We traveled to Lake Tahoe this past week, and over the weekend, we attended an arts festival filled with musicians, artisans, and little kids dancing their butts off. Some people were wearing masks, but most were not (including us), and I could feel a collective sigh of relief from the crowd that we were getting our lives back. But as I watched people move among each other, I could discern a cautiousness about whether all this was for real. While...

A client, Susan, shared that a new employee, David, was openly critical of the organization’s decision-making process and his teammates. The team was souring on him, and Susan was concerned that she had made a bad hire. When I asked her if this fellow’s concerns were warranted, she shared there was some legitimacy, but how he shared them turned everyone off, including her. Rather than going in and hard balling it with him, I suggested that she might want to...

The Leadership Café is back! My colleague and co-author Mike Couch and I are now taping Season II of our quest to find great leaders and hear more about their leadership wisdom. In Season I, we asked our favorite pandemic question to our guests, “Hoping that nothing tragic happened to you or your family during the Pandemic, instead of discussing what the Pandemic did to you, can you share what the Pandemic has done for you?” Most of our guests...

It was 1977, and I was an intern at the National Institutes of Health in Washington DC. I finished work that Friday evening and headed over to the theater in Bethesda, where the line was already snaking down the street. Hundreds of us were waiting for the ticket office to open for the 7:30 showing of Star Wars. Once inside, I grabbed my popcorn, coke, and M&Ms (oh, for the days of that kind of eating) and found a seat...

Last week, I attended an event where the speaker discussed the trials and successes of his business over the past several years. He pointed out that the company focused on creating an aligned culture where leaders listened to their team members and shared openly about how they approached Pandemic related issues.  They held the belief that by engaging team members, avoiding uncertainty and listening to them, staff members would feel that their roles were respected and appreciated by the business...