In the final lesson of our Emerging Leader Development course, Cindy opens by challenging participants to consider the real driver behind why they’ve accepted leadership responsibility. She goes on to compare things like power, position, money, and prestige with influence, growth, opportunities, and...

Setting high expectations for modeling our core company values is a must. That said, getting our teams to perform at that level on a routine basis will only happen if we’re willing to establish a culture of accountability. Make no mistake, I’m not suggesting this is based solely on enforcing discipl...

As I shared in the next to last chapter of Leading With A Clear Purpose, the compliance side of human resources absolutely drains the life out of me. And putting together an employee handbook, ones where values are often listed in the first few pages but have little relevance to anything else afterw...

To have a real shot of our core company values creating the legacy we hope for, the expectations we set must be sustainable. Realistically, though, we wouldn’t place unstainable expectations on anyone we truly care about - and that should cover everyone we’ve earned influence who’s following us, reg...

To build a reputation that drives results, one that each person who ever hears about us will connect with our core values, being intentional in our approach to providing world-class service and being sure to detail why we’re willing to do it is part of our responsibility as leaders. But doing any of...

Make no mistake, there’s a huge difference between touting how amazing we are and in explaining how or why our actions tie back to our values. We’ve all been around folks who have a title that carries some level of authority, and seen them pound their chest about how important they are or why everyo...

Even when we’ve done everything in our power to model the core values our business is built on, we can’t just assume that everyone who cares about those values will automatically connect our behaviors to the reputation we’re working to establish (or maintain). It’s up to us to explain why we’ve chos...

I’ll ask you once more: Who ultimately cares about your values? Our immediate team members most certainly do. And so do the clients we serve directly as well as the community we’re a part of. But everyone else who hears about us will too, and all of that will impact the results we achieve in one way...

I opened Leading With A Clear Purpose with a story detailing the conversation I had with a lifelong friend who shared how one of his businesses no longer provided him with fulfillment while his other, albeit much more physically demanding, kept his heart full all the time. The business that was fill...

As I mentioned before, a lot of people being familiar with your company’s name and building a great reach that makes a positive impact on everyone around you are two very different things. Whether you prefer God’s chicken sandwich or two all beef patties (although I’m not so sure about that part any...

While we may be able to throw enough marketing dollars around to ensure our brand has an extended reach, the consequences of not consistently modeling our core organizational values - for our team and everyone we hope to reach - won’t stop at dealing with broken milkshake machines. Leaders failing t...

While I was intentional about not mentioning either organization’s name before, I have no doubt that you had a very clear picture of the one with broken milkshake machines and the one serving God’s chicken sandwich. And you certainly weren’t alone! In cxtoday.com article called “McDonald’s Is Failin...