Becoming a Brilliant Visionary
This article is all about Visionary Leaders! We dive into who these Visionaries are, why they are, and what specific actions they can take to overcome their unique challenges and become brilliant.
3 Steps to Discover Your Hidden Leadership Bias
Ask a room of 100 successful executives what the most important business question is, and you will get close to 100 different answers. However, you will find that you can boil those responses down to just four one-word questions. "Why?", "What?", "How?", and "Who?" These questions seem relatively straightforward until you recognize that you have a bias toward one or two of these questions.
Why Integrity Isn’t Actually Your Core Value
Your culture isn't the words on your walls, t-shirts, and website. It is those things that you do as a company that works and is therefore promoted, encouraged, repeated, and honored. Let me pick on integrity to illustrate my point as many, many businesses will include integrity in their core values.
5 Ways to Eliminate Employee Apathy in Your Business
A common but wholly bewildering problem founders face is apathy among their employees. As a successful founder, I'd be willing to bet you are wired to drive forward. You probably don't have an off button (at least while you're awake). Employees can be a whole different story.
3 Things You Must Do This Year
As the year winds down, you are likely spending more and more time thinking about and working on next year’s projects. As you’re planning, I’d recommend you consider the following three actions. I believe they are critical for the long-term health and success of your business.
To Win Your Day, Start From OK
We all have to deal with the gap between our expectations and our realities. It doesn't matter what your position, tenure, education, or skillset is. I know I am routinely let down by my own expectations. Maybe you can relate. I believe this gap affects us all.
The Founder’s Evolution Stage 7: The Visionary Founder
The Founder's Evolution culminates in Stage 7: The Visionary Founder. At this stage, the Visionary Founder's legacy is truly established. But at the end of the day, it's not about how skilled you are, how amazing your organization is, or how much you are worth. Instead, it's about something far more meaningful, something far more powerful.
The Founder’s Evolution Stage 6: The True Owner
Most Founders never make it to Stage 6 of their Founder's Evolution, and they never experience the joy and freedom of becoming a True Owner. They also never discover the most valuable asset a True Owner has because it certainly isn't cash (even though they have a whole lot of it).
The Founder’s Evolution Stage 5: The Chief Executive
In stage 5 of your evolution as a founder, you finally take on a title you've been using incorrectly for a long time: Chief Executive. This stage is tremendously rewarding as you lead through others and build an organization whose success will outlast you. However, some soul-searching and a few essential strategies are needed to get there.
The Founder’s Evolution Stage 4: The Disillusioned Leader
Stage 4 of the Founder's Evolution is the single greatest shift in the entire journey. Your entire history as a founder and a leader up to this point has taught you the skill of winning the game on the field. Unfortunately, very little of that matters in Stage 4. In fact, the better you are at the earlier stages, the harder it will be for you to embrace this next phase in your journey.
The Founder’s Evolution Stage 3: The Reluctant Manager
We hit the ground running. It was September 2008 when we relaunched our business, and although much of the world was in the tumult of the financial crisis, we were on fire. The relaunch had gone stunningly well, even though we had inherited some severe problems from the previous owners. We had debt-ridden relationships with …
The Founder’s Evolution Stage 2: The Startup Entrepreneur
If you were to go out and ask any random startup entrepreneur how the new business is going, you would get a huge smile followed by a whole list of superlatives. “It’s wonderful.” “It’s amazing.” “I’m loving it.” Simultaneously you feel like all your life has prepared you for this moment, AND like you are way in over your head because you are. And despite the smile, you show everyone around you, inside, you are plagued by the question: What was I thinking? Did you make a mistake, or are you on your way to the success you’ve dreamt of?