Posts Tagged ‘executive coaching’

Time For a Mental Toothbrushing

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

Annually, around this time of year, I have always taken time to “mentally” sort things out. Over time, I have affectionately referred to this exercise as a “mental” toothbrushing. I have found the exercise so helpful that in addition to this usual year-end “brushing” I try to also do several “brushings” throughout the year. Some of you may do something similar (at least I hope so). For those of you who don’t, well you’re cheating yourself, your business/career and most importantly your family of an excellent opportunity to make things better. Unless of course, your one of those rare folks who isn’t happy unless they are complaining about something. If you are, then stop reading now and go bash someone or something on your “facebook” account.

So with that as background, let me share with you three important things you need to be thinking about as you brush your “grey matter”. Now there are other important issues but for now, I just want you to think about these. Why? Well, because they go beyond what you do and focus on who you are and who you can be. (more…)

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Posted in Fearless Tips, Leadership | No Comments »

Leadership – Let Me Give It To You As Straight As I Can

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Becoming an effective leader demands hard work and commitment on your part

In two past blog posts on leadership, I shared with you a number of key traits that are common among effective leaders. In the first post entitled (“No trust = No Leader”, and “7 Steps to Make Leadership Simple”). When combined, these two posts covered a great deal of territory found on the leadership landscape.

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Posted in For CEOs & Board Members, Leadership | 1 Comment »

Holy _ _ _ _! Can This Economy Get Any Worse?

Monday, July 11th, 2011

This is a question that is being asked more and more frequently by business leaders and business owners. The answer is simple. Nobody really knows. For every down projection, there is always someone looking for any silver lining they can find. Let’s look at some of the recent business headlines that have led to the question being at the forefront of everyone’s mind: (1) A recent poll had 40% of all Americans starting to believe that we are in a permanent downward spiral; (2) Job creation is taking painfully too long. The jobs report on Friday, July 8th was a killer; (3) Unemployment just increased to 9.2% – the third increase in as many months; (4) Wall Street firms have begun to lay off employees and while layoffs have slowed in other industries, they are not hiring and (5) A number of economists believe that the debt/deficit crisis is actually worse than it appears for two reasons: First, we are in a historically low interest rate scenario. When rates do go up – and they will – the interest costs to service our nation’s debt will go up adding to the debt crisis. Secondly, there is a growing concern that the growth projections used by the Obama administration in their budgeting are unrealistically too high

Depressed yet? Feel like giving up? Better not. Now is not the time to be a quitter. Now is the time to be stepping it up (you know my battle cry – Be Fearless; Step and Play Big).

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Self Discipline or Confusion & Chaos – Your Choice

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

Self Discipline Is the Cornerstone of How You Manage Yourself

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Posted in Leadership, The Coach’s Rant | 1 Comment »

Perseverance – Your Key To Success

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Perseverance Means Never Giving Up

Perseverance means never quitting. As a leadership keynote speaker, I try to make this point as many times as I can to my audiences when I talk about these critical success principles. There are many true stories about people who have demonstrated this trait.  Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb, or Lance Armstrong fighting cancer and winning the “Tour de France” for the sixth consecutive time. The fact is, they would not allow themselves to give up. They, by their actions, demonstrated that they knew how to “Be Fearless, Step Up  and Play Big”.  And, the “act” of not giving up has to be practiced and developed into a habit.  In addition, the concept of perseverance and never giving up is often surfaced when working with my coaching clients, guiding them through the many challenges they face. 

We all have a dream or a goal that we would like to accomplish. Often times the difference between accomplishing the goal or not is how strong your belief is to overcome the  obstacles that you will face. Have you ever thought about why some people never reach their personal or business goals? Sometimes there are good reasons that are beyond their control. Often, howver,  it is because they lacked perseverance. The fact is, very few people get it right the first time, or the second or even the third time. The difference is that they learn from their past mistakes and adjust their approach going forward. In other, words, they don’t give up. They live with the belief that in life, there are no mistakes, just a variety of learning experiences.

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Posted in Fearless Tips, For CEOs & Board Members, Leadership, The Coach’s Rant | 2 Comments »

How Not To Hire Your Future Problems

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Hire The Best People You Can

As the economic recovery begins to gain traction, employers – both big and small – will be in the hunt for new talent at all of the management levels within their companies, up to and including the executive suite. The question is, will you hire the best person or a future problem?

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Posted in For CEOs & Board Members, Leadership | 1 Comment »

Do You Have What It Takes To Be “The Boss”?

Monday, September 27th, 2010

He was called “The Boss”. He was born to lead and achieve. He was driven to succeed. People only had two reactions to him – they either liked him or disliked him. There was no middle ground. Say what you want, even if you disliked him and disagreed with his approach, one thing was always perfectly clear – you always knew where he stood on an issue (by the way, in my mind this is key for any effective leader). He was George Steinbrenner.

To describe his management style as unique and colorful, would be an understatement. His style worked for him. It may not work for you. Regardless, every “Boss” has a unique style – some work and some don’t.  However, Steinbrenner did get results (and made many players very wealthy in the process) by winning 11 penants and 7 championships after he bought the team in 1973. At the end of the day, business results do matter.

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Posted in For CEOs & Board Members, Leadership, delegation | 3 Comments »

Lessons In Leadership – Never Chase a Skunk…

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

During my 30+ years in the corporate world, one of the most valuable lessons I learned was captured in the statement – “Never chase a skunk because the skunk has fun and you get smelly.”

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Posted in For CEOs & Board Members, Leadership, The Coach’s Rant | 5 Comments »

Lessons in Leadership – Another One Bites the Dust – Never Believe Your Press Release

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Over the last week we read how the CEO of HP, Mark Hurd, lost his job over expense report irregularities’. While I will not question, at this time, HP’s Boards decision to ask Mr. Hurd to resign, I do want to examine how Mr. Hurd put himself in this position in the first place.

When I was promoted to Senior Executive Vice President and a Member of the Office of the Chairman at USLIFE (NYSE), the ink was not yet dry on my press release when I got my first “in your face” lesson in leadership and good judgment from my best friend Tim Sullivan.Tim was our CFO and a big man in body (6’ 6″) and in his loyalty to me and USLIFE. Tim walked into my office, closed the door and proceeded to pick me up and pin me to the wall and said “Congratulations on your promotion but don’t ever believe your press release and do something stupid! You’re our leader and we are all depending on you.” 

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How to Cut The Tail Off of a Dog – Making Tough Decisions

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Now before you all get mad at me I am not a supporter of any form of animal cruelty. In fact, as I write this post “Riley Rose” our almost 8 month old golden retriever puppy is under my desk having a grand old time with a chewy toy – so use my title as a story to help get a very important point across.

Some often delay making tough and important/critical decisions on a timely basis because we fear the outcome. So, to avoid this “perceived” result, we either make a series of small and less effective decisions or, we take no action hoping the matter will take care of itself. When we do this we actually do more harm because we are prolonging a bad situation and in many cases making it worse. This approach can be a fatal error for a business leader or business owner where success sometimes hangs in the balance of making tough decisions based on not-so-perfect information.

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Posted in For CEOs & Board Members, Leadership, The Coach’s Rant | 3 Comments »