Relevant Leadership Blog

How To Keep The Proper Perspective

Regardless of what you do, there are times we all lose sight of why we do it. In those moments – what gets you back on track and gives you perspective? I had a chance to sit down with my friend Sandra Joseph to talk about this dilemma and she has an interesting perspective as well as an incredible idea. Ty: Hi, I’m here with my good friend Sandra Joseph and Sandra has an amazing story.  Sandra was Christine in Phantom of the Opera for more than ten years, the longest running Christine in their history.  Obviously, Sandra has an

Read More »

The True Measure of Leadership

Who is the best football coach in the history of the National Football League? If you were to go by who has won the most Super Bowls then it is tie between Chuck Noll and Bill Belichick, who have both won four Super Bowls. If you were to judge by winning percentage then Vince Lombardi is the best coach with a winning percentage of .740. If we judge football coaches as leaders then is winning percentage or titles won the correct barometer? Is it fair to judge a leader simply by the number of followers they have – like a

Read More »

Be With Your People

Building genuine relationships with those you lead is key for being a successful leader – a partner leader. One of the best ways to do this is to be with those you lead. Spend time with the people you serve. Rub shoulders with them. Live where they live. Understand what their duties are, their responsibilities, their challenges. See things from their vantage point, at eye level. The Marine Corps calls this “eyeball” leadership, where officers take time to walk in lockstep with those they are training and experience exactly what they are experiencing. They get in the trenches with them,

Read More »

Our World Needs More Optimists

Those who believe in positive results think the world looks bright.  They see the good in things and not just the bad. They carry a smile on their face instead of a frown. Author John Maxwell said, “A pessimist is a person who regardless of the present is disappointed in the future.” An optimist then is a person who regardless of the present is excited about the future. The world is full of pessimists. We are conditioned to be negative and cynical. I find it interesting that very few people would admit to being negative. They use the excuse that

Read More »

Winners Focus on Winning, Losers Focus on Winners

I help to coach my daughter’s competitive soccer team. They are in fourth grade and are a really good team for their age group in the state. Last week, I set up a set up a scrimmage with a sixth grade team. These girls were older and bigger but they don’t play at the same level and don’t know the game as well as our girls. As we began the scrimmage, our girls were timid and very worried about how big they were. They weren’t playing their game because they were intimidated. After a couple of minutes, I finally got

Read More »

How To Give a Compliment

Have you ever received a hollow compliment from someone? “You are doing a great job” – “Keep up the great work” While they mean well with those words, the truth is the compliment doesn’t do much for you and it doesn’t engender much respect or connection to them. As leaders, we are told to praise our people. As parents, we want to raise with praise. But I fear that all too often what we do is give hollow, meaningless compliments and no one is that much better for them. Not the giver nor the receiver. As a family, we started

Read More »

How Leaders Should Handle Mistakes

As leaders we will have to deal with our people making mistakes along with the mistakes that we make as well.  There will be problems, failures, setbacks and stupid decisions. That is inevitable. So how do you deal with it? I would suggest that as we deal with mistakes, leaders should be more curious than critical. Curiosity causes you to ask questions. Criticism causes you to reprimand. Curiosity seeks understanding Criticism seeks blame Curiosity builds trust and rapport Criticism builds resentment and defensiveness Curiosity focuses on the person Criticism focuses on the problem Curiosity creates partnerships Criticism creates divisions Curiosity

Read More »

12 Ways To Get People To Want To Do Business With You

This was put together by Mark Ford and there are some great ideas here I wanted to share. I like to think of myself as an amiable guy, but I wouldn’t claim to be charismatic. Charismatic is an adjective I would apply to someone like Jay Leno or Tony Robbins. Bill Clinton is supposed to be very charismatic. I know die-hard conservatives who changed their views about him after speaking to him for just five minutes. Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of effect on people? Wouldn’t it feel good to know that you have the ability to

Read More »

Practice the Platinum Rule

If you have ever heard me speak you know that the underlying secret to growing your influence is to make it about others. One of the principles I teach is to Practice The Platinum Rule. Most people teach the Golden Rule which states: Treat Others The Way You Want To Be Treated. Tony Alessandra said, “If applied verbatim, it can backfire and actually cause personality conflicts. Why? Because following The Golden Rule literally – treating other people the way you’d like to be treated – means dealing with others from your own perspective. It implies that we’re all alike; that

Read More »

Be Present

How do you feel when you are talking to someone and they keep looking around or checking their phone? Now how many of us are guilty of doing the same thing to others? This weekend I had a chance to speak at the same conference as Nigel Risner. Nigel is an entertaining speaker who made a lot of great points but the one that stuck out to me was the importance of being present. In my book – The Power of Influence, I talk about focusing on being interested, not interesting. And being present in a conversation; when someone else

Read More »