THE LEADERSHIP BLOG
Making Deep Connections, Restoring Trust, & Leading from the Bottom Up
Giftology: The Art and Science of Making Connections
https://youtu.be/Plhp28Fn6ms I love sitting around the fire pit and talking with you about leadership skills and leadership actions that I learned in the trust depleted places around the world, that work even better in your world. Sharing the skills of leadership,...
Hospitality: A Timeless Skill for Better Business Relationships
https://youtu.be/MMhIsWm0Gas Understanding the power of hospitality both as a giver and a receiver is a powerful skill. Hospitality has tremendous business impacts for you in the modern era, especially when you think about how trust depleted, how distracted, how...
The Hammer: The Wrong Tool for Today’s Business Leaders
https://youtu.be/WL_H7PHSA4k If the only tool in your kit bag is a hammer, then every problem you face in life is going to be a nail. We live in what I call the triple “P” environment. “Pissed off, Put upon, Pisces”. Two thirds of Americans don't trust their...
Soft Skills in Hard Places
https://youtu.be/maHkO6qrDJA Many leaders believe that "soft" skills, like active listening, narrative competence, interpersonal presence, they think that those skills, because they're called "soft skills", are secondary to the "hard skills", or that they convey a...
First Report is Always Wrong
https://youtu.be/lNz1XJp6pG4 It was a big lesson for me as a leader to see that in high stakes, no fail situations, the initial reports that often come in are wrong or at least inaccurate, or at least not fully baked. And that's just human nature. We all go...
Rooftop Rally Point: Don’t Quit
https://youtu.be/xHBGASZTrkk I made lots of mistakes as an army officer in Special Forces. Lots of things I could have done better, but one of the things I did learn was never to quit. Because of the training that you go through in Special Forces and all the...
Be Straight with People
https://youtu.be/FBXqD1hRyW4 As a rooftop leader, there's going to be times when you have to do things that are not pleasant. You're going to have to do things with your coworkers that involve you standing up for things. With your associates and your employees where...
Leadership is Forever
https://youtu.be/nchzlunUKsY As I look at my life, six years after retirement from the military, after 23 years, I am coming to see more and more that leadership is forever, that is, real leadership. Rooftop leadership is forever and that's why I chose this...
The Opposite of Fear
https://youtu.be/gUIUP5q992c The opposite of fear, is love. The greatest counter poised to fear the ancients believed is love, the love of the individual warrior for his brothers in arms. At Thermopylae, on the final morning when the last surviving Spartans knew...
Every Breath is Precious
https://youtu.be/SbrEcMqoOko The thing that I learned that I want to talk about today as we go into Memorial Day is that “Every Breath is Precious”. Every breath we take in, every breath we let out is precious because our time on this earth is limited and we don't...
Creating a Movement
https://youtu.be/g3BGumudkjo A movement is where people take action, in a collective way, that they otherwise wouldn't take in the face of high stakes, high risk, ambiguity and complexity. Yet they take a stand, shoulder to shoulder, and achieve a tipping point that...
MTWA: Meet Them Where They Are
https://youtu.be/261OuKq5Zpc Humans will not take action unless they feel psychologically safe, and unless they feel connected to the other humans around them. Humans will not take action of any kind, they won't buy from you, they won't invest in you, they won't...
Mission Decision Line: MDL
https://youtu.be/_KvZHCZelXM The “Mission Decision Line”, or the “MDL”, is the point of no return. It's a line on the ground, and on your map, it's like a valley, or a linear feature like a road, it's easily recognizable and it tells everybody from the...
