High Impact Leaders

On today's episode, I'm going to explore the concept of experience being the best teacher. It is true that people learn by doing. We've actually built our coaching practice on that concept. When a good coach helps someone develop a new skill and the person has a success, his or her confidence will grow. But the concept of experience being the best teacher is also absolutely false. A...

Poor leadership skills can ruin team morale. As a manager, you hold more power than you might think. Obviously, you can hire and fire your subordinates. You can also promote them… or not promote them. You may also have the ability to approve a raise. If not, you at least have the ability to conduct the annual review. In essence, your leadership skills and moral compass have a direct impact on thei...

Today I'm covering part two of a two-part series on updating your resume and LinkedIn profile. Last week, I covered how you want to customize your resume for every company (and every interviewer) that you apply to. If you just send out a generic resume to hundreds of people, you'll likely just be disappointed with the results. This week, though, I'll cover how to do better research...

Government reports are saying that unemployment is still very low. However, I'm starting to see more and more layoffs from really big companies. In fact, Business News Daily reported that layoffs are continuing to pile up at a rate that is approaching the way they were in the early days of the pandemic. So, this week, I'm going to cover a few ideas on how to update your resume just in ca...

A couple of weeks ago, I covered a few ways to communicate more effectively to build more teamwork. This week, I'm going to go into more detail about a specific type of communication -- constructive criticism. Just last week, I had one of my team members ask me to give her specific feedback about how she could improve. The moment she asked for this, I had the quote from Somerset Maugham playi...

Make Yourself Indispensable as a Leader in a Crisis Knowledge is vital to getting ahead, but it’s just the ticket to get into the game.  What you DO WITH the knowledge is much more important to your success.  The most highly sought after skill in business is not accounting, or engineering, or computer skills – it’s public speaking.   Folks who reach the highest level of every institution typically...

“What is effective communication?” If you’ve ever worked on a team that had a crazy amount of chemistry, you already know the answer. Everything they touched was gold, they produced more than any other team combined, and they had fun doing it. Unfortunately, you know that that is not the norm. Most teams have people you don’t like, that one person that doesn’t do anything, one person who shows up...

My topic this week is Christmas Team Building Activities to Build Morale and Fun at Work... And I know what some of you are thinking... Doug, it's August. My kids just went back to school. Football season hasn't even started yet. Why on Earth are you covering Christmas stuff right now? I used to agree with you, by the way. I'm the guy walking around department stores in October sayi...

Last week, I covered a few meeting tips to help you run more efficient and effective meetings. So on this episode, I'm going cover a very cool group problem-solving technique that will help you and your team solve really challenging problems very quickly and with a consensus from the group. What we've found using this process over the years is that once the group comes up with a perfect...

For the next couple of weeks, I will cover a few meeting tips. This week, I'm going to start with a few tips that will make your meetings more interesting (basically less boring,) help you and your team be more productive in your team meetings, and how to make the whole process more efficient. Next week, I will give you a few tips on how to run problem-solving meetings. That specific type of...

If you are like most people, you probably believe you are a great listener. The problem is that everyone else that you have to deal with needs to improve their listening skills, right? The truth is that this often-used term has two parts — “Listening” and “Skills.” We often overlook the second part. Skills are those strengths that we develop through consistent focus over time. When I was a kid, ou...

In this week's episode, I'm going to re-cover a topic that has become the second most downloaded episode we've ever released. The topic was on impromptu speaking or speaking off the cuff. And this episode has two parts, although I think I'll be able to cover the entire content in one episode. So, for the first half, I'm going to give a few of my best tips on how to reduce...

In this week's episode, I interview Amy Maybury, who is a senior instructor for The Leaders Institute. She has been doing a lot of custom workshops about how to empower your team and keep from falling into the trap where we try to micromanage. So if you manage people or want to someday manage a team of people, she has four really simple steps that will help you help your team to grow. The ste...

Small business lead generation can be tough, time-consuming, and expensive. But it doesn’t have to be. Once you identify who your top target audience is and what problems they have, you can get potential clients to contact you when they need help. Every small business is the proverbial “ Needle in the Haystack, ” so small business lead generation is critical to an entrepreneur’s survival. And the...

On this week's episode, I interview Joe Rare, who is the CEO of Level 9 Virtual. Joe is a fascinating guy who created multiple multimillion-dollar companies during the pandemic. And the focus of the interview is on how business owners need to focus only on the parts of their companies that generate revenue. And they should outsource everything else. Joe tells about how he created his first co...

This week is part 2 of the two-part series on how to find new customers at business networking events. Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the best ways to build customers. And, if nothing else, it is, by far, the cheapest way to find new customers. Last week, I covered a few networking skills to show you how to increase your sphere of influence. We talked about how networking is NOT selling. Inst...

This week I start a new series on how to find new customers at business networking events. Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the best ways to build customers. And, if nothing else, it is, by far, the cheapest way to find new customers. So in this series, I start with how to network to increase your sphere of influence. I give you a very simple process that works every single time. Then in the ne...

Last week, I started a two-part series on Owning Your Job. And as I mentioned last week, the phrase, Own Your Job, describes making yourself more valuable to either your company or clients so that you improve job security. Last week I covered what Owning Your Job means and started the five things that you can do to advance your career, increase your income, and have more fun at work. The first two...

This week, I'm going to cover a topic in which I'm ashamed to say that I almost missed the boat. One of our clients asked us to create a breakout session about " Owning Your Job. " And I was a little taken aback because I wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for. After about 10 minutes of research, though, I realized that this term or phrase is an easy way to describe m...

This week, I interview Kelsey Greenwood who is an expert on teamwork and team building. She just published a paper on how to effectively deal with team conflict as a leader . So, I wanted to have her come in and let us know what she discovered. She basically outlines a very simple four-step process to help make team conflicts more beneficial to the team.  We often talk about wanting to avoid or re...

This week is part 3 of a three-part series on how to build wealth. For the last couple of weeks, I have mentioned in the intro that recessions make more millionaires than economic booms. If you play your cards right in the next year or so, you can build a tremendous amount of wealth. So, on this three-part series, I'm giving you a step-by-step approach to building wealth. In week one, I expla...

This week is part two of a three-part series on how to build wealth . Just look at the news, and you will hear over and over about the coming recession and the coming downturn in the economy. What most people don't know, though, is that recessions make more millionaires than economic booms. If you play your cards right in the next year or so, you can build a tremendous amount of wealth. So, o...

This week, I start a three-part series on how to build wealth. Just look at the news and you will hear over and over about the coming recession and the coming downturn in the economy. What most people don't know, though, is that recessions make more millionaires than economic booms. If you play your cards right in the next year or so, you can build a tremendous amount of wealth. So, in this t...

This week, I'm going to give an overview of the four generations in the workplace. We often hear terms like Millenials, Gen X (Generation X), Gen Z (Generation Z,) and Babyboomers. But what exactly do these terms mean? How do the different generations like to communicate? And how do we as leaders create more of a team culture when different generations like to communicate differently? In this...

This is part six of a six-part series on how to build highly effective teams. Last week, we covered step four which was seven ways to build synergy and cooperation from your team. And the week before last, I gave you seven ways to reduce conflict. And the week before that, we gave you seven ways to build trust. Each week, I've given you seven principles so that you focus on just a single one...