Hiring, Development, & Leadership Blog
Original and professional content to help you hire the right people and lead them to success.
Three Ways Leaders Can Become Influencers
John Maxwell famously says, “Leadership is Influence.” Those who can effectively influence others are acting as leaders. But are all methods of influence appropriate for leaders? I may influence your decisions by giving you false or misleading information—is that kind...
read more
The Costly Gift of Employee Feedback
“I will not offer a gift that costs me nothing.” The biblical story of King David tells of a time when one of his subjects offered to freely give him the wood and oxen for a sacrificial offering to God (2 Samuel 24:24). David refused because a gift that did not cost...
read more
The Ideal Leadership Personality (Do you have it?)
Which personality is best suited to leadership? Would you say it’s the assertive, confident, won’t-back-down Driver (high D)? Or is it the charismatic, empowering, can-do Influencer (high I)? Or maybe you see long-term success for the steady, unflappable, persevering...
read more
Leveraging Your Strengths
Donald Clifton of the Gallup organization helped the world to realize that we get a greater return from developing our strengths than from trying to fix our weaknesses. That’s a powerful insight that shifts the focus for leadership development: emphasize your...
read more
Using DISC for Your Virtual Team
How do you build team spirit if you are not physically in the same space? According to a 2015 Gallup study, 37% of employees report having worked remotely. Technology allows us to do business from a home office, a hotel room, or anywhere there is cell service or...
read more
How to Identify the Right Candidate for the Job
“That’s part of our problem right there. We don’t have any Implementers.” I was sitting with the president reviewing graphs of his managers during the hiring process. Most of the sections around the group wheel had at least one employee in them: a couple of...
read more
Coaching Employees for Success
You’ve probably noticed the trend towards mentoring and coaching employees. In my work, I see more and more companies moving away from employee evaluations and towards a coaching/mentoring model. Instead of rating everyone on a 5-point scale, leaders are...
read more
How to Build Trust on Your Team
When we launched the Stress Quotient last year to identify and measure stress at work, we learned that many people wrestle with trust issues on their teams. Trust is like the oil that lubricates the moving parts of a machine. When trust is present on a team,...
read more
Why Your People Can’t Hear What You’re Saying
Two senior managers had just resolved their long-standing conflict, and the whole office was breathing a sigh of relief. The tension had backed the president of the company into a corner, and he feared that one or both would leave. “Why do you need that?”...
read more
3 Reasons Leadership Experts Recommend DISC
Top leadership experts like John Maxwell, Dave Ramsey, Patrick Lencioni, and Michael Hyatt regularly talk about the critical importance of building trust, creating clarity, building teams, and holding others accountable. They also recommend the DISC profile as...
read more
3 Ways Resilient Sales People are Different
Common sense and research agree that resilience correlates with sales success. But most of the professionals I coach believe that they are resilient (even when their assessment report says otherwise). Is everyone equally resilient? If not, then how can you tell...
read more
Where the Best Sales People Find their Energy
Einstein famously showed the world that Energy was equal to Mass times the Speed of Light squared (E = MC ² ). So if you took a unit of mass (say, a sales guy) and accelerated him to the square of light speed, would he become pure energy? We also know from physics...
read more
Quit Hiring People Who Can’t Sell
Sitting across the table, the CEO looked me in the eye and said, “My dad wasted a lot of money on assessments trying to find people who could sell. In our business, what I’ve learned is that about 2% of the people you hire can really sell. The rest can’t. The only way...
read more
Hiring Disasters #3: The Case of the Revolving Door
This month, we take a break from our regular hiring & leadership blog to bring you 6 short detective stories from the case files of Hyrum Maximillian, P.I. Check our blog each week for new episodes. Scroll down to comment and share the worst hiring disaster you’ve...
read more
Hiring Disasters #2: The Case of the Social Loafers
This month, we take a break from our regular hiring & leadership blog to bring you 6 serialized mystery episodes from the case files of Hyrum Maximillian, P.I. Check our blog each week for new stories. “Where’ve ya been, ya lazy bum!” The super was yelling...
read more
Hiring Disasters #1: The Case of the Sticky-Fingered Staff
This month, we take a break from our regular hiring & leadership blog to bring you 6 detective stories from the case files of Hyrum Maximillian, P.I. Check our blog each week for new episodes. I saw her silhouette through the frosted glass, so I jerked my feet off...
read more
How to Help your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout
Just recently I was talking to a team member who was really stressed out about part of her work. I remember thinking, “Why are you so uptight?! This is not a big deal. You should be able to handle this with no problem!” In the past, I probably would have spoken those...
read more