Show, do not just tell what the organization stands for. Senior management must work as a team to lower the teamwork snicker factor when declaring teamwork to be a core value.  more  

A key test of whether core values are alive and real in an organization is to ask team members at random to recite those values. If they can't do it without referring to a piece of paper, there are either too many values or they aren't being used in daily operations.  more  

"We must be the change we wish to see in this world." — Mahatma Gandhi, Indian nationalist and spiritual leader who developed the practice of nonviolent disobedience that forced Great Britain to grant independence to India in 1947  more  

Vision is the critical focal point and beginning of high performance. Unless the hard work of striving, building, and improving follows, even the most vibrant vision will remain only a dream.  more  

The hub of leadership, Focus and Context, is where the contrast between management and leadership is possibly at its sharpest. It is the very beginning point of strong leadership.  more  

Honesty and integrity are key ingredients in developing trust. Trust is a key element in establishing credibility. Our credibility is at the center of our ability to influence others and provide strong leadership. Examples of characteristics that are the hallmark of strong leaders — sincere, truthful, trustworthy, reliable, principled, and genuine.  more  

Many successful companies are started by passionate zealots, full of energy and excitement. But once the Technomanagers take over, people are turned into their roles, systems, and processes — then their heart and soul are lost.  more  

Optimists excite and arouse others to action by helping them see, believe in, and reach for what could be. To become effective leaders — to see beyond what is to what could be — we need to become "learned optimists."  more  

Redefining a leader's role from operational manager to context leader, can be one of the key factors in the success of dealing with change in the organization. They spend less time managing the day-to-day business and more time caring for the organization's culture.  more  

Successful entrepreneurs are leaders with vision who predict the future by inventing it.  more  

Strong leaders connect and energize people. They work tirelessly to ensure that no ones loses sight of what it's all about.  more  

Pursuing profits without a higher purpose or pursuing a purpose without profit are equally fatal strategies. Profits follow from worthy and useful purposes. Fulfilling the purpose comes first, and then the profits follow.  more  

Now, more than ever, organizations need the bonding glue of a strong culture to hold everything and everyone together. At the core of that culture is a strong leader pulling the team together.  more  

Vision is the critical focal point and beginning to high performance. Discover the Organizational Visioning approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success.  more  

People rally around passionate leaders with a compelling vision and purpose. Effective leaders generate action that comes from creating energy and transforming jobs into crusades, exciting adventures, or deeper missions.  more  

Effectively using values to care for the context and provide focus to a team or organization can be very difficult leadership acts. Discover the Clarifying Organizational Values approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success.  more  

Core values are critical to effectively leading people. Discover the Living Organizational Values approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your pathway to success.  more  

The behavior we get, in those who look to us for leadership, is often shaped by the picture we have of them. They become what we expect.  more  

Add a richer sense of meaning to our lives by developing purpose aimed at serving others. Profits are a reward. The size of our reward depends on the value of the service we've given others.  more  

Communication is one of the key marks of a leader. Highly effective leaders transfer their energy and passion to the people they're trying to mobilize, with words that paint exciting pictures, ring true, fire the imagination, or touch the spirit. Like the leader, their words are charged with energy.  more  

Values provide a sense of common direction for all employees and guidelines for day-to-day behavior. Studies show the benefits of values-based leadership.  more  

Hope is one of the most powerful sources of energy ever known to humankind. Highly energized cultures are charged with hopefulness and optimism. It's the dynamic power that mobilizes individuals and teams to make the improbable possible. It's the mark of a leader.  more  

Many of the symptoms and root causes of motivation and morale can be clarified by understanding the doing versus being aspects of mobilizing and energizing. We need to get beyond "do to" programs and techniques.  more  

Leadership is emotional. Leadership deals with feelings. Leadership is made up of dreams, inspiration, excitement, desire, pride, care, passion, and love. The areas of our lives where we show the strongest leadership.  more  

The paradox to be managed is: Companies that exist only to produce a profit don't last long and companies that don't pay attention to profits can't exist to fulfill their long-term purpose.  more  

The 3 Ps — picture or preferred future, principles, and purpose — are critically important questions. Our answers to these three basic questions define the team and/or organizational culture we are trying to create.  more  

Designing statements, putting them into action and consistently showing what the organization stands for.  more  

Teams and organizations with well-grounded, shared values that are alive and thriving, have much higher than average performance. These leaders, teams and organizations identify and live their core values.  more  

A compelling vision of the team or organization's preferred future keeps people from obsessing over present-day obstacles or getting stuck in the past.  more  

Goals need to be energized and focused by the larger context of exciting visions. These paint us into the big picture and draw us forward to the future of our dreams.  more  

A few tips and traps on chosen pathways that help teams and people throughout the organization to clarify or clearly see pictures of their preferred future.  more  

We need to be less afraid of death and more frightened by an empty life. When we feel the most love, passion, or energy is when we are the most alive. That's when our soul sings.  more