Lead From the Heart

Over a span of only a couple of decades, we’ve witnessed entire industries get wiped out by digital disruption – advances in technology that have decimated traditional business models while ushering in new & previously unimaginable ways of delivering the same service. Very often, the innovators had never been previously seen as being either a threat or a competitor – until it was far too late....

In their new best-selling book, “Nine Lies About Work,”   co-authors Marcus Buckingham ( “First Break All The Rules”)  & Cisco’s Director of Leadership, Ashley Goodall prove that many of the basic truths we’ve long believed about work are actually lies. As examples of our faulty assumptions, we believe the best people are well-rounded & that employees crave feedback. We think strategic pla...

Gallup research shows 75% of people quit their jobs in response to a bad manager. 65% of Americans say they’d rather change their boss than get a pay raise. Global surveys report a staggering 70% of employees aren’t engaged at work – and only 4% of these employees had anything nice to say about their bosses. The obvious conclusion from these facts is that most people across the world experie...

When we consider the future of our careers, most of us fully realize that the only way we can ensure our continued relevance & viability is by learning & growing. We know we have a need to get increasingly better at our existing jobs while, at the same time, preparing ourselves to do entirely new things.  And given the many challenges we already have on our plates, most of us feel oppresse...

Harvard Business School professor, Amy Edmondson, is one of the world’s top experts on building highly cohesive, cooperative and productive teams. And much of her expertise comes from her decades of research into  “Psychological Safety,”  recently confirmed by Google to be the single most important quality found in all super-achieving groups. Simply put, psychological safety means that people work...

We all know the primary reason companies go into business is to make money. But is it possible for organizations to thrive financially while also doing good in the world? USC Marshall School of Business Professor Emeritus, Jim O’Toole  spent ten years researching companies that were founded with the uncommon ambition of driving profits – while also caring about the well-being of employees, custome...

There’s a longstanding taboo against displaying emotions in the workplace – and it’s based on the idea that we make our best business decisions when we keep feelings and intuition out of the mix. But the time has come for us to directly question these longstanding beliefs about human effectiveness – and challenge the notion that any of us has ever really possessed the ability to shut down our emot...

If you’d invested $1,000 in Netflix stock just a dozen years ago, you’d have $90,000 today – quite an extraordinary return from a company that fearlessly took on the Goliath, Blockbuster Video, and won – and today has 137 million customers worldwide. It wasn’t all that long ago that Netflix was shipping out a million DVD envelopes per day to its customers. But in a deft display of risk-taking and...

With people living longer than ever – and therefore wanting to work longer – a big question many workplace leaders are asking themselves today is whether workers in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s can remain relevant in our rapidly changing digital world. If you have even a tinge of gray in your hair, you’ll be pleased to know that many companies are coming to realize that qualities that only come with...

Not since 1974 when Studs Terkel published his groundbreaking book, “Working,” has anyone performed a deep dive into the modern-day work experience. But with automation and digitalization poised to radically change our workplaces in the very near future – along with the jobs we all do – Boston University journalism professor, Ellen Rupell Shell spent the past eight years researching all the ways o...

HOW DOES A LEADER TAKE THEIR TEAM FROM GOOD TO GREAT? Georgetown University business school professor, Christine Porath says we won’t make that leap until we address the incivility that’s taken over our workplaces. In preparing for her recent TED Talk  that’s had nearly one million views  so far, Dr. Porath asked 20,000 employees around the world what they most wanted from their leaders today. The...

Is it possible that you have a pattern of behavior or a personality trait that greatly limits your effectiveness as a person and as a leader? Could you have an unconscious way of acting – particularly under stress – that unwittingly thwarts your dreams of moving up the ladder? If you consider yourself part of the human species, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re doing at least one thing that under...

More than anything else today, what people want from their employers & leaders is to be given a safe & respectful place in which to work. That’s the conclusion of new Pew research which shows 89% of American workers rank these needs highest. Yes, employees also expect their leaders to be honest, ethical – and to reward them fairly with pay & benefits. But their ultimate happiness, enga...

While we might consider the time in which we’re all living a more enlightened age, the word “heart” still carries a lot of negative associations when it comes to workplace leadership. Tied to traditional leadership wisdom, we cling to the belief that caring and supportive management is an inherently weak idea that cannot drive productivity – and so we go on leading in old & less effectiv...

Hear the word “rebel” & we immediately think of troublemakers & outcasts – people who end up with bad reputations for being non-conformists. But after a decade of studying rebels (especially rebel leaders), Harvard Business School Professor, Francesca Gino says we’ve got it all wrong. In her New York Times bestselling book, “Rebel Talent: Why It Pays To Break The Rules At Work & In Lif...

In 2012, Gallup made the startling announcement that employee engagement across the globe was in crisis.  We learned that only 30% of American workers were fully committed in their jobs – and the numbers were even worse in most other countries. So here we are six years later and we’re left to wonder: “Has engagement gotten any better?” “Did most organizations fully commit to creating more supporti...

If you have the chops to get accepted into an elite MBA Program at a school like Harvard, Wharton or Yale, you pretty much know that the next two years of your life will be devoted to mastering left-brain coursework – classes in analytics, statistics, accounting, economics, finance and the like. But a few years ago, top business schools like these started to reassess. Alarmed by rock-bottom employ...

Everyone has self-limiting behaviors, for the simple reason that we’re all human. But frequently, what holds women back from obtaining the next raise, promotion or job tends to be different from men. In their new bestseller, “ How Women Rise,”  legendary leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith , and Sally Helgesen – the person Forbes Magazine  named the world’s top women’s leadership expe...

We’ve all worked for managers who sapped our talent, energy and commitment while always needing to be the smartest person in the room. And if we’ve been lucky, we’ve also worked for leaders who brought out the better angels of our nature – people who used their own intelligence to amplify the talents and capabilities of every person around them. So what’s the mindset difference between leaders who...

Podcast 008: Kim Powell Many of us have it in our mind that very few people (including ourselves) have what it takes to become a CEO. We conjure up images of oversized personalities like Steve Jobs & Jack Welch and assume that’s what a successful CEO looks like. But in her new best-selling book (and a book Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink selected as one of their top n...

Podcast 007: Dr. James Doty Dr. James Doty: Stanford Medical School Professor Says The Heart Matters More Than The Brain In Leadership As a world-class brain surgeon and Stanford University Medical School professor, Dr. James Doty is nevertheless certain that “the best way of influencing human beings to excel in their jobs is to intentionally and positively affect their hearts .” These surprising...

Podcast 006: Geoff Colvin With technology poised to eliminate millions of jobs in every imaginable industry, we’re left to wonder what kind of work will remain and what skills will be most highly valued in the future workplace. To answer these serious questions, few people in the world today have a better grasp of what this future looks like than Fortune Magazine editor, Geoff Colvin. With uncommo...

Podcast 005: Daniel Coyle New York Times bestselling author, Daniel Coyle spent the past four years researching the cultures at eight of the world’s most successful organizations — including the U.S. Navy’s Seal Team Six, global design firm IDEO and the five-time NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.  And he came away with  the remarkable discovery that leaders of  all  these exceptional teams share th...

Podcast 004: Garry Ridge For the past 20 years, Garry Ridge has been CEO of the WD-40 Company, and he’s built one of the most inspiring workplace cultures on the planet. INC. Magazine named him one of the Top-10 CEOs across the globe (leadership legends Jim Kouzes and Ken Blanchard both say he’s #1 in the US), & it’s largely because his company consistently achieves its growth & prof...

Podcast 003: Tom Peters Legendary leadership author, Tom Peters could easily be reclining on a New England beach these days. But he’s by no means the retiring type. Instead, he just published his 17th book,  “The Excellence Dividend,”  and continues to challenge workplace leaders to reinvent how they lead and manage. Three decades ago, Peters wrote the classic book, “In Search Of Excellence,” whic...