Managing Up and Across Starts Before You Need Anything

Managing Up and Across Starts Before You Need Anything

The leaders who are consistently good at managing up and across understand something most people miss: influence gets built long before it’s needed. Not through charisma. Not through politics. Through small, deliberate actions repeated consistently over time. Investments. Relationships are like a bank account. You have to make deposits before you can make withdrawals. Most people get this backwards.

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The Goal Is to Not Be Needed

The Goal Is to Not Be Needed

Most founders built their business from nothing. They were the product, the salesperson, the decision-maker, the culture. The company exists because they willed it into being. Somewhere along the way, being needed became part of who they are. That's not ego in the pejorative sense. It's human. We find meaning in being useful, in being the person others turn to.

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You Don’t Have to Choose Between Team Players and Competitive Winners

You Don’t Have to Choose Between Team Players and Competitive Winners

Every high-performing team needs strengths from both sides of the spectrum. Long-term thinkers and short-term executors. Planners and improvisers. Structure followers and rule breakers. Without both, the team is weaker. Nowhere is that tension clearer than between team players and competitive players.

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How to Develop Your Core Values (And Implement Them) in Six Steps

How to Develop Your Core Values (And Implement Them) in Six Steps

Every organization has a culture, whether it was created intentionally or not. Developing and implementing your values puts you in control of that culture. Most importantly, it helps you identify who’s aligned with it and who’s not. Here’s how to create your core values — not just some words that you put on a wall or a website — but the actual tenets that underpin your organization’s culture.

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