Category Archives: Leadership

Titles and desks don't make great managers or loyal employeesLeadership is not about you or your title, your money your possessions, your power, or how much pleasure you can get from life.

Leaders never have all the answers, but they seek them constantly and often find them in the places that others have overlooked.

The articles below will challenge you and inspire you to grow your thinking and your behavior first, and then help you bring your best to the people and the organizations you serve.

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Veterans: Willing To Exchange Our Lives For YOUR Freedom

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A Veteran, whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to The United States of America, for an amount up to and including his or her own life. Unknown

This Saturday is Armed Forces Day.  In honor of the men and women that have written a blank check for their lives in exchange for our freedom I asked several friends to help us understand their choice…  Adonis Phillips, Joseph Pullen, David Groce and LaDine Roth Cravotta are Veterans, Cathy Herring is a mother of a Veteran.

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Throw Yourself!

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I discovered this quote this morning…

“The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself!” ― C. JoyBell C.

It beautifully emphasizes the heart of a message I shared in the Lead Change Blog last week….  

“I recently spoke with a friend that has an extraordinary gift, and an opportunity to use that gift at a much higher level.

  • If she chooses to pursue that opportunity she has to push through whispers of doubt that her mind is already generating about all that she is not.
  • She must push through her own comfort zone and perhaps the comfort zones of her friends and her family.
  • And then, she will have to risk being vulnerable to the people that will decide if her gift is what they need right now….”

Click here to read the full post!

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The Impact of a Mother ~ From a Variety of Perspectives

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I am not a mother.  However, as Mother’s Day approached this year, I thought of multiple conversations I’ve had with mothers over the past few years.

  • Conversations with new mothers that are in the midst of raising little children and have no time for themselves.
  • Conversations with stay at home mothers that feel like they are frequently treated as if they are less intelligent, less creative, or have less to contribute to our world because they don’t have a full-time job outside of the home.
  • Conversations with mothers in blended families, as they work to be peacemakers that are consistent, fair and explainable in all they do.
  • Conversations with mothers that are a guiding light when their families go through trememdous change.
  • Conversations with mothers that haverecently lost a child.
  • Conversations with mothers that are raising children with cognitive challenges, health issues, mental health challenges…

As I think about the mothers and grandmothers I admire, these traits float to the top:

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How to End the “Blame Game” ~ A Dream For Change

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This post was originally featured on SmartBlog for Leadership after 20 years of experiences and a very thought-provoking blog written by Jesse Lyn Stoner….

Have you ever been frustrated by name-calling, finger-pointing and the blame game? Or watched how harsh judgments can divide people, divide organizations and result in inefficiency and ineffectiveness?

For 20 years, I’ve observed the impact that judgment has on relationships, families, organizations, neighbors, communities and nations.

When I was a youth director, I noticed that when teens with a strong vision for their own lives said “no” to what was popular to stay focused on personal goals, their peers frequently perceived that they were being judged — even when they weren’t. They in turn judged the teens with vision.

That perception of judgment frequently caused the teens without vision to band together and alienate or bully the teen with clear vision, leaving scars and closing opportunities for both groups to learn from each other.

I watched this same behavior take place in neighborhoods, workplaces, politics, churches and different parts of the world. Sometimes those judgments were real and sometimes they were imagined. Sometimes individuals suffered alone. Often, however, those judgments affected the way people worked together, problems were solved, opportunities were maximized and organizations and economies grew or shrunk.

Collaboration means respecting the people who see things differently, rather than assuming a superior attitude and dismissing them as evil, crazy or out of touch with reality. — Jesse Lyn Stoner

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Engaged By A Stranger In The Midst Of Change

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Three months ago my husband boarded a flight that would take him across the world to a place he’d never seen, to start a new position, and to prepare for the rest or our little family to join him.

After that flight took off a little boy toddled down the isle of the plane, stopped at my husband’s seat and lifted both of his arms in a sweet gesture that communicated his desire to be held.