Reflecting on Growth & Leadership

Reflection, including self-reflection, is perhaps the most valuable yet underrated tool in leadership.

Navigating Your Government Job Search: Strategies for Success

Searching for government jobs across different regions presents unique obstacles, including limited local opportunities.

How to Know Hybrid Employee Engagement Is an Urgent Problem—And How to Solve It

The stakes of ignoring hybrid employee disengagement are simply too high for mission-driven organizations to overlook.

How Holiday Initiatives Can Boost Public Sector Recruitment

Holiday initiatives are special events organizations host during festive seasons to attract new talent.

Accountability: A Proven Strategy to Improve Government Performance

Workers at all levels want to work for successful, highly regarded organizations. They want to feel valued and members of a ‘winning team.’

The Power of Servant Purpose: Why It Inspires Better Than a Vision Statement

In essence, a servant purpose goes beyond profit, serving as your company’s more compelling reason for existence in the present moment.

How to Wow a Prospective Employer with Your Potential

How to Wow a Prospective Employer with Your Potential

One of the frustrations job seekers identify is the limitations of the resume and job interview for putting across who they really are. They may lack experience and their qualifications are no longer enough to convince employers. Many employers are risk-averse, particularly in tough economic times, and go for the tried and tested candidate. How do you get across your potential and persuade an employer you are a better bet?

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Rejecting Complacency

Rejecting Complacency

A couple months back I listened to a TED Talk by Jon Bowers titled, “We should aim for perfection – and stop fearing failure”. I could not help but consider the relationship between ideas on perfection and failure to the recent trend of near daily stories of sexual harassment and impropriety of men in positions of power.

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Must-See Management Talks All Business Leaders Should Watch on YouTube

Must-See Management Talks All Business Leaders Should Watch on YouTube

Managers and leaders are knowledge-thirsty by nature, constantly looking for ways to improve upon their existing skill-set. On top of this, they are looking for techniques to motivate and inspire their workforce. Though most successful people tend to spend a lot of their time reading, we’re lucky enough to live in an environment where we can digest information in a variety of different ways.

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Why I Love to Write About My Teacher’s Experience

Why I Love to Write About My Teacher’s Experience

Teaching is an interesting art. There are so many things to learn from it. Students are a great source of inspiration for all educators. They bring in new information, new perspectives, and new points of view. If instructors think they know it all, teaching proves them wrong. You never know everything, and you can certainly absorb fresh knowledge daily.

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The Postage Stamp & the Law of Paying Attention

The Postage Stamp & the Law of Paying Attention

Consider the postage stamp. The postage stamp has sharp, laser focus. It does not get distracted. It has only one goal. It pays attention to what it must accomplish. At the end of its days, it will have engraved on its epitaph: “It secured its success through its ability to stick to one thing.”

When I interviewed author Darren Hardy, he said, that the greatest challenge today is controlling our attention. “We are living in an era of epic distraction,” he said. “There is so much that begs for our attention. We are forever in reaction mode, whether it be to our inbox or social media accounts. But we must learn to be insanely focused.

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Taking Our Generosity Beyond Ourselves

Taking Our Generosity Beyond Ourselves

Earlier this fall, my wife and I attended a wonderful evening dinner theater, in which the themed evening was “A Tribute to Frank Sinatra”. During the course of the show, we were entertained to no fewer than 50 of the great melodies made classics by Ol’ Blue Eyes. Prior to the show, we settled in for a magnificent dinner, and during that time, our host came out to greet the audience. After announcing some memorable anniversaries and special occasions among those in attendance, the host offered a wonderful short story about Sinatra.

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Is Your Workplace Too Bureaucratic?

Is Your Workplace Too Bureaucratic?

OK, we all know the ol’ stereotype of how bureaucratic government jobs can be. I’ll let you determine the extent to which that’s true in your own unique situation. Instead, I want to underscore just how damaging bureaucratic behavior can be and how to address its root cause—which we’ll get to momentarily.

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The Competitive Opportunities in Innovative High-Tech HR Trends

The Competitive Opportunities in Innovative High-Tech HR Trends

2018 is right around the corner and isn’t too early to begin considering the HR and hiring trends for the upcoming year. 2017 was mainly about culture and performance. Another vast internal shift is coming, however, and this one will focus on technology and how it can be utilized in the recruiting process as well finding, connecting, engaging, and hiring people. In the upcoming year, one of the shifts will focus on technology as a way of life in the workplace.

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The Postage Stamp & The Power of Habit to Get Everything You Want in Life

The Postage Stamp & The Power of Habit to Get Everything You Want in Life

Consider the postage stamp. It has one singular goal. It remains focused. This focus was a habit it developed in the face of fear. The fear of leaving its home and its other family of stamps, but it knows that in order to get what you want out of life, you must push through in order to create the life you want, and not just settle for the life that is given to you.

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5 Secrets to Getting a Great Performance Appraisal

5 Secrets to Getting a Great Performance Appraisal

There are a lot of reasons performance appraisals can get wonky. Managers who don’t take the time to get the input they need or are just not paying attention; Forced stack ranks that have glowing words, and a “meets requirements” rating because there were too many other “exceptional” exceptional players in the mix; Or a boss who says, “You write it, I’ll sign it.”

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Making Better Margins

Making Better Margins

Many years ago, I enjoyed an all-too-brief read of Max De Pree’s, Leadership is an Art. In that book, De Pree encourages readers to ‘make the book your own’ by interacting with it, including the active writing along the pages’ edge with responses to key and significant concepts an author proposes or illustrates.

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The Postage Stamp & How to Finally Overcome Fear

The Postage Stamp & How to Finally Overcome Fear

Consider the postage stamp. It travels to far and distant lands. It leaves its family (the rest of the book of stamps it was plucked from) and it never sees them again. I’m sure that is fearful for the stamp, but it knows that it has a job to do. It stares fear in the face and forges on. If the postage stamp can do it, you can too.

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The Boss Who Has Your Back

The Boss Who Has Your Back

She smiled for the first time that day. It was the start to a beautiful mentoring relationship. She
always had my back after that day. I learned a valuable lesson on leadership in that awful,
horrible day. The VP who initially had her back firmly against the wall in a defensive posture
took the time to think things through and took a risk on a naïve, but passionate kid. It made all
the difference for me.

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