Blue Collar Leadership

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 17 of 30) Leaders always have followers. If others aren't following because they want to, there is no leadership. It's easy to tell whether you work for a boss or with a leader. You can tell because of how they make you feel. In this episode, I compare and contrast how bosses and leaders make their team feel. Bosses value position and powe...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 16 of 30) Character trumps competency. What you know matters. But, who you are matters most. Your character serves as a multiplier and leverages your competency. You have far more than you need to succeed on the outside because it's provided for you. The question is, "Do you have what you need to succeed on the inside?" Who you are and wha...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 15 of 30) Character counts, and it counts A LOT! Your character will either limit you like an anchor or launch you like a rocket. Henry Cloud said it best, "Character is the ability to meet the demands of reality." Character is about much more than being a good or bad person. Character does determine if you're a good or bad person. However...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 14 of 30) We attract who we are. Then, if we don't become intentional about growth and development, we get caught up in a vicious circle. Why? Because we become the average of the five people we voluntarily hang around the most. It's true! We start talking like they talk, acting like they act, dressing like they dress, eating what they eat...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 13 of 30) Courage is contagious. As Anais Nin stated, "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Often, what's holding us back is the courage to stand alone and do what's right based on who we are and where we want to go. In the blue-collar workforce, it's far too easy to be influenced by those around us who aren't intereste...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 12 of 30) The future is in you now. If you don't choose your future, someone else will. We create our future one choice at a time. For instance, something happens. Then, we respond. We could respond four different ways. Each way will create a different future. When we know the future we want to create, we can simply align our choices to cr...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 11 of 30) The power of the pause button. Between stimulus and response, we all have the freedom to choose our response. But, many times we don't pause and benefit from that freedom. When something happens do you respond based on feelings or values? Does it matter? Absolutely!

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 10 of 30) Focus on the mirror. The face you see least is your own. Earl Nightingale said it best, "A man's environment is a merciless mirror of him as a human being." Until we go within, we will go without. We all have a blind spot, and it's in the exact same place: between us and the mirror. We don't know about ourselves what we need to k...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 9 of 30) Your potential is unlimited. You should always be grateful but never satisfied. However, the opposite is often true. Too many people are ungrateful and may or not be satisfied. You may have heard, "If Bob has a problem everywhere Bob goes, then Bob is the problem." The key to unleashing your potential is to first realize it's your...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 8 of 30) The question isn't, "Are you a role model?" but rather, "What kind of role model do you want to be?" because somebody is always watching. When you touch a life, you don't always feel it. We're all touching lives everyday. Most often we don't even know it. And, we're touching the lives of others in positive and negative ways as we...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 7 of 30) Who do you work for? Notice, I didn't ask, "Where do you work?" or "Who pays you to work?" The secret to your success is understanding this: You get paid by others, but you're working for yourself. When you truly understand what I'll be sharing in this episode, you'll change what you do. When you change what you do, you'll change...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 6 of 30) Are you intentionally doing something everyday to get better? You should be. If you aren't, you're likely to be passed by someone who is. The only person you need to be better than tomorrow is the one you are today. There is no external competition preventing you from climbing to the next level and beyond. The battle you need to w...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 5 of 30) Every team is made up of "I"ndividuals. To grow and develop a high performance team, we must begin by growing and developing the individuals on the team. To develop the character of the team, we must develop the character of the individuals on the team.

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 4 of 30) Common sense is never enough. Often, you must also have uncommon sense to do what is commonly understood. As George Washington Carver stated so well, "When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 3 of 30) You're in the perfect place to begin climbing to the next level and beyond. However, too many people fail at getting started. Taking action is the key to getting from where you are to where you want to be. It's much easier to go from failure to success than it is to go from excuses to success. Why? Because those who are "failing"...

I started the Blue-Collar Leadership Podcast on July 19, 2018. 4 months later, thanks to you, the episodes have been played 5,299 times averaging nearly 80 plays per episode. If you find value in this podcast, please share a link on your social media pages and consider leaving a 5 Star review on your podcast app to help make the Blue-Collar Leadership podcast more visible to the world. Thank you f...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 2 of 30) Motivation comes from the outside, but inspiration comes from the inside. When we're able to motivate others from the outside by believing in them, they're positioned to become inspired from within and to begin believing in themselves. In this episode, I invite you to change the way you believe in others by redefining the way we s...

Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines (Part 1 of 30) I wish someone would had given me a copy of Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines, 30 years ago when I started my career on the front lines. However, it didn't exist then. It didn't exist until I wrote it in 2016. If it had been available in 1988, it would have changed my life and helped me accelerate my career. How...

In this episode, I take the "Golden Circle" principle I learned from Simon Sinek and wrap leadership around it. You'll learn "Why" leadership is important, "How" we develop our leadership, and "What" we do with our leadership ability.

"Special Offer" for blue-collar organizations. What I will do for you… If you or your leaders will invest in your team, I will too because I value growing and developing the great people in the blue-collar workforce regardless of their title or position. I’ll pay all of my expenses to travel anywhere in the 50 United States to conduct up to 4 hours of complimentary, on site leadership development...

Many make the mistake of believing the organizational chart reveals who the leaders in an organization are. The organizational chart reveals who the managers are. Those on the chart may or may not be high impact leaders of people. However, they are definitely managers of things and processes.

Managing People vs Leading People series Part 17 of 17. Managers of people go fast to go slow. Leaders of people go slow to go fast. Leaders of people take the time it takes, so it takes less time.

Managing People vs Leading People series Part 16 of 17. Managers of people transfer responsibility, blame others, and create distrust among their team. Leaders of people take responsibility, blame themselves, and build trust with their team.

Managing People vs Leading People series Part 15 of 17. All of our growth happens outside of our comfort zone. Managers of people seek to remain in their comfort zone while leaders of people seek to move beyond their comfort zone.

Managing People vs Leading People series Part 14 of 17. Managers of people want to travel existing roads where everything is familiar. Their goal is to maintain the status quo. Leaders of people want to explore and create new paths. They prefer and expect things to change and seek continuous improvement.