I was stung this morning. I read a blog by Jorg Stegemann. He asked if there are parallels between your boss and a…

I admit it I have an addiction. Back in 2001 I was introduced to the writings of Kathleen O'Neal Gear and her husband W. Michael Gear who have written a series of 23 historical fiction books centered around the lives of the North American Native Americans(http://www.gear-gear.com)They are fast reads but full of twists and turns. Their latest one is called People of the Back Sun in which the Standing Stone village is manned by about 400 warriors and they…

A fun image/quote put together by our cartoonist in residence. I can provide a larger version if you'd like to print it out for your wall.…

Everything I know about leadership I learned in the Marines.

I enlisted in the Marine Corps on my 19th birthday after a half-hearted attempt at college. I spent the next twelve years  learning to lead using the 14 Leadership Traits and 11 Leadership Principles. Nearing the end of my third enlistment my wife and I discovered that she was pregnant with our first child. So, I decided to hang up my guns.

Since then, four children have come and a dozen years have passed. I've read…

Having spent a couple of days of my holidays reading the Steve Jobs biography I couldn't help but reflect on the remarkable accomplishments of the man and the lessons applicable for business owners everywhere, big or small.

This could have been a very long list, but here are the seven things that are most strongly front of mind for me (text is paraphrased and quoted from the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2011).

1)   …

Employee coaching is on the rise, according to a recent study by Bersin & Associates. Business results (defined as a combination of market share, costs and financial performance) were 21 percent higher for companies whose executive leadership embraced coaching and actively coached others. When businesses reported “excellent cultural support for coaching”, employee results (a combination of employee productivity, engagement and customer satisfaction) were 39 percent stronger.

The…

Several months ago, I decided to give my bathroom a facelift.  I don't know if you're like me, but once I get an idea like that in my head, it's on and there is no stopping me.  After choosing just the right paint color, accessories and all the amentites a bathroom needs, I was nearing the completion mark.  Save one item.  The mirror.

You see, my home came with those…

A great business adage is “Give all the credit; take all the blame.” Very few leaders really embody this principle, because too many people hold on to the credit, and never want to be “blamed”. However, business leaders can gain a great deal of respect by stepping up and owning a problem. Most bosses really appreciate someone who thinks creatively and will volunteer to solve a…

Lots of employers, listing the top traits that they want in an executive hire, will list both leadership and vision as very important. How often do both of these traits actually exist at a high level in the same individual?

A leader is someone that others follow, so the skill is managing and motivating others. This takes several key abilities:

• Ability to see a…

Sitting on my shelf collecting dust bunnies since last fall, I finally decided to pick up and open the book Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.

What suddenly…

Here is our weekly feature in which we share the top articles we enjoyed from the past week about recruitment marketing. This week we’ll be talking about being a rebel or a leader, how to handle rejection, creating your own social recruiting case study, beefing up your job interviews and LinkedIn going public.

Here are the articles our that interested us this week (in no particular order), enjoy!:

 …

Last week, I heralded the wisdom and brilliance of my father. While I still hold that my father eats lightning and discharges marble, he was never alone. Those who know me well, understand that there is absolutely no way that one person alone could have parented me. It took a village... and a…

This past weekend, my family and I celebrated my father's 70th birthday. For those of you who don't know me well, my parents are included in my Pantheon of heroes right next to the person who invented Twizzlers. So I thought that I would share some of the wisdom and gifts of my family over the next couple of blogs starting with my dad.…

The connection between golf and leadership

S.U.R.V.I.V.A.L. of the fittest.

Over the past decade we’ve seen boom and bust, feast and famine in the recruiting industry. The good news is that this cycle tends to cull the flock. The strong survive. The weak don’t.…