Tag: relationships

Love and Accountability

Working with leaders around the world affords me the opportunity to see up close what works and what does not when it comes to outstanding leadership. I have seen leaders who have built incredible organizations with amazing workplace culture. And, I have seen leaders who struggle to keep their best people, attract new employees, and build a sustainable workplace culture. Here is what I find is the common denominator of the most successful, most accountable,

December 21, 2021

Are You Accountable To… or Accountable For? Real Leaders Know.

As accountable leaders, we need to look closely at the difference between being accountable to and being accountable for. That difference has an impact on our ability to effectively lead our teams. When you are accountable to someone, what does that mean exactly? When I ask leaders this question, I follow up by asking them to give me examples of some of the people they are accountable to. I hear things like: My boss. My

June 7, 2021

The Lazy Leader’s Version of Accountability

Has someone you report to ever said to you, “I’m holding you accountable for so-and-so”? Or: “You’re going to be held accountable if X, Y, or Z doesn’t happen”?

How did that make you feel? Did it inspire you? Did it make you glad that you had picked such a great place to work and found such a great boss? Did it get your creative juices flowing?

December 1, 2020

Don’t’ Take It For Granted

For the past week I have been working with many great organizations and wonderful people in Saudi Arabia helping them build organizational cultures based in accountability. The other night I was at my business partners home and after dinner he had the driver take me back to the hotel. The driver is from a small town in India. He speaks very broken English and the words he does know are verbalized with a very unusual

December 9, 2012

Attracting High Performance Employees

There is a trend in the marketplace of web start up companies that are being purchased by larger companies just for the key personnel. They’re buying the companies and then jettisoning the products, giving up on the products. They want to hire the founder of that organization. They want the engineers. It’s been shown that finding the right engineer can be worth 500 thousand to a million dollars to some organizations. So what do you

May 25, 2012

Networking to Achieve

A friend of mine recently reached out to me via Skype. She wanted to connect me with a client of hers. He had a successful business and recently wrote a book and wanted to be speaking more professionally. She knew I was the past president of National Speaker’s Association and thought I might be a good resource for him so she made the connection. We had a phone call and he was a really nice

May 4, 2012

Micro Center … Macro Accountability

My company runs on Apple Macs but we have one PC running Windows. It is used for a critical production process and we cannot afford for it to be down. Well it was down and it was down for 48 hours. When we could not fix the programs ourselves, or with the assistance of a call in help desk, I decided it was time to take action and resolve the issue once and for all.

September 16, 2011

Long Term Success

I had the opportunity recently to attend a symposium in New York City. The topic was the legislative career of Ted Kennedy. Two of the speakers were Caroline Kennedy and Justice Stephen Breyer. It was incredibly insightful to hear about the traits and characteristics of Senator Kennedy that contributed to his successes. Senator Kennedy served for 47 years and participated in over 15,000 votes. In this interview I share some of take-aways for me. Long

February 17, 2011

The Power of Better Personal Relationships

I recently returned from a conference for the National Speakers Association in Phoenix, Arizona. As a past president of the National Speakers Association, I’m very involved in what goes on and I enjoy meeting with my peers and friends, communicating on a regular basis. Here’s what I discovered during the meeting. It was a small meeting of maybe 225 people. Some of the friends that I regularly hung out with were not there and what

September 14, 2010