In the fifth lesson of our Emerging Leader Development course, Cindy and I share how important it is for anyone with leadership responsibility to build time into their routine to reflect on the progress they are making. All too often, those of us who take on the role of a leader get consumed with...

Between the time we returned from our honeymoon in late April of 2000 to when we were both working exclusively in Dove Development & Consulting, we had done a lot to hone our clear purpose - albeit still quite what we’re working to achieve today. But even the ever-evolving purpose we...

Getting a taste for what it was like to work toward a clear purpose offered a feeling I hadn’t really experienced elsewhere in my work life. Seeing the direct impact I could have on someone else’s career, and how that impacted their entire life, by sharing things I had learned that...

After nearly two decades with the same company, and most of that in one facility, I knew just about everyone I worked with daily on a first name basis. I also knew many of their family members and a fair amount about what the majority of them enjoyed doing during the little bit of time they had...

While accepting similar positions with different companies wasn’t necessarily moving me toward a fulfilling purpose, working just nine or ten hours daily in those companies provided something I hadn’t experienced in years: time to pursue the things we had gotten that glimpse of...

After more than a decade of leading the behavior-based safety process in my home facility, supporting other plants across North America with their processes, having a hand in other various Lean Manufacturing initiatives, and helping out with multiple human resource functions, I had the...

While doing all I could to fulfill my responsibility in the Lean Manufacturing process rollout, I stayed very involved in the behavior-based safety process I was a part of while I was still operating a press. In this role though, I was able to be more hands-on in supporting the new process...

Since we started this look at the importance of leading with a clear purpose, I’ve shared a few references to the definite purpose that drives me and Cindy today, and I promised to go into more detail on that before we wrap things up. Before I do that though, I'll emphasize once more that...

In a lesson I wrote several years ago, I referenced something I had first read in The Servant by James Hunter, suggesting that servant leadership requires the individual leading to determine what they’re team members truly need in order to best serve them. This falls right in line with what...

John sharing the perspective on work/life harmony - rather than work/life balance - opened up a whole new world to me. Working hard, and working a lot, wasn’t something I should be ashamed of. And I wasn’t putting myself at risk of burnout, like far too many people suggest as the...

In August 2015, I sat in a room with John Maxwell for what was the closest I had been to him in the decade and a half that I had been studying his work. If I’m being honest, I was completely overwhelmed. This session was just prior to the event where I would complete my initial...

Assuming we’ve fulfilled the part of our leadership responsibility that lies in tying our organization’s mission, vision, and values to a definite purpose and we’ve invested the effort to recognize what our team members have shown us to truly drive them, we have the key pieces...