When I first met her, she was a new manager navigating the transition from team member to leader.  One of her biggest fears?  That she wasn’t approachable and that it would undermine her and her team's effectiveness and success.

She explained how her natural tendencies—being direct, task-focused, and results-driven—made her doubt whether her team felt comfortable coming to her with questions or concerns.  Through coaching, we uncovered the real issue:  She had never sought feedback on her approachability.  She was operating on assumptions rather than facts.

With encouragement, she began asking key direct reports, colleagues, and even her boss for their honest input.  The results were eye-opening.  Far from being unapproachable, she learned that her team valued her focus and clarity, seeing her as a strong, supportive leader.  They felt that she was indeed approachable and that her approachability was built on a genuine human connection tied to a shared team purpose and her concern for their development and success.  That insight transformed her self-perception and, more importantly, boosted her confidence in herself and her new role.  Several successful months later, she was  promoted, once again.

Her journey underscores a critical truth:  Leadership isn’t just about technical skills—it’s about accurate self-awareness, genuine connections, collaboration, growth, and shared purpose.

Business, the economy, technology, and talent are moving at a breakneck pace and becoming more complex just as consumer expectations rise.  Leaders are at the forefront of all of this change.  Whether you are a new or seasoned leader, success in 2025 will depend on addressing four key leadership trends. 

SHARED PURPOSE, GENUINE CONNECTIONS, & INNOVATION
Shared team meaning and purpose are the bedrock of team effectiveness and success.  Let's connect the dots between shared meaning and purpose (a.k.a., purpose-driven leadership) and success.

You see, when people are aligned with a clear and strong sense of shared purpose, they not only bond together in the tasks that they do together while moving toward realizing that purpose, but they bond emotionally.  They will feel connected.  Those experiences form the common ground that fosters trust and collaboration—and that yields creativity, innovation, and success.  As a recent DDI article on 2025 leadership trends explains, "When team members feel connected and aligned, they bring creativity, insight, and flexibility to their daily work."

The most effective leaders in 2025 will leverage these principals.  They will guide their team through the process of identifying, clarifying, and articulating a shared team mission, vision, and goals—even if that means integrating organizational goals and expectations.  They will foster psychologically safe environments while balancing autonomy and empowerment with a focus on common goals and purpose.  They will recognize and reward towards those ends and celebrate successes along the way.

BURNOUT & THE LEADERSHIP PIPELINE CRISIS
DDI and others have identified these two interconnected leadership trends.  The stress of leadership is on the rise causing many to feel isolated, burned-out, and disengaged.  Team members see the toll that being a leader takes on their managers and become less likely to pursue leadership roles, themselves.  Organizations then struggle to identify emerging leaders in this ever-shrinking leadership pipeline. 

Executives and senior leaders, HR, and L&OD must rethink how they nurture, support, and develop leaders in 2025 to reverse this negative feedback loop.  Senior leaders who seek feedback through instruments such as the LPI360, can gain insights into their own leadership behaviors in order to more effectively lead and serve those under their umbrella.  Proactive solutions can be prioritizing leader wellbeing, fostering a sense of connection and purpose, offering professional leadership coaching, and rethinking leadership development programs and support structures.

IMPOSTER SYNDROME & LEADERSHIP
Korn Ferry's Workforce 2024 Global Insights Report was released just a few months ago.  They surveyed 10,000 global employees and the data revealed some surprises.  

More than 70% of American CEOs admitted that they struggle with imposter syndrome.  And while CEOs reported the highest levels, imposter syndrome was pervasive across all levels of leadership and management.  This led them to conclude that this "might suggest that companies aren’t investing in the right kind of leadership coaching and training—or that they’re promoting people without giving them the tools they need to succeed."

Organizations can address this trend by shifting away from transactional training to true developmental experiences and transformational coaching.  The empowerment that purpose-driven leadership (mentioned above) can give leaders and teams and professional coaching are strong and cost-effective ways that organizations can respond to this trend.

HOLISTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Blanchard's 2025 HR/L&D Trends Survey took a look at what over 900 people had to say were the most pressing challenges as they looked ahead to the new year.  Some of the seven identified challenges aligned with what DDI and Korn Ferry identified, such as leadership development and leadership bench strength, employee engagement and culture, change management, and resilience. 

These recurring themes iterate and reiterate in variations and degrees most years for leaders and organizations.  Certainly, the solutions mentioned previously are solid answers to 2025 challenges.  Additionally, fostering a culture where continuous learning is encouraged up and down the food chain and ensuring leaders are developing the necessary skills to navigate evolving challenges are also effective ways to navigate these themes. 

However, when it comes to culture and employee engagement, many organizations bring in outside eyes and ears in the form of an expert consultant.  Unbiased and uninfluenced by the organization's culture, personalities, and command structure, a seasoned organizational and leadership development consultant can provide an assessment and offer possible solutions through a clearer lens.

OVERVIEW
The leadership landscape of 2025 presents both challenges and opportunities.  By focusing on fostering genuine connections, addressing burnout, combating imposter syndrome, and adopting a holistic approach to leadership development, organizations can equip their leaders to navigate the complexities of the modern workplace.

As you reflect on these trends, consider how your organization is preparing its leaders for the future.  Investing in comprehensive development programs today will pave the way for a resilient and innovative leadership team tomorrow.

I invite you to share your thoughts on these trends.

• What challenges have you observed in your recent leadership journey?
• What trends for 2025 are you and your team anticipating?
  
• How are you addressing these?

Let's continue the conversation and learn from each other's experiences.

Happy New Year!

Leaders and organizations are facing challenging volatility and uncertainty—some might even say outright crises—from every direction today. 

• Geopolitical disruptions
• Inflation, cost of living, revenue, and economic uncertainties for themselves, their employees, consumers, and the business
• Balancing and managing remote and in-person work
• Recruitment and the labor shortage
• A changing and aging labor market and what some have called the "Great Reshuffle" and the "Great Detachment"
  
• Motivating, engaging, and retaining talent
• Performance management, productivity, and innovation
• Change management/leadership and process improvement
• Training and development
• Mental health and wellbeing

These exigencies threaten multiple aspects of life, business, and leadership effectiveness.  Management and leadership approaches, strategies, and philosophies that may have worked in the past may no longer be warranted today. 

However, these issues can also be opportunities, depending on how  leaders and organizations view, approach, and deal with them.  It's time to question past leadership approaches and rethink the way we lead—and there is ample opportunity.

Consider McKinsey's The State of Organizations 2023 in which they reported that only 25% of survey respondents said that they "consider their leadership culture to be one that inspires employees to the best extent possible."  That report and other research highlights just how critical purpose-driven leadership is to stakeholders and employees; including financial value and revenue.

McKinsey found that respondents viewed three top leadership elements as most important for their organizations:

• Role modeling— Focusing on building respect and considering the ethical consequences of decisions
• Inspiring others—Presenting a compelling vision of the future and inspiring optimism about its implementation
• Developing people—Spending time teaching, mentoring, and listening to individual needs and concerns

One of the problems is that many organizations lack the incentive due to a crisis-like mentality that puts a focus on short-term thinking and strategies and therefore, they don't invest in the training and leadership development that would actually create the culture, results, and financial returns they so desperately seek. 

Less than 40% of the organizations in the survey have made development a core part of leaders' daily work and less than 30% have made leadership training more accessible.  On a positive note, more than half (55%) have invested in some form of leadership development and in changing leadership selection requirements.

KEY STRATEGIC ANSWERS
Three key strategic answers squarely meet these challenges.

1)  Leading Self—Leaders today need the courage to champion self-awareness, purpose-driven leadership, and authenticity.  They give the leader inspiration, focus, consistency, and a solid bedrock for purpose/value-driven decision-making.  And that fosters leader engagement and organizational commitment. 

When leveraged effectively, the leader becomes a model of this key driver of success inspiring others and fostering trust through demonstrated integrity.  They not only 'talk the talk,' they 'walk the walk.'  Leaders with a clear leadership philosophy when compared to those without a clear leadership philosophy are rated 140% higher on leadership effectiveness by those they lead.

Another part of leading self is seeking answers to the question, "How do others see me as a leader?"  A proven way to gain actionable feedback to that question is through an empirically-based 360-degree leadership assessment, such as the LPI360.  It gives the leader clear insights into their leadership strengths and opportunities for growth.

Learning to harness your leadership philosophy effectively builds your own unique leadership style in new and powerful ways.  It magnifies your leadership effectiveness, models authenticity and integrity, drives growth and productivity, and is a key driver of fulfillment and success. 

2)  Leading Teams—Further along the purpose-driven leadership path, leaders also need to be the catalyst that empowers purpose and collaboration at a team level. 

Harnessing the collaborative process of creating, implementing, and leveraging a Shared Team Mission & Values Statement and a Shared Team Vision Statement aligns individual purpose and values with the collective mission, vision, and values.  Research has shown that by fostering a culture of shared purpose, the leader elevates job satisfaction, engagement, productivity, and retention.  And, purpose-driven leadership has been shown to enhance health, wellbeing, and even longevity.

3)  Leading Change—Once these two strategies are in place, it's time to put them into action through aligned change initiatives and process improvement projects with clear goals and expectations.  When mission and vision are created from both the top-down and the bottom-up approaches, buy-in and inspiration to be and do one's best are galvanized. This is how value is created. 

When leading change effectively, the leader fosters an environment in which teams work on these initiatives with autonomy, discovery, and the freedom to innovate; further building engagement and boosting retention. 

Rather than being the boss/controller, the leader who leverages this strategy well, leans into being more of a coach who keeps people and projects aligned with mission, vision, and goals and only steps in when necessary for crucial feedback and decision-making. 

The leader, with organizational and/or change agent support, can then build networks both laterally and horizontally in order to bring about lasting change that brings both impact and value.

SYNOPSIS
While upheavals and volatility are coming at leaders and organizations from every direction today, there are clear, empirical, best-practice solutions that meet them head-on.  Leaders and organizations that fail to recognize and act on them, risk falling behind their peers and losing their competitive positioning and growth potential. 

Championing purpose-driven leadership not only meets  today's challenges and growth opportunities, it sets a foundation for current leaders to build a collaborative culture of positive change and meaning.  Further, it sets the stage for emerging leaders to inherit that culture along with the tools and strategies passed onto them for a stronger and brighter future.

They also know to keep their eyes on the radar—to keep their eyes and ears open for potential challenges or threats.

But do they know why?  Do you know why—both for yourself personally and as a leader and as a team and organization?  And, how do those align?

The why or purpose of any journey or road trip is more important than the journey itself.  Why are you even on this journey? 

Think of our last road trip, for example.  If those thunderstorms had for some reason prevented us from making the journey, the why we were going on it would still exist.  Our family still needed some much needed R&R after a long  school year.  We still needed to share experiences together, bond and build relationships, and appreciate the magnificence of nature and our blessings together.

And the why  or purpose, especially of business journeys, is often left unspoken and unclear.  And yet it is the driving force for the journey!  It's what inspires, clarifies, focuses, and gets us up in the morning.  It's what empowers us and fuels grit, growth, and results.

Why?
I was chatting with a leader a couple of weeks ago and asked him if he had a Life Mission/Leadership Philosophy and Core Values Statement.  Not only did he not have one, he didn't even know what one was.

He's not alone.  Unfortunately, many leaders don't know what a Life Mission/Leadership Philosophy and Core Values Statement is.  And even if they do, they don't know how to write a strong one.  And even fewer know how to leverage one to amplify leadership effectiveness and a wide array of key outcome metrics. 

It still surprises me that so many leaders don't leverage purpose-driven leadership and that organizations don't teach leaders how to lead with key strategies and tools like a leadership philosophy and core values.  You see, a  Life Mission/Leadership Philosophy and Core Values Statement is the foundation of purpose-driven leadership and driving key metrics.  

Great Place to Work and a host of others report that those organizations that do not prioritize meaning and purpose—that is, they do not practice purpose-driven leadership—have lower engagement, productivity, innovation, revenue and financials, wellbeing, and increased or continued retention problems than those that do.

Purpose-driven leadership, with a leadership philosophy and core values at its foundation, has been shown in the research that it absolutely will positively impact those key outcome metrics.  To learn more about that, get my free whitepaper, Why Purpose-Driven Leadership is so Critical for Leaders Today!

And, personal development and leadership development experts and psychologists have known about the power of meaning and purpose for decades.  For example, think of names and titles like Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning or Stephen Covey and Habit 2 from The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People or Simon Sinek and Start With Why.

Leaders and organizations that aren't leveraging purpose-driven leadership—without a Life Mission/Leadership Philosophy and Core Values Statement for each and every leader—are missing out on an easy, and powerful way to drive results.  Those who are leveraging purpose-driven leadership and who are getting results have taken the time to answer two age-old questions, "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?"

Let's briefly examine each element.

Life Mission
A Life Mission Statement on its own, is a declaration of one's personal purpose.  It answers one of the two age-old questions, "Why am I here?"  My mom called it 'my vocation.'  What was my calling from God?  I write about that experience with my mother in my chapter of The Change: Insights Into Self-Empowerment.  If you'd like a free PDF version of the book, just direct message me on Facebook or LinkedIn or email me and tell me you heard about my offer in this blog and I'm happy to share it with you.  No obligation. No email subscription.

A Life Mission Statement is your most personal understanding and deepest beliefs of who you are as a person and why you have been blessed with this life at this time and in this environment and culture.

Leadership Philosophy
A leadership philosophy is a set of principles, beliefs, and core values.  Leaders use it to guide and direct their behavior, to be more aware of how they see the world and evaluate information, and it helps them make more effective and more courageous decisions.  It guides and directs them with how they want to interact with people, events, and situations—especially critical situations.  It serves to inspire themselves and others and is used as a tool when seeking and integrating feedback on their leadership style and behaviors.

It should genuinely, clearly, and categorically define what you believe in as a person and as a leader, how you lead when you’re at your leadership best, and articulate and connect to your personal purpose, mission, vocation, or passion.  It is the operating system that guides you in how you want to make a difference in the world. 

It is your integration of the personal and professional into the answer to those two age-old questions, “Why am I here?” and “Who am I?”

The leadership academics differentiate a life mission from a leadership philosophy statement.  There are good reasons to combine and integrate both into one statement and system.  The most important of those is that it’s simply more practical to operate from one clearly articulated document. 

Now, this kind of deep, reflective self-examination can be challenging.  So, many people choose not to do it.  However, to become an exemplary or great leader, it is an imperative.  As Drew Dudley said, “Developing an answer is crucial.  If you don’t have a personal leadership philosophy, you don’t have a plan for leading every day.  You’re hoping to lead, you’re not planning to lead.”

Finally, a Life Mission/Leadership Philosophy and Core Values Statement is "necessary but not sufficient."  It's the foundation of exemplary or great leadership and driving results—but it's not the only element.  But without it, you are not equipped with one of the most powerful and necessary elements of great leadership. 

With it, you achieve great things.

Core Values
Kouzes and Posner have been studying exemplary leaders for over 30 years.  They advance their finding that the most admired leaders have one quality that stands out above all others:  They have strong beliefs about matters of principle—they have a clear set of values that they lead and live by.

We expect our leaders to speak out about matters of ethics, principles, values, and conscience.  When they don’t, they’re not considered exemplary or great leaders.  When they do, however, they create safety, boost group cohesion, and build a positive culture by fighting for what is right.

But in order to speak out, leaders must be clear about what they stand for.  They must have clarity on what that means.  To earn and hold credibility, leaders must be able to clearly articulate deeply held beliefs and values.
Leading with a clear set of values also helps us in the process of identifying goals and priorities, making better decisions, and in taking positive actions to achieve those goals and priorities.

The Danger
Unfortunately, many leaders have not been given the skills, tools, and strategies to develop a leadership philosophy—much less discovered how to lead and live by one.  Further, most leaders are not taught how to lead with purpose-driven leadership.  They are missing a key, strategic and fundamental leadership competency.

They are not achieving all they can.  They are not realizing their full potential as a person and as a leader.  Their teams are not as engaged as they could be, not achieving all that they could,  not forging the powerful bonds that purpose produces, and not cultivating a fully thriving culture.

Purpose-driven leadership not only transforms leadership, it can transform people's lives, teams, and organizations. 

Your Own Life Mission, Leadership Philosophy, & Core Values Statement
So, the question is, "Do you want to keep doing the same things and expect different results?"  Or, do you want to join the thousand of exemplary leaders who have taken the time to do this kind of deep work—and do it right?

I've taken all of the guess-work out of how to do this.  I wrote my first Life Mission Statement in 1986 and I've been studying and leveraging purpose ever since.  I wrote my first integrated Life Mission/Leadership Philosophy and Core Values Statement in 2016 and I've helped hundreds of leaders develop their own statements and shown them the strategies and tools to leverage it in their leadership. 

My proven, six-step Staircase to a Life Mission, Leadership Philosophy and Core Values Statement is just one part of The Purpose-Driven Leadership Program.  It could transform your life and your leadership.

Watch this short video (01:53) to learn more.

Being a great leader is no easy job. 

The best leaders must integrate and balance the needs of their team and others around them with meeting goals and outcome metrics.  They must be mindful of their leadership presence and self-regulation knowing that behaviors and emotions are contagious.  They have to navigate accountability and recognition; the task at hand and meaning and purpose; and workflow, processes, and relationship-building.

Most importantly, exemplary leaders ensure consistency between what they say and what they do.  People are demanding that leaders today are truly themselves and true to themselves; who have a deeper level of self-awareness, and who can be vulnerable and transparent.

In other words, great leaders are authentic.

Authenticity in leadership has gained significant attention in recent years.  The starting point for authenticity is self-awareness.  You can't be authentic if you don't know what your deeply held beliefs are, your values, the principles you lead by, and your purpose—what inspires you.

The greatest leaders have paused and pondered two age-old questions, "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?"   Then, they clearly answer them. 

The very best leaders write that down as a Life Mission, Leadership Philosophy, and Core Values Statement.  They visit it every single day so that they can leverage it in their leadership thus boosting their authenticity and transparency.  They also revisit them over the years as they grow and evolve in order to remain true to themselves.

Having clarity of purpose and values allows you to shift from simply being self-aware to being self-observant.  Self-awareness is the process of clarifying your purpose, principles, and values, while self-observance takes it a step further. 

When you add contemplating purpose, principles, and values at the end of the day (self-reflection), you create the space for greater self-awareness by asking yourself, "When did I live those well today?" and "When did I not live them well so that I can learn from that experience?" After doing that over and over, you build the capacity to do that in real-time (self-observance).

Being self-observant empowers you to look at yourself within a situation and evaluate whether you're living up to your true self and whether that situation and your role in it is propelling you closer to your mission and goals or pulling you away.  This seemingly subtle shift in perspective can have profound implications for achieving success.

And great leaders don't stop there.  They also promote meaning and purpose and self-awareness with their team.  They align individual purpose and values with the collective mission, vision, and values. 

Great leaders have taken the time to learn how to engage their team in collectively creating a Shared Team Mission & Values statement and a Shared Team Vision statement.  They then foster a culture of shared purpose by connecting them to daily tasks, processes, workflows, behaviors, and reward and recognition.  They further harness this meaning, purpose, and vision as they launch change and process-improvement projects to build buy-in and success.

A sense of shared meaning and purpose then elevates job satisfaction, engagement, productivity, innovation, and retention.  It positively impacts financials and revenue.  It even impacts wellbeing.

Self-awareness and purpose-driven leadership are the foundation of authenticity and great leadership.  If you want to learn how you can cultivate greater self-awareness and meaning and purpose and how to leverage that more effectively, look no further. 

My Purpose-Driven Leadership Program is an applied sciences, evidence-based program designed to help you learn essential behaviors and competencies to apply in the real world— in your personal life, with your team and peers, within your organization, and yes, even the world.

The program is not simply a class or a workshop.  It is an in-depth and intensive leadership development experience designed to get you and your team results.  Contact me today!

Check out what Simon Sinek as to say about authenticity and purpose in this short video (less than 2-minutes).

No, our opening quote was not a statement about the current political stage.  It was written back in 2008 in the brilliant book, Success Intelligence.  His words were true then and they still ring true today.  This isn't about politics for me and I don't think it is for Dr. Holden, either.  It's about great leadership.

I'm on a mission to partner with like-minded leaders who want to make a positive difference in the world with great leadership.  In pursuit of that recently, I was speaking to a local group of small business owners and sales people.  I asked them, "What does increasing your business and profit mean more deeply for you?  What deeper and more meaningful purpose does that serve for you?"

Some answers were on the lighter side, like 'vacations' and 'more travel.'  Others had more depth.  Here are some of their answers:

• Allows me to take care of my family
• Freedom
• Financial freedom
• Freedom to spend time with my family
• Helping to take others from where they are to where they can be
• I am helping business owners grow their business
• More business means more lives positively impacted including my family's
• Providing a path for additional income for others
• Seeing the creations my team works on for months come to life
• I don't like ceilings
• Helping people with something personal
• Putting more families into homes so they can start building wealth

Each of those leaders have purpose and vision and lead and live with integrity.  However,  those visions and purposes have probably not been fully identified, clarified, and articulated, yet.  That chat exercise was a baby step.  I think that for most people, personal purpose, mission, or vision is just kind of down there somewhere; not fully identified, not fully clarified, and mostly unspoken.  The same could be said for the bedrock of integrity: Core values. 

The kind of deep, reflective self-examination needed to fully realize personal and leadership purpose, values, principles, and vision can be challenging.  So, many people choose not to.  However, to become a great leader, it's an imperative.  It is a defining characteristic of  a great leader.

Leadership without a clear purpose (or if you have one and you’re not using it effectively) will result in wandering or getting off course and becoming subject to shift here and there as different winds blow from wherever they will.  And those around you are looking for consistency.  They are looking to be inspired.  They are looking for someone who is focused and who can lead change effectively.  They want more than just a job.  They want to show up at a place where they connect to deeper meaning and purpose.  Without a clear purpose, leadership philosophy, and core values, you risk not being aligned with higher principles—something else people look for in a great leader.

There is passage from the Gospel of Matthew that has inspired me since I was a young child, "You are the light of the world."  While Matthew was writing to those that he was trying to inspire to spread the gospel, it can and has inspired in many other ways, too. 

It can also mean to fully shine and flourish authentically as a person with purpose and love; someone who inspires and uplifts; someone unafraid of accountability both for themselves and others; someone pursuing growth, change, and a vision.  Quite simply, it means being the best and truest you.

So, ask yourself.  As a leader, do you light up the room when you walk in—or when you walk out? 

What kind of leader do you truly want to be?

Be the light.  Be the light of the world.

It was July 2021 in Tokyo and Simone Biles had a bad case of the "twisties" that caused her to withdraw from most of the rest of the competition.  As the Tokyo Games were left behind and critics of Biles began to be overshadowed by the pandemic and other news, Biles took time away from the sport to focus on herself, her business endeavors, and getting married—but most importantly, on her mental health and wellbeing. 

As she told Vanity Fair earlier this year, “I wish I could sit here and tell you it was glorious...  But after 2020, it was kind of depressing until I started therapy and got help.  I felt like a failure.”

Unless you've been in hibernation the last week and a half, she's made a spectacular comeback on her "redemption tour" with—at the latest count as of today—she has added three more gold medals to her already 32 medals between the Olympics and world championships.  She has more opportunities to add to her haul on the final day of gymnastics today in the beam and floor finals.

She has lived up to her famous tattoo in our opening quote that was inspired by a Maya Angelou quote.  She has not only become the "GOAT" in her sport, but a celebrity advocate for mental health and is celebrated by her athlete-peers and millions around the world.  Her story and the stories of her teammates got me thinking and inspired, as it may have you.

Below are three leadership lessons we can contemplate from the 2024 US Women's Olympic Gymnastic team.

1)  Resilience & Grit: Overcoming Obstacles, Challenges, & Adversity
Simone was not the only teammate facing adversity.  Just as Suni Lee was rising once again through the ranks of making the US Women's 2024 Olympics team as expected, she was diagnosed with not one but two rare kidney diseases—neither of which are currently curable.  After medical treatments and dietary restrictions and as of today, she not only made the US team, she has won one gold and two bronze medals in this year's events.  And, that's not even mentioning the multiple stalkers.  Talk about resilience and dealing with adversity!

Others on the team had their own challenges and ghosts to conquer.  The hardships that they had to overcome with resilience and grit earned them the nickname from former artistic gymnast Kathy Johnson Clarke, "The Phoenix Five."

Obstacles, challenges, and adversity are no strangers to leaders.  How we think about them—our mindset—and what we do about them is critical to successfully navigating them or not.  Do we let our fast brain or slow brain be in control? 

Here are some strategies for greater grit and resilience (the first two come from Angela Duckworth who popularized grit and grit research):

• Lean into your meaning, purpose, and passion (more below)
• Cultivating distributed and deliberate practice (more on that below, too!)
• Stop, pause, or do anything you can to reflect, self-reflect, and become more aware of the bigger picture of what you're dealing with and your interactions with it.  In other words, become more self-aware.
• What lessons have you learned or can you learn from what you know so far?
• Take a lesson from the GOAT, take time for self-care.
• How can you leverage a positive vision of the future of this situation? Grow hope?
• Lean into your network.  Who can help?  What experts, like consultants and/or coaches, can help you to better navigate, strategize, and action-plan this situation?
  

2)  Distributed & Deliberate Practice
Every successful person, including elite athletes like the US Women's Olympic Gymnastic team, know the power of distributed and deliberate practice. 

Distributed practice is a learning technique where practice occurs in multiple short sessions over a long period of time.  It has been proven to be the best studying method for effective learning that lasts.  It's also known as spaced repetition or spaced practice.

Deliberate practice involves constantly pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, following training activities designed by an expert to develop specific abilities, and using feedback to identify weaknesses and work on them.  

Creating space on our calendars to contemplate and other rituals is a starting point.  Intentionally practicing identified leadership skills, behaviors, and competencies and challenging ourselves with new ones, is what this is all about.

I wrote more extensively about them both here:  Practice Makes Progress.

3)  Purpose-Driven Leadership
Every single successful person that Stephen Covey interviewed for his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, have it.  Every single person Abraham Maslow identified as self-actualized had it.  Kouzes and Posner identified that every exemplary leader has it.  Research has identified that it positively impacts key leadership metrics such as employee engagement, productivity, retention, wellbeing, and even financials.

What is it?  Under our leadership rubric, it's purpose-driven leadership.  Purpose-driven leadership is that leader who can leverage their own meaning and purpose, the meaning and purpose of others around them, and the meaning and purpose of their team and their organization.

The US Women's Olympic Gymnastic Olympic team was laser-focused in on their purpose and what meaning that had for them, their colleagues and other athletes, their family and friends, their fans, the world, and their legacies.  They took the time to focus and refocus on their meaning and purpose the more intense the pressure became.

If you want to learn more about how you can leverage this fundamental leadership competency, check this out: The Purpose-Driven Leadership Program.

Summary
This year's US Women's Olympic Gymnastic Olympic team has been particularly inspiring and has powerful lessons for our leadership journeys.  The big ones for me are:

• Overcoming obstacles, challenges, and adversity through resilience and grit.
• Making the time for distributed and deliberate practice.
• Leveraging purpose-driven leadership.

What lessons have you learned from them and other Olympic stories?

As the day drew to a close, my wife Leah and I found ourselves outside, savoring a quiet moment after what could have been a contentious evening. We had just navigated a heated discussion, one of those trivial yet potentially explosive conversations that can easily spiral out of control. Remarkably, we emerged stronger, united in our commitment to each other. Sitting on our balcony, soaking in the beauty of the Texas live oaks, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude.

It was in this serene moment that Leah turned to me and said, “You’re the most patient man I have ever known.” Her words brought tears to my eyes, not out of pride, but out of a deep realization. Ten years ago, my response to such a situation would have been drastically different, marked by impatience and frustration. The change in me was profound, the result of years of dedicated effort in reshaping my thoughts and behaviors.

Imagine if our heated discussion had been recorded and analyzed by experts. Some might attribute our positive outcome to conflict management skills or empathic listening techniques. While these tools are valuable, the true catalyst for change was my transformation in thought.

The essence of this transformation lies in a simple yet powerful truth: Thoughts become things.

This principle is central to my Purpose-Driven Leadership Program and is a cornerstone of effective leadership. As William Atkinson, a notable figure in the New Thought Movement, wisely noted in our opening quote, our thoughts can either serve us or dominate us. Choosing to master our thoughts is the first step toward becoming a more effective leader.

In Leveraging the Universe, Mike Dooley asserts, “Your thoughts become things. They always have, and they always will. This is your divine inheritance.”

This profound truth took me over forty years to fully grasp, but once I did, my life began to transform. This realization not only improved my personal relationships but also had a significant impact on my professional life and income.

To illustrate the power of thought, let’s try a simple experiment. Grab a piece of paper and draw a circle. Seriously, draw a circle.

This seemingly trivial act demonstrates a profound truth: Before you drew that circle, you had to decide to do so. This decision, fueled by your thoughts, resulted in a tangible change in the world. The circle, no matter how simple, is a testament to the power of your thoughts becoming reality.

Throughout history, great leaders have understood the transformative power of thought. The ability to be aware of our thoughts, to reflect on them, and to choose them deliberately is what psychologists call metacognition. This self-awareness enables us to elevate our consciousness and create new realities for ourselves and those we lead.

In his international bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey calls it the Mental First Principle.   He explains, “All things are created twice.  There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.”

 self-awareness as the birth of a new world. By becoming aware of our thoughts and choosing them deliberately, we can elevate our leadership and create positive change.

Another important piece of this comes from psychology: metacognition.  You can think about thinking.  We have the evolutionary power to self-reflect on our thoughts, emotions, their patterns, and what they help and don't help create in our lives.

This is one of the core message of the Purpose-Driven Leadership Program: To harness the power of our thoughts to become more effective, influential, and fulfilled leaders.

As you embark on your leadership journey, remember these three critical elements:

1. Thoughts become things.
2. Metacognition: You can reflect on and choose your thoughts.
3. Self-awareness enables you to elevate your leadership and create lasting impact.

Embrace the power of your thoughts, and you will unlock your potential to lead with purpose and transform the world around you.

If you found this week's blog inspiring, please share it with your family, friends, and colleagues.  Join me on my journey to empower and inspire millions around the globe.

I'm on a mission to partner with like-minded leaders who want to make a positive difference in the world.  Together, we can spread words of encouragement, inspiration, empowerment, and loving leadership.  Our world could sure use more positivity, meaning and purpose, and lives grounded in values these days—especially in leadership.

Together we can make a difference!

What does that mean to be "the hero and the zero" and why would Calvin Murphy, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and a Houston Sports Hall of Famer say that?

It was this past Thursday on a hot, steamy, post-tropical storm Alberto, southeast Texas afternoon.  Business leaders, government officials, and graduates from the Leadership Pearland program excitedly found their seats at the Pearland Chamber of Commerce's 2024 State of Leadership luncheon and graduation.  Keynote speakers were none other than Calvin Murphy (quoted above) and Rudy Tomjanovich and moderated by Patti Smith.  These are big names in Houston and in sports.

Tomjanovich coached the Houston Rockets to back-to-back NBA titles in 1994 and 1995 and was one of the most respected coaches in the game.  He is also a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and a Houston Sports Hall of Fame inductee.

Smith has been a staple in the Houston sports market since 1995, spending more than 20 years with Fox Sports Southwest where she has won multiple Emmy Awards, among other accolades and roles.  She is currently the CEO and founding partner at Relevent Worldwide and has been an announcer for the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo since 2011.

The Hero and the Zero
Murphy was sharing some powerful leadership lessons with our graduating class.  While everyone wants to be a hero, it's not intuitive to be courageous when facing being a zero.  Murphy was sharing a valuable life and leadership lesson:  You are going to fail.  Period.  So don't be afraid of it. 

When you're not afraid of being the zero, you don't let the mistakes or failure control you.  You control them.  Learn everything you can from them, but don't be  afraid of them.  And when you're afraid of being the zero, you sacrifice your authenticity and miss golden opportunities for making a positive difference in the world.

Shared Mission, Vision, & Goals
When I heard Tomjanovich share this leadership pearl, I thought of The Purpose-Driven Leadership Program and all of the leaders with whom I have shared some version of that.  Unfortunately, the leader who can foster and leverage a shared team mission and vision is rare.

Kouzes’ and Posner’s research found that when direct reports were asked about the frequency of how often their leader displayed a list of leadership behaviors, those key behaviors that characterize inspiring and leading through a shared team vision—of being forward looking—are consistently rated at the bottom of frequency for the population of leaders at large. 

Leading through meaning and purpose with a shared team vision is one of the most challenging competencies for most leaders.  I can help you with that.

Why is it so important for effective leadership?  Everyone on your team has hopes, dreams, and aspirations.  Everyone wants tomorrow to be better than today.  Shared and inspiring visions attract more people, sustain higher levels of motivation, and withstand more challenges than those that are exclusive to only a few and/or dictated from above.  You have to make sure that what you can see is also something that they can see.

Summary
So, the next time you're facing being "the zero," remember Murphy's advice and do whatever it takes to reframe it and find your courage.  Don't let it rule you.  Rule it.

And, remember the power of including your team members in key elements of your mission, vision, strategy, and action-plans.  The buy-in and commitment you gain from your team are worth the extra effort since they impact your leadership effectiveness and your outcomes.

If you found this week's blog inspiring, please share it with your family, friends, and colleagues.  Join me on my journey to empower and inspire millions around the globe. 

I'm on a mission to partner with like-minded leaders who want to make a positive difference in the world.  Together, we can spread words of encouragement, inspiration, empowerment, and loving leadership.  Our world could sure use more positivity, meaning and purpose, and lives grounded in values these days—especially in leadership.

Together we can make a difference!

Many blessings to all of the fathers! 

When I was around 16 years old and had been acting particularly ornery, I found this prayer on my dresser when I got home from school.  My father was a man of few words, however this prayer has resonated with me my whole life. 

It leads my book, A Travel Guide to Leadership, and I hope his wisdom blesses your day.  Rest in peace, Benjamin Abraham Mikolaj.