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Being detail-oriented is often what gets you promoted. It’s how you earn trust, build credibility, and prove you can deliver. But once you step into a true leadership seat, especially at the executive level, those same instincts can become your biggest liability.
Most leaders hate meetings because they still think their real work is somewhere else. It’s not. The meeting is the work. It’s where coaching happens. Where friction gets surfaced and conflicts resolved. Where your values show up. If you’re phoning it in or constantly rescheduling, that’s the signal you’re sending to everyone else. You don’t have to love meetings. But you do have to learn how to lead inside them
You can’t fire Cal. He’s indispensable.” That’s what the Board told me on my first day as CEO. Cal was their lead engineer. He had decades of experience, deep technical knowledge, and a reputation for terrorizing anyone who dared disagree with him.
Here’s that world famous list that thousands have been awaiting. Some of our Trajectify coaches and clients put together recommendations for books that they've been reading. We encourage you to use some of your vacation time and your days away from the office to invest in growth through reading. Wherever your adventures take you, even if it's just in your backyard hammock), use this out-of-office time to learn, reflect, and challenge yourself.
Much of the tech talk recently is about AI, specifically ChatGPT (generating text) and Lensa AI (generating images). So, I gave ChatGPT a request to write an article on how a CEO's ethics impacts the culture of the organization. While it lacks my charm and occasional snark, nor does it include the storytelling I often do, can you tell that it was machine-generated?
How many times have you been in an interview process when someone asks the question: “Will they fit in here?” Is there an objective way to answer that? The question of fit is based on careful business choices. It’s based on emotion, and we all know hiring isn’t a decision we should make emotionally. And yet…so many business leaders do.
94% of senior executives think it’s important to focus on the growth and development of their HR executives so they’re ready to face the future. Of course, if you don’t have an HR executive on your team, you can’t focus on developing them. That’s the time to begin thinking about hiring a Chief People Officer.
For a while, businesses may be able to rely on word-of-mouth referrals and lots of networking. In the early days, it’s often necessary. The problem is that it doesn’t scale. What you’re missing when you don’t have a sales strategy…
An interim executive temporarily takes a management position in an organization to help the existing leadership solve problems and set the future, permanent leader up for success. Knowing whether an interim executive is right for your organization depends on your current needs and your assumptions about the future.

One-on-ones aren't optional. They're not nice-to-haves. They're the most important meetings on your calendar. The leaders who master one-on-ones don’t just have happier teams. They have better results.