By leveraging the Leading Dimensions Profile, LeaderSurf participants become more self aware and boost their leadership capabilities.

If HR is responsible for managing under-performers in the organization, what happens when the head of HR is the under-performer?

Five Charlotte are team building activities that Groove Management can help you organize and facilitate.

Why hiring an executive coach is like hiring a personal trainer for your brain.

Assembling a personal board of directors (PBOD) is a great approach to gaining career insights and advice from a diverse group of trusted advisers.  Learn how to approach assembling your PBOD.

Having a development plan is an important step towards achieving career success, but too many people rely on their bosses and the company to develop the plan.  Take matters into your own hands and own your development plan.

We learn best when we step out of our comfort zone and into the learning zone.  Here are some tips on how to open yourself up to new learnings.

Unlike in sports where the competitions are scheduled, in business the competition never stops, unless your team calls a TIMEOUT.  When was the last time your team called a timeout.

Do you have a daily ritual?  Something you do every day just for you.  Forget servant leadership for a minute and understand that selfish leadership can be important at times too.

Companies and their needs evolve, they get acquired, they move their offices, they shift their business models and all too often their employees end up as casualties.  Career transition is nothing to be ashamed of.  It has become incredibly commonplace. 
 

Are you “always recruiting” for your company, and are you asking your team to do the same?  The best people can be found in the most unlikely places.

The decision to hire someone with a different work style and approach is the easy part. The harder part is flexing your style as a manager to allow someone with a different work style than yours to be themselves and excel. Too often we try to change people to fit in to an organizations culture. The best companies leverage diversity as a strength. They try to hire people with diverse work styles, and backgrounds and most importantly they create space within the organization for people to play to their personal strengths.
 

Three Leadership lessons from an art and innovation workshop at the McColl Center.  Originally published in the Charlotte Agenda.

When working with senior leaders one of the biggest hurdles is to get them to see constructive feedback in a positive light. Too often leaders think feedback is an attack on them.   Referring to feedback as a gift opens their eyes to the positives.

Why does the word conflict get a bad rap and how to turn conflict into a tool for better decision making.

One of the most difficult tasks of a leader is to maintain a team of A players.  Steve Jobs once famously said “A players hire A players and B players hire C players.”  Research has shown that A players outperform B players 2x on essential tasks and 10x on creative tasks.  So why do so many leaders live with mediocre talent on their teams?  

As leaders it is the small actions that can have large impacts. Think about the last time you greeted your employees or customers in the office lobby or at the front door to your retail outlet. If you have never tried it, go for it. That small gesture will have a lasting positive impact. Learn how the actions of one school leader model the behaviors of a great leader.

As a former leader that I worked with always said using the military term, you want “Fewer soldiers, better fed”.  A headcount freeze is an opportunity to increase hiring not freeze it.  The problem is that too many organizations mix up the intent versus the impact.  It is important to be very clear on the goal.  If the goal is to freeze employee expenses (salaries and benefits) at their current level, then a headcount freeze can achieve the same result as a hiring freeze, but in a much more effective manner. 

The key to being a great actor is to be yourself.  Acting is not about impersonation, it is about originality.  The same concept holds true in the business world.  As a leader, the most important attribute you can bring to your job is your authenticity.  There is no one else like you in the world and that is what makes each of us special and different.  Too many people spend their working lives trying to be like someone else or adjusting their personality and approach to “fit in”. 

Cost cutting has become a standard operating procedure for many organizations, but there are hidden costs in cutting costs.  Culture suffers the most and the cost to a culture might be ireparable.