My 11-year-old came home from school with his first assignment of the new year which was to "Create a few goals for the year." And his list was exactly what you’d expect:  Finish a LEGO set. Get better at Fortnite. And then one more: “I just want to keep going.” I smiled when I read it. It felt honest. It also very familiar in that I hear some version of that answer from many of the leaders I talk with.  At 11, “keep going” means school, friends, and routines that mostly work

“I play dumb really well.” It’s a line I’ve used for years. It is part humbling and part true. But mostly because it reminds me of a mistake I’ve made multiple times in my career when I've heard broad direction like “Let’s be more strategic.” or “We need to show more value.” And I nodded along, convinced I knew exactly what was meant. Only to realize later that I was solving the wrong problem. Often, I wasn’t alone. Other team members walked away with different interpretatio

Most leadership teams don’t struggle to make decisions. They struggle to make decisions that stick. In a past life, I worked on a leadership team that prided ourselves on how quickly we could move forward on something. We would hash out an issue, agree, and move on before lunch. It felt efficient. Until the same issues resurfaced a few weeks later. When we dug deeper, we saw a pattern. We were making decisions within our little bubble. We rarely gathered input from others in

I’ve heard leaders describe their calendars like a loop they can’t escape: “I don’t have time to plan.” “Because I don’t plan, I spend...

During an overseas trip, I pulled into a gas station convinced I knew how to handle the situation. I had rehearsed the phrase for “fill...

"We're doing good, but not great." This year, many companies are finding themselves in a curious state. Business feels stable, but just...

My daughter's high-school summer job as pool manager isn't as much sun and fun as I expected. She recently ran into a frustrating problem...

“How was your day?” It felt like a normal question to ask one of my teenagers. But what followed was also a very normal teenage...

“Why doesn’t my leadership team come up with bold ideas? I feel like I’m always the one driving the strategy.” It’s a fair question that...

Growing up, I was on a basketball team that had an amazing player. I would watch (from the bench) as he would dominate the first half of...

At home lately, it feels as if our family is constantly on the move. Between school, work, and extracurriculars, we often find ourselves...

A few months ago, I made a new dinner recipe I was excited to try. As we were eating, I could tell something was off. My spouse kept...

When we think about what makes a great leader, we often picture qualities like confidence, decisiveness, and that ever-elusive “executive...

"How difficult can this be?" When I decided to tackle a bathroom remodel by myself, I was optimistic. Armed with DIY videos and...

I recently had a coaching experience that reminded me how assumptions can limit us as leaders. A leader I was working with had been...

I recently had a moment many parents dread. My child, who is now a new driver, called me after their first fender bender. Thankfully, it...

I was facilitating a workshop on the topic of leadership with a group of young and emerging leaders recently. They all shared lovely...

Leaders may often feel the need to cater to their employees. And why not? In an effort to retain talent or maintain the team, a leader...

My high school band teacher once told me "Just because you've been given an instrument, doesn't mean that you're a musician." I think it...

I faced a major project failure early in my management career. Instead of focusing on what went wrong, I of course praised the team's...