There’s a quiet moment in meaningful work when your idea begins to live in someone else. You see it in the way they talk about it. You hear it in their enthusiasm. You notice how they add their experience and their language to it until the idea carries their imprint as much as yours.
It can feel strange the first time it happens. You know the origin, but they suddenly feel the spark of the idea for themselves. That’s the moment you know your idea has begun to grow.
Real success often arrives like this, but we don’t always notice it. People begin to adopt your idea, reshape it, and eventually believe in it with a conviction that can be surprising. They explain it to others in their own voice. They defend it. They improve it. If the idea spreads far enough, some will forget where it began. Your name may fade from the origin story. That loss of attribution can sting if you hold the idea too tightly. It should feel like success instead.
Leaders have a responsibility here. Ideas rarely spread through logic alone. They spread through emotional ownership that grows when people discover a piece of themselves in the idea. When that happens, they carry the idea farther than you ever could by insisting on authorship.
A leader’s task is to create the conditions for this transfer. You offer the early shape of the idea, then invite others to step inside and help build the next version. You ask for their insight, their experience, and their concerns. You let their fingerprints gather on the surface until the idea becomes a shared creation. People support what they help to shape.
As others begin to adopt your idea, they’ll need to feel safety in their new enthusiasm. They need to know they’re not the only ones who believe in this direction. A wise leader pays attention to this. They take the people who have embraced their idea and introduce them to others who have done the same. They form new connections, helping to create a small community where confidence strengthens and courage grows. When people see others adopting the same idea, they feel validated, understood, and ready to act.
This is how ideas gain momentum inside organizations. One person sees the promise. Another begins to shape it. A third begins to feel inspired. Before long, it becomes a shared narrative. It starts with your imagination, but it continues through their belief and conviction.
Once people begin to adopt your idea, you must release it. You may or may not receive credit for it. Either outcome is acceptable.
The goal was never to build a monument to your creativity. The goal was to move the organization forward. When others bring your idea into new conversations without you, your contribution has done its job.
Your attention can return to the horizon. There’s always another idea waiting for you, another possibility that needs your curiosity, another problem that needs new framing.
Good leaders plant seeds. Great leaders celebrate when those seeds take root across the organization.
Inspired by Dr. Michael Levin’s post, h/t – Tim Ferriss
Photo by Alex Beauchamp on Unsplash – a new idea taking root and growing beyond its beginning.
The difference between reacting to the moment and preparing for it.
Most leaders spend their days responding. A problem surfaces. They fix it. A crisis hits. They mobilize.
Urgency crowds out importance. By Friday they’re exhausted from fighting fires they never saw coming.
This is leadership without anticipation.
Every action sets something in motion.
-Launch a product without considering support capacity, and you’ll be drowning in angry customers in three months.
-Promote someone before they’re ready, and you’ll spend the next year managing the fallout.
-Ignore the quiet signals in your market, and you’ll wake up one day wondering how you got disrupted.
Some outcomes can be seen in advance. Leadership is the discipline of noticing what’s coming and readying your team to meet it.
Wayne Gretzky once said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”Most leaders skate to where the puck was. They optimize for yesterday’s problem. They staff for last quarter’s workload. They strategize for a market that no longer exists.
Leaders who matter skate differently. They think past the first step and see how decisions unfold across time. When they make a choice today, they’re already anticipating the second and third-order effects.
They connect short-term actions to long-term outcomes, asking not just “Will this work?” but “What happens after it works?”
When you cultivate this habit of anticipation, something shifts. You stop being surprised by the predictable. You create space before you need it. You move with a quiet confidence that comes from seeing the terrain before you cross it.
Your team feels it too. It’s the difference between reactive and ready, between scrambling and intentional.
We can’t eliminate uncertainty. The future will always bring surprises. But we can change how we manage it. We can choose to be the leader who sees what’s coming rather than the one who’s perpetually caught off guard.
Dwight Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Plans will change. They always do. But the act of planning, of thinking through trajectories, testing assumptions, and imagining scenarios, prepares you to lead when the moment arrives.
The leader who anticipates doesn’t wait for clarity. They sense it forming and courageously move toward it. They shape the path while others are still reacting to it.
Organizational culture, not technology, is the hardest part of innovation
How many of your projects are truly innovative? If you have any, what’s your success rate? Would you consider your success rate to be all-star caliber?
This baseball analogy is almost a cliché, but it holds up. A professional hitter with a .300 average is considered excellent (all-star?). That means they fail seven times out of ten.
Now imagine applying this to innovation. What if only 30% of your projects succeed? At first glance, that sounds like a losing record. But if the successful projects provide 10x productivity increases, transform your customer’s experience, or massively boost profitability…30% success would yield incredible results for your organization.
This is the kind of opportunity in front of us today with AI. Tools are maturing quickly. The potential is staggering. Every company, large or small, is beginning to experiment.
Some will tiptoe. Others will dive headfirst. All will face a mix of breakthroughs and busts.
There will be tools that don’t deliver on promises, pilots that fizzle, and teams that struggle with adoption. But there will also be amazing homeruns. Projects that reshape the business and redefine what’s possible.
Many leaders today are focusing on which AI tools to purchase and how to train their teams. That’s the easy part.
The harder part is creating space for both the hits and the strikeouts. If people feel they must succeed every time, they probably won’t swing at all. They’ll play it safe and stick with what they know.
Innovation will grind to a halt.
Providing room to fail doesn’t mean celebrating mistakes. It means making sure your team knows that experiments, even the ones that fall short, are part of making progress. Leaders who demand perfection get compliance. Leaders who make room for failure get innovation.
As you lead your organization into AI and beyond, remember that your job isn’t to guarantee every swing is a hit.
Your job is building a culture where people are willing to keep taking swings.
Ideas and wisdom often arrive with familiar roots.
My views on leadership come from my lived experiences and lessons I’ve learned from great builders and thinkers like Andrew Carnegie, Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Ken Blanchard, Marshall Goldsmith, Zig Ziglar, Stephen Covey, Jack Welch, Seth Godin, Jeff Bezos, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, Jocko Willink, James Clear, and countless others.
I’ve also worked with amazing managers and mentors over many decades, including a few who taught me what not to do.
Since I find myself often returning to these lessons, I thought it would be useful to write them down in a list for easier reference.
Leadership Foundations
1. Leadership begins in your mind long before it shows up in your actions.
2. Self-awareness is a leader’s first and most enduring responsibility. Know how your actions land, then lead on purpose.
3. Character outweighs credentials over the long haul.
4. Integrity compounds like interest. The longer you hold on to it, the more it grows.
5. Values are the compass that keep you on course when circumstances shift.
6. Humility is the strength to put others first.
7. Influence comes from trust, not job descriptions.
Vision and Direction
8. A leader’s vision must be big enough to inspire, but clear enough to act on today.
9. Clarity reduces fear. Ambiguity fuels it.
10. Momentum builds when people see the destination and believe they can reach it.
11. Vision is not just what you see. It’s what you help others see.
12. The clearer you are about the goal, the less room there is for fear to grow.
13. Purpose is the map. Storms are just temporary detours.
14. Belief in the destination turns small steps into powerful strides.
15. Every action should feel like part of the same bigger story.
16. Sometimes waiting is the boldest move you can make. Strategic patience is powerful (and extremely difficult).
People and Relationships
17. The right people in the right roles multiply results beyond what you can imagine.
18. A culture of respect will outlast a culture of urgency.
19. Listen like the person speaking might hand you the missing puzzle piece.
20. Pass the applause to others but keep the accountability close to your chest.
21. Trust is invisible, but when it’s gone, everything feels heavier.
22. Relationships need regular deposits of attention, not just withdrawals of effort.
23. Helping someone else win creates a tailwind for your own success.
Decision-Making
24. Good decisions blend facts, values, and the courage to act.
25. The first idea is often just the trailhead. Walk farther.
26. Energy without wisdom burns out. Wisdom without energy gathers dust.
27. Choose the option you can defend in the daylight and live with in the dark.
28. A quick, small decision can open doors a perfect plan never reaches.
29. It’s easier to fix a wrong turn early than to build a new road later.
30. Never cash in tomorrow’s credibility for today’s convenience.
Resilience and Adaptability
31. A setback is a classroom, not a graveyard.
32. Flexibility is a skill, not a personality trait. Practice it.
33. Change is the proving ground where talk becomes action. Priorities sharpen, assumptions get tested, and leadership shows up in decisions, owners, and dates. If nothing changes (no decision, no owner, no date) it was only talk.
34. Adapt your tactics, but never your core.
35. The best views are earned with effort you once thought impossible.
36. Challenges test your limits so you can discover you’re stronger than you ever imagined.
37. Sticking with it usually turns “almost” into “done.”
Growth and Learning
38. The best questions are the ones you don’t yet know how to answer.
39. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading. Sometimes before you notice.
40. Pride blocks the front door to growth. Curiosity leaves it wide open.
41. Ask for feedback before circumstances force it on you.
42. Teach your knowledge, always remembering that your actions teach your values.
43. Every conversation nudges someone closer to, or further from, their best self.
44. Failure carries lessons that success hides. Corollary: High water covers a lot of stumps.
Impact and Legacy
45. Success without significance is empty.
46. The influence you have on people’s lives will outlast your achievements.
47. Your legacy is written in the lives you touch, not in the titles you hold.
48. Leadership is something you borrow from the future. It must be returned in good condition.
49. The most meaningful titles are the ones people give you, not the ones on your nameplate.
50. Think in decades when deciding what to plant today.
51. Your success is multiplied when others stand taller because of you.
52. The best proof of leadership is when growth continues without your hand on the wheel.
53. Leave every place and every person better than they were when you arrived.
Communication & Culture
54. Say the quiet part kindly and clearly. Clarity without kindness bruises. Kindness without clarity confuses.
55. Stories travel farther (and faster) than memos. Stories move people. Memos inform them. Stories turn intention into action.
56. Consistency in small signals (tone, timing, follow-through) builds culture faster than slogans.
57. Meetings should create movement. Reserve live time for decisions and collaboration. End with owners and dates. If it’s just a podcast, send an email. If only two people need to talk, make it a call and give everyone else their time back.
58. Celebrate progress out loud so people know what “right” looks like.
59. Honesty scales when leaders go first. Name the hard thing and show how to address it.
60. Culture forms around what you tolerate as much as what you teach.
Execution & Accountability
61. Strategy stalls without a calendar. Put names and dates on intentions.
62. Start now. Ship one useful thing today. Ride the wave of momentum that follows.
63. Priorities aren’t what you say first. They’re what you do first.
64. When everything is urgent, nothing is important. Choose the one thing that unlocks the next three.
65. Inspect what you expect. Review, refine, and recommit in frequent loops.
66. Own the miss publicly and fix it quickly. Speed heals trust.
67. Scoreboards matter. People work smarter when progress (or lack thereof) is visible.
Faith, Purpose & Centering
68. Quiet time isn’t empty time. It’s where courage and wisdom refuel.
69. Purpose steadies the hands when the work gets heavy.
70. Gratitude turns pressure into perspective.
71. Servant leadership begins by asking, “Who needs strength from me today?”
72. Hope is a discipline. Practice it especially when results lag.
Leading Through Change & Uncertainty
73. Name the uncertainty. People handle the unknown better when it has boundaries.
74. Trade predictions for scenarios. Prepare for several futures, not just your favorite one.
75. Replan without blame. The map changes when the terrain does.
76. Communicate more than feels necessary. The vacuum of silence fills quickly with speculation.
77. Keep experiments small and reversible, so learning is fast and affordable.
78. Endurance is contagious. Your calm can be the team’s shelter in a hard storm.
Coaching & Talent Development
79. Grow people on purpose. Make development a standing agenda item.
80. Coach with questions that build judgment and ownership.
81. When you delegate the result, delegate the authority to achieve it. Authority and responsibility should be in balance.
82. Set intent and boundaries. Agree on check-ins. Then step back so the team can step up.
83. Size stretch work to the person’s readiness. Provide the right challenge, real help, and visible sponsorship. It’s okay if they reach the result by a different route than yours.
84. Build a bench before you need one. Succession begins on day one.
Supportive Organizational Behavior
85. Make it safe to disagree. Invite the view that challenges yours.
86. Credit ideas to their source. Recognition fuels contribution.
87. Write agendas as outcomes, not topics.
Systems Thinking & Process
88. Correct the mistake and improve the system that allowed it.
89. Turn recurring work into checklists and rhythms so excellence is repeatable. Then automate it.
90. Map the flow of work end to end. Prune any step that adds no value. Unblock the rest.
91. Measure what matters. Review it at a pace that improves the work.
Stakeholders & Customer Focus
92. Start with the customer and work back to today’s priorities.
93. Define success in customer outcomes, then align processes, metrics, and rewards.
94. Close the loop by telling people what changed and why.
Conflict & Courageous Conversations
95. Address tension early while the knot is small.
96. Separate the person from the problem. Aim at the issue, not the identity.
97. Put the real issue (the skunk) on the table. Agree on facts before you debate fixes.
Energy & Well-Being
98. Protect time for deep work and recovery so decisions are sharp.
99. Model healthy boundaries. Your example sets the team’s norms.
100. Choose a sustainable pace over heroic sprints. Consistency wins the long game.
Leadership is a skill to be learned and practiced over a lifetime. It grows through steady reflection, small improvements, course corrections, and new discoveries. These reminders pull us back to what matters when life and work get noisy.
Whether you lead a company, a classroom, a project, or a family, your influence reaches far beyond the moment.
The truest measure of leadership is the people we serve and the leaders they become.
Photo by Marcus Woodbridge on Unsplash – I love the idea of a lighthouse showing the way, standing firm and steady especially when the waves are their scariest.
For years, we’ve heard that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will revolutionize industries. The idea is so prevalent that it’s easy to stop actively thinking about it. We acknowledge AI in headlines, in passing business conversations, and in abstract discussions about the future. Yet, much like a fish is unaware of the water surrounding it, we’ve been immersed in AI without fully recognizing its impact.
That impact is now undeniable. The question is: will we embrace it—or ignore it at our peril?
AI as the Invisible Force
AI is no longer a futuristic concept, or a background presence. It’s embedded in the tools we use every day, from the smartphones in our pockets to the chatbots handling our customer inquiries. It powers business decisions, optimizes operations, and influences nearly every industry.
Yet, because AI is so familiar, we often overlook it. The term itself has become a cliché—almost old news. Something we assume we understand. But do we? How much do we really know about its capabilities, its limitations, or its potential disruptions?
Many still view AI as a distant idea, relevant only in the future or in industries far removed from their own. This perspective is outdated.
The Shift from “Known” to “Obvious”
AI is a driving force that can shape how we work, compete, and innovate. Organizations that continue treating AI as an abstract concept risk being blindsided by its rapid evolution.
This shift—from AI being “known” to becoming “obvious”—is critical. The moment we stop seeing AI as some far-off development and recognize it as an immediate force, we can take meaningful action.
Make no mistake: AI will transform your organization, whether you engage with it or not. The only choice is whether you’re leading that change or struggling to catch up.
The Cost of Waiting
A passive approach to AI is no longer viable. Waiting for the “right time” to adopt AI means falling behind competitors who are already leveraging its power. Yes, AI is complex, and yes, there are risks. But the greater risk lies in hesitation.
I’m old enough to remember the early days of the internet (I’m that old). Most businesses dismissed it as a fad. Others chased the new idea with reckless abandonment and wasted tons of time and money. But a relative few (at the time) experimented, learned, made incremental changes, and ultimately thrived in their use of the new “internet-powered” approach. Not to mention all the new multi-billion (trillion) dollar businesses that were made possible by the internet.
AI is following a similar trajectory. Many are ignoring, even shunning, AI as something other people will figure out. They don’t want to be the one pushing these new ideas within their organization. It’s easier to stay in the background and wait for someone else to take the leap.
But others are already leaning in (to coin a phrase), experimenting, and learning. They are incrementally (and sometimes dramatically) shaping a new future…and remaining relevant in the process.
Learn the Basics
AI adoption doesn’t require immediate mastery. It starts with small, intentional steps.
You don’t need to be an AI expert, but understanding its core functions and business applications is essential.
Start by exploring industry-specific AI tools already in use. How did I make this list? You guessed it, I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of industry-specific AI tools in use today. Will each one be a winner? Not sure, but it’s a great list to use as a starting point:
–Retailers use Amazon Personalize and Google Recommendations AI for AI-driven product suggestions, improving customer engagement and sales.
–Marketers leverage HubSpot AI for automated email campaigns, Persado for AI-powered ad copywriting, and Seventh Sense for optimizing email send times.
–Financial analysts turn to Bloomberg Terminal AI for market insights, Kavout for AI-driven stock analysis, and Zest AI for smarter credit risk assessments.
–Healthcare professionals rely on IBM Watson Health for AI-assisted diagnostics and Olive AI for automating administrative hospital tasks.
–Manufacturers use Siemens MindSphere for AI-powered predictive maintenance and Falkonry for real-time industrial data monitoring.
–Customer service teams integrate Forethought AI for automated ticket triaging and Zendesk AI for intelligent chatbot interactions.
–HR and recruitment teams utilize HireVue AI for AI-driven candidate screening and Pymetrics for bias-free talent assessment.
Experiment with Broad-based AI Tools
Don’t wait for the perfect strategy. Start small. Generalized AI tools can improve various aspects of your business (again, I asked ChatGPT for this list):
–Conversational AI & Research: Tools like ChatGPT, Claude.ai, or Anthropic’s AI help generate content, answer complex questions, summarize reports, and assist in brainstorming sessions.
–Automation: Platforms such as Zapier AI, UiPath, and Notion AI automate workflows, streamline repetitive tasks, and generate notes and summaries.
–Data Analysis: Solutions like Tableau AI, ChatGPT’s Code Interpreter (Advanced Data Analysis), and IBM Watson process and visualize data for better decision-making.
–Customer Engagement: AI-driven tools such as Drift AI, Intercom AI, and Crystal Knows enhance customer service, lead generation, and sales profiling.
These are just a few of the many AI-powered tools available today. The landscape is constantly evolving. Exploring AI solutions that fit your specific needs is the key to personal and professional growth.
Cultivate a Growth Mindset
Learning AI is a journey, not a destination. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s actually necessary. Feeling uncomfortable is a sign of growth. The more you experiment, fail, and adjust, the more effectively you’ll integrate AI into your work. AI isn’t about instant perfection. It’s about continuous learning.
Lead from the Front
If you’re in a leadership role, set the tone. Your team will look to you for guidance. Show them that AI adoption isn’t just an IT initiative. It’s a mindset shift.
Encourage experimentation, provide resources, and support a culture of AI-driven innovation. Companies that will thrive with AI aren’t the ones waiting for a complete plan. They’re the ones embracing AI through hands-on learning and iterative improvement while incorporating these new discoveries into their future plans.
The Future is Now
AI is not a distant disruptor—it’s an active force shaping today’s workplace. Organizations that recognize this and take action will thrive. Those that don’t will be left behind.
It’s time to stop treating AI as a theoretical innovation and start engaging with it as a business reality.
The future isn’t waiting, and neither should you.
Photo credit: The graphic was generated by DALL-E. I asked it to generate an image of an office on the ground floor that captures the essence of the blog post I had just written.
In its first few attempts, it tossed in robots sitting amongst the office workers. I like to think of myself as a forward thinker, but I’m not quite ready to accept that reality…even though I’m sure it’s rapidly approaching. I asked DALL-E to eliminate the robots (for now).
Thought leaders play a critical role in any organization. Sometimes, they have titles like CEO, COO, CIO, etc. Other times, the real thought leaders are deep within the organization—formally or informally influencing the speed and direction of progress. Often, it’s a mix of both (most ideal, in my opinion).
It doesn’t take long working with people (in business or everyday life) to recognize some common personality types. See if any of these sound familiar:
The Opportunist – “What’s in it for me?”
The Rule Follower – “What will our boss think?”
The Naysayer – “Let me tell you all the ways this won’t work.”
The Over-Analyzer – “Shouldn’t we think about this more?”
The Idea Generator – ”What about this new approach to the problem?”
The Go-Getter – “Why are we sitting here doing nothing… let’s move!”
The Rebel – “Who cares what the boss thinks?”
The Doer – “We’ve got all we need, so let’s start.”
The Supporter – “How can I help you with your goals?”
The Invisible Worker – “I don’t want to get noticed.”
The Minimalist – “How can I get by doing the least amount of work?”
The Escape Artist – “If this goes wrong, I wasn’t here.”
Which one is best?
That depends on the situation.
I tend to gravitate toward those who accept responsibility, take risks, and aggressively seek solutions. I like working with people who act first, ask for forgiveness later, and push organizations toward innovation and progress.
But even the most action-driven person benefits from a counterbalance. Someone who asks the tough questions, who sees the risks, who insists on analyzing every angle. Their input can temper an ambitious plan, provide a broader perspective, and uncover blind spots the team might otherwise miss.
Too many cautious over-analyzers, and an organization stalls. But completely ignoring their input? That’s a recipe for reckless decision making.
Look around your organization, your circle of friends, and the people you admire. How many of them fit into one or more of these categories? More importantly, which one(s) fits you?
And if you’re building a team for your next big project, who do you want on that team? Who will give your project the highest chance of success?
The key to a successful team isn’t about having just one type of person. It’s about striking the right balance. Recognizing that the strengths and weaknesses of each personality type will allow you to build a team that works effectively together, balancing momentum with careful consideration.
The best teams blend different perspectives and working styles to make smarter decisions and drive lasting progress.
Choose wisely, because the right mix can be the difference between failure and success.
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar
I remember a friend of mine who was promoted from being a very successful salesman to being the branch manager for a large insurance company. It is amazing to think this was almost 30 years ago.
He told me that he’d finally get to tell people what to do, and he looked forward to that. Plus, he’d get to take long lunches and charge the lunches to his expense account.
I knew that if that was his approach to his new manager role, he’d probably fail miserably…and quickly. I told him as much.
I suggested that he start by meeting with his new team members one-on-one. Just because he’d worked alongside many of them before didn’t mean he knew them well enough as their manager. I encouraged him to take the time to understand each of their roles, how they saw their future, and what they hoped to see change at the company.
I said it would help him get to know them and, even more importantly, show them he valued them and wanted them to succeed. And if he let them know that he needed their help, too, it would go a long way. This wasn’t just his chance to lead, it was a chance to connect directly with each team member.
He thought that was a waste of his time. He had been a very successful salesman, knew how the company operated, and already knew what made the branch tick. He told me that he knew what needed to be fixed and he’d hit the ground running to get those changes implemented.
I saw him again about three or four months later. When I asked him how his new job was going, he just shook his head. “Not good. Nobody is listening to me. I’ve had a couple of people quit already, and I think some others are out looking for new jobs. Our sales are way down. My boss is asking me what I’m going to do about it.”
I didn’t say, “I told you so,” but that’s what I was thinking. A few months later, he was demoted back to sales, but at the lower pay structure in place for new hires. Not long after that, he left the company.
I’ve been blessed with multiple opportunities to take over business operations in fields where I had little or no expertise or experience. Sometimes, from outside looking in, I had some ideas about how things should operate, but I always kept it to myself when I arrived.
Even in situations where I thought I knew all the answers, I purposely and methodically asked as many questions as possible. I took my own advice to meet with as many employees as possible, asking them about their job, how they do it, why they do it, where they hope to be in the future, the problems they are having, the things the company is doing wrong, the things the company is doing right. There are no wrong answers in these types of discussions.
It is truly amazing how much a new manager can learn from the people already in place, especially if that manager genuinely wants those people to be successful. It also helps to be extremely curious and thirsty to learn as many details about an operation as possible.
The most successful managers I’ve known have operated this way. They ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. They work as hard as they can to help each of their team members get what they want (as Zig so eloquently said).
If you’re stepping into a leadership role with the mindset of lording authority over others, expecting everyone to follow your lead just because you’re in charge, you might have short-term success, but it won’t last. Real leadership is about seeking ways to enrich others and the organization before yourself. And in doing so, you build an environment of trust where people thrive and truly enjoy their work.
Helping others succeed isn’t just a management tactic. It’s the only way to real success.
A professional manager understands that managing is an active role. It requires proactive effort, not just sitting back and overseeing tasks. A good manager knows how to delegate responsibility and authority. It’s a key skill that helps multiply their impact and develop the next generation of leaders.
There’s no shortage of books and articles that dive deeply into the art of delegation. Many are worth reading and putting into practice. But here’s the thing: no matter how much you delegate, you can’t delegate your influence. That personal touch—the way you listen, share your perspective, and guide the conversation—is something only you can bring to the table.
Managers have a unique viewpoint. They understand the critical questions facing the organization in a way others often don’t. Their value lies in their ability to communicate directly, to really hear what’s being said (and often what isn’t), and to guide the organization toward the right path. That’s what makes their influence so crucial.
Now, picture this: a manager sends one of their team members to a meeting with internal customers. The goal? For the subordinate to represent the manager’s ability to listen, understand, and guide the discussion. Sure, it can work if that person has full decision-making authority and can make agreements that hold the manager accountable. But that’s rarely the case.
So, we come back to the reality: a manager has to prioritize where they spend their time and energy, making sure they’re showing up where their influence is most needed. It’s not just about sitting in meetings or making decisions on the fly—it’s about really understanding the dynamics in play, both spoken and unspoken.
A manager’s influence over the direction of projects, processes, and people can’t be handed off. At best, subordinates can carry a “shadow” of that influence. It might get the job done, but it’s not likely to push the organization in the bold direction it needs to go.
In the end, while delegation is a powerful tool, influence is personal. And if you’re serious about leading, you need to make sure you’re showing up where it counts.
As a kid, September marked the end of summer’s glorious freedom and the start of another school year. Truth is, by mid-August, all the kids on my street were getting bored and restless, ready for something new.
My birthday is in September. But because it coincided with back-to-school season, my presents were school clothes. Useful, yes, but hardly the exciting stuff of childhood fantasies. My brother, whose birthday is also in September, was in the same boat—more school clothes. Still, it usually meant two cakes in one month, which always felt like a win.
Fast forward to adulthood. September takes on a new meaning, especially if you own or run a business. It’s the last month of the third quarter—the point where you should have a pretty good idea if your business is on track for the year. Strategic planning for next year is underway — the annual cycle never stops. Little time to pause and reflect. There’s always a new deadline, a new target. September is less about questions and more about answers and execution.
Then life throws in its own strange layers. In 2019, my father passed away on my birthday. A heavy twist of fate that turned my annual day of celebration into something far more complicated. In a strange twist of symmetry, last year, my mom died on my brother’s birthday.
Now, both of our birthdays are marked not just by the passage of time, but by the memories of losing our parents, their passing dates forever linked to our birth dates.
September marks the birth of my oldest son-in-law, my youngest daughter (32 years ago tomorrow), and one of our eight grandchildren (also tomorrow). Lots of celebrating and gift giving…and some ice cream, of course.
All of it adds up to a certain strangeness in September for me—a month of beginnings and of endings. A mix of personal milestones and bittersweet memories.
In the early 2000s, I attended one of our company’s national meetings. Our new CEO opened the meeting with a keynote address.
After thanking everyone for attending, he discussed the company’s three key strategic initiatives. He tied each of them back to the overall goals and mission of the company, underscoring how critical each manager attending the meeting (and our teams) would be to making these initiatives come to fruition.
His address lasted about fifteen minutes. He had a few slides to accompany his talk, but nothing flashy. In those fifteen minutes, we understood his vision, what we were supposed to do, and how we were empowered to make it happen. We were unified and energized.
Later that day, I thanked him for his talk. I mentioned how concise it was and appreciated that he didn’t spend an hour on CEO-speak and rah-rah platitudes. He smiled and explained that he was concise because he articulates versions of that talk multiple times each day.
He shared that wherever he traveled, whenever he visited one of our company’s offices or met with employees or customers, he made sure they understood what we were doing and how important each of them was to the company’s success. He knew that in a company with over 15,000 employees, it was impossible to speak to or know every one of them. But, whenever he encountered employees, he knew they’d remember what he said and appreciate knowing how they are connected to the company’s success.
He was so concise and effective because he lived and breathed the vision and its importance every day and shared it freely with everyone.
Applying This in Your Leadership
You don’t have to be a Fortune 100 CEO to communicate like this. As a servant leader, commit to using your finite time and energy to communicate openly and freely with your team members. Make sure they understand the plan and their part in it. Take time to understand the challenges they face, listen to their ideas, ask probing questions, and let them know how important they are to the success of the department, division, or company.
Your team can’t wait to accompany you on a vision quest. They just need to know what they’re doing, where they’re going, and that you value their contribution to the quest.
Effective communication from leadership is not about the quantity of words but the quality of the message. By being concise, clear, and consistent, you can inspire and motivate your team to achieve great things.
Start today by articulating your vision and showing your team how much you value their contributions.
Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership 
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