What is the real value of those who work for your company? For that matter, what is your real value? As employers and/or potential employers, it is our responsibility to evaluate those who work for us. And it is not by chance that the term “evaluate” is used here because evaluate means to “form an...

Once upon a time in a place far away there was a man who made a journey to see his friend in a distant city. The sojourner walked into the pastor’s office and could not help but see the chair off to one side. Behold, it was an ugly chair. It appeared to have suffered...

This concept of leading from behind appears in the news fairly often. The term and the concept have found their most academic expression in an idea put forth by Linda Hill of the Harvard Business School. She claims it originated from reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography when he likened leaders who shepherd their flocks from behind....

When I was last in Africa, I found a book in the library of the home in which I resided about the early days of safari hunting. The industry is tightly regulated these days and was, to a certain degree, even in the early part of the twentieth century. The hunters and guides were a...

As the twentieth century began, navies in only a half-dozen countries were experimenting with a new type of watercraft – the submarine. Invented in its most recent and most useable form by Irish immigrant and schoolteacher John Philip Holland, most traditional navy officers didn’t like submarines, did not understand how submarines could be deployed or...

It is everyone’s dream – a corner office, a commensurate salary, respect and recognition from your peers. Leadership has its privileges, if not immediately at least eventually. From the first experiences of being a leader, which most people do not readily identify as such, until one’s name becomes synonymous with the term, persons in whom...

One thing you can do that will make your associates appreciate you even more. I spent 30 years as a trainer and consultant talking my way through life assisting other leaders do their jobs even more effectively. Then, wanting a career change, I took an avocation and made it a vocation. I opened and ran...

I was in my first year of junior high school. That means the ripe age of 12. I had enrolled in woodshop as one of my permitted elective courses and very excited about learning how to make things. I don’t really remember the first project we were given to work on. But I do remember...