits of servant leaders. The framework for the conversation comes from a book called Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership by James W. Sipe and Don M. Frick. For those of you who think the term servant leader is
Here is a question I love to answer. Does servant leadership deliver superior financial performance results? The answer – unequivocally yes. The reason I love this question is that I meet skeptic after skeptic that cannot follow this logic. It is not plausible that you could serve the people you lead and
Visiting restaurants is where I learn the most important leadership lessons. Better than conferences, books, speeches, and blogs. Restaurant leaders don’t complicate leadership. They do leadership. Meet Min Cho, leader of the Popeyes restaurant on Osan Air Force Base in Korea. Min Cho is no ordinary leader. Last year she
Feedback is truly a gift. Last night my daughter said to me, “just what is the point of your blog exactly, Mom?” In case you have the same question, I offer this answer. I want to challenge you to re-think your approach to leadership. Or perhaps, come to a point
I’m intrigued by companies with strong core purpose and principles. Once such company is the advertising agency, GSD&M in Austin, Texas. This agency was founded in 1971 by four graduates of University of Texas at Austin: Steve Gurasich, Roy Spence, Judy Trabulsi, and Tim McClure. While the founders recently retired, this agency remains
It is a rare occasion that a highly visible Fortune 500 CEO puts their personal values out for all to see. One such individual is Bob McDonald, CEO of Procter & Gamble. If you go to the P&G website, and search for his biography, you will also find a section
Several of you have asked me what traits I look for that I believe are essential to servant leadership. One good book on servant leadership, Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership, by James Sipe, says there are seven core attributes of a servant leader and 21 behaviors to look for. This
One day I was in a Popeyes restaurant observing a busy lunch hour in a high volume restaurant. Despite the flood of urgent, hungry guests, the crew in this restaurant was getting the food out, on time and with a smile. It was like watching an orchestra perform a great
In April, my husband and I visited Napa Valley, California for the first time and as you would expect, we toured the vineyards and wineries of this region. The first thing you notice in Napa Valley is the beauty of the area – rolling hills covered with grape trellises, classic
Reading a newsfeed on my iPad last month, a headline captured my attention. “The World Took a Negative Turn in 2017.” The news story? The Gallup organization measures the emotional state of most countries in the world each year. The 2017 survey results show a sharp increase in negative emotions – stress,
There is a book titled Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch, by Curt W. Coffman and Kathie Sorensen, Ph.D. The title makes corporate culture sound important, strong, high-impact. Yet in far too many places, building corporate culture is considered a “soft skill.” Squishy, hard to pin down, outright marshmallow material. So
Saturday afternoon, I went out for tacos with my daughter and her family. The restaurant was a fun local place—and the dining area was decorated with a whole host of bumper stickers. On the wall next to our table, the bumper stickers had a theme. Life is good. Work is
I am excited to be back in the blogosphere talking to you about leadership. The second edition of Dare to Serve hits the market in just a couple of weeks, and I can’t wait for you to see the new chapters. You can jump on Amazon today and pre-order your
Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others I was once being interviewed for a leadership job in a restaurant company. The interviewer, a senior executive at the company, asked me about my approach to leadership. I said that I developed teams of highly competent
Last week I was getting ready to board a flight at Newark airport. The arriving plane was late and the gate crew was rushing around to quickly get that plane ready to go. The gate agent called the first group of passengers to board, but as they got down the
Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others About ten years ago, I developed a bit of an obsession. Of everyone I met, I started asking this question: “Why do you work?” You could see them trying to figure out what answer I was looking
Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others I have a weird personality. I only want to work on big, huge, hard things. Maybe it is my wiring of being an idea person. Maybe it is my love of turnaround opportunities. Maybe it reflects my
Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others I began studying different approaches to leadership several years ago and that’s when I first encountered the idea of servant leadership. Robert Greenleaf introduced the concept of the servant leader in the late seventies – one who
Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others It’s no secret people matter to me. I consider the most important aspect of my career the opportunity to coach and develop people. Coaching and developing people is a signature trait of a servant leader and servant
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