People often have a negative reaction to “feedback” because, over the years, the message was sent but not received, let alone understood. For a variety of reasons, the feedback was often too vague, too direct, too punative, too one-sided, and the list goes on and on. The result? Good Feedback + Bad Delivery = Negative […]

Valentine’s Day is this week and it reminds me of the importance of expressing gratitude and appreciation within our teams, families, and communities. As a leader, these leadership skills address a very important question on the minds of your followers: Do you care about me? Do you care about my struggles? Do you care about […]

As we kick off this month’s featured topic, instead of always thinking of feedback as “GIVING FEEDBACK,” let’s flip the script! Instead of looking for opportunities to GIVE FEEDBACK this week … I think we should develop the discipline of ASKING for feedback! Whether you are a leader, team member, parent, or community volunteer, asking […]

Have you ever been going through your busy day when you looked down at your cell phone only to see that dreaded red bar that lets you know the battery in your phone is almost completely drained? This happened to me (again) yesterday. I only had 10% of my battery left and I still had […]

From my experience of working with leaders and teams, when I mention “emotional intelligence” you easily see the confused looks on their faces. Some people think it is similar to your IQ in that you are either born with emotional intelligence or you’re not, or it is a special gift or talent that only certain […]

Self-awareness is the first component of Emotional Intelligence and is truly the foundation to great leadership. The irony is, when asked, most leaders report they are “highly self-aware,” yet, are completely surprised by the constructive or even negative feedback from a 360 Report. Thus, the problem. As a leader, having a high degree of self-awareness […]

I went to the Cincinnati Zoo this week with my daughter and six grandkids. They decided they wanted to ride the Carousel (we always called it the Merry-Go-Round). So they all climbed up on their exotic animals and the small ones sat in their mystical chariot and around and around they go, and go, and […]

Recently, my marketing specialist challenged me to write a “Thanksgiving blog.” So rather than write about giving thanks, being grateful, or showing gratitude, I decided to do something different. In an effort to have fun and engage my readers I posed the question … “what do Thanksgiving turkeys and leaders have in common?” Here were […]

I am on the Board for the Greater Cincinnati Association of Talent Development and we recently had a Corporate Learning Event featuring a panel of CLOs (Chief Learning Officers) from organizations around the city. During the discussion they shared their thoughts on leadership in the conceptual age, as well as strategies they had implemented to […]

Did you know January is National “Thank You” Month? How can something so easy to say … be so hard to do? At our deepest level, every human being has a craving to be appreciated. We all want to know that what we do makes a difference. We want to know even our very existence […]