To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.
Trust gives you the permission to give people direction, get everyone aligned, and give them the energy to go get the job done. Trust enables you to execute with excellence and produce extraordinary results. As you execute with excellence and deliver on your commitments, trust becomes easier to inspire, creating a flywheel of performance.
Leadership does take work. And it should. If you aspire to be a leader, you ought to treat leadership as a craft, you ought to become a student of it, and you ought to work at it. And if you're not willing to work at it, well, you get what you give.
Integrity means having the courage to do what is right, and what is aligned with your values, no matter the situation.
If you cultivate a relationship in a genuine, thoughtful way, people will be more inclined to want to help you even though they don't have to help you.
Courage means feeling all those hard human emotions - all that uncertainty and anxiety - and getting the job done anyway.
Even a brief interaction can change the way people think about themselves, their leaders, and the future. Each of those many connections you make has the potential to become a high point or a low point in someone's day.
You can't talk your way out of something you behaved your way into. You have to behave your way out of it.
The time to build a network is always before you need one.
Ultimately as a leader, you're evaluated on how you interact with people. If you do it well, you develop a reputation as effective leader. If you don't, you develop a reputation for being a highly ineffective leader.
The action is in the interaction.
The corporate world has the resources to improve the world. It's where people live and work.
Learning to celebrate success is a key component of learning how to win in the market.
Most people that derail as leaders in the corporate world, it's not because they couldn't do the math and calculate return on investment properly. The issues are communication and understanding. All of what typically would've been called the 'soft stuff.' You have to be authentic. You have to be dialed into the soft stuff.
If you have people who are high-performing working for you, it's so easy to do your job. Otherwise, you can't even agree on the time of the meeting or who will bring the coffee.
My most memorable meal is every Thanksgiving. I love the food: The turkey and stuffing; the sweet potatoes and rice, which come from my mother's Southern heritage; the mashed potatoes, which come from my wife's Midwestern roots; the Campbell's green bean casserole; and of course, pumpkin pie.
