As the year comes to a close, it’s time to celebrate your business achievements, assess challenges, and plan for a successful 2025. Discover essential steps to reflect, refine, and set your goals for the future in this guide.
What is the BEST style of leadership? The one that delivers results, communicates well, and attracts the best talent? Spoilers: that’s actually a trick question. Read the blog to find out more!
How does self-awareness help you become a better leader? The following TED Talks dive into how to improve self awareness as a leader.
When I get to know a potential client, I want to hear their origin story. Not their childhood but the inspiration that led them to start a business. The product or service is rarely the innovative part of the story, so their fresh take on the proverbial mouse trap is...
Whether an entrepreneur, manager, or executive, there are several common leadership styles that people rely on according to the needs of the business, the economic cycle, and the goals they seek not to mention the needs of the people they are leading. There are five leadership styles that executive coaching services will use as a framework for assessing what an organization is currently using as well as what they seek to achieve through business leadership coaching.
For a business to be successful there needs to be both leadership and management. Neither competency is superior or inferior to the other; they are different but both are needed to organize, direct, and inspire a group of people. As a business owner trying to get organized, hire a leadership team including a manager, and figure out the structure of your business, you may find yourself asking: Leadership vs. Management – What’s the difference? Read on to learn specifics about each and the different roles they play within an organization like yours!
Discover essential tips for effective leadership and empowerment, including taking inventory of your team’s genius, communicating clearly, and investing in recurring assessments. Unlock your team’s talent potential with these strategies.
If you’ve read some of our other posts, we focus on six essential keys to building independent, accountable teams at Leader's Cut. They are the abilities to communicate, motivate, delegate, recruit, collaborate, and develop with the talent in your organization. The...
360 Reviews are a pivotal tool for assessing and enhancing the capabilities of individuals in key leadership roles. These comprehensive assessments provide a panoramic view of an individual's performance. Pros of 360 Reviews: They are effective because they solicit...
Whether you lead a small business or a large corporation, creating a soft skills development plan will differentiate you from the mediocre.
Seek to understand before seeking to be understood. We have all heard the trope that if we want to be heard, we must first listen. Or in Covey’s Seven Habits, he tells us to seek to understand before seeking to be understood. Without question, the ability to listen...
I’ve picked 6 of my favorite leadership TED Talks to help build your leadership skills and inspire your management team. Great leaders decry being labeled as such, often falling into an easy, self-deprecating rejection of compliments from their fans. They still blush...
It’s important to have a growth mindset. Here are books that will help you with self & business management, and operational excellence.
When it comes to conflict, the ability to successfully manage conflict within your team is a leadership skill based on effective communication. Managers should understand that a leader’s ability to communicate effectively is the first key to success and is worthy of...
To be successful, your team must be unified in purpose, committed to execution, and have a clear understanding of their role. In other words, you’re looking to earn their buy-in…
To be successful, your team must be unified in purpose, committed to execution, and have a clear understanding of their role. In other words, you’re looking to earn their buy-in…
How to Encourage the Attitude of Ownership With Your Team It’s no secret that I cut my teeth in the retail grocery industry business with what was, at the time, the world's most consistently profitable chain, with few equals before or since. I could write at least...
When working with leaders that have hired what they believe to be a phenomenal candidate only to find out that they hit peak performance in the interview process, we acknowledge that we…
It’s important to have a growth mindset. Here are books that will help you with self & business management, and operational excellence.
If you have seen Leader’s Cut Six Keys to building Independent Accountable Teams, then you’ll recall that the Fourth Key is Recruit (Communicate, Delegate, Motivate, Recruit, Collaborate, and Develop). Every one of the keys comes together for effective leadership,...
Workplace communication is a vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to running a successful business. Things like limited feedback, unclear expectations, and demoralized employees are all examples of poor workplace communication. If you are not aware of how you have been communicating at work, this blog is a resource for you to sharpen up on six professional communication skills that will help you with productive workplace communication.
We All Make Mistakes As leaders, the decisions we make shape and drive the entire organization. When it comes to leadership, it’s impossible to avoid making mistakes entirely. Everybody makes mistakes. That is a given, but a good leader learns from when they make...
An executive business coach offer products and services to help their clients improve their business goals and come up with solutions for issues their clients face. Executive business coaches offer support, guidance, advice, and their array of resources to help both...
Mountain Mojo Group is a full-service digital marketing agency located in Flagstaff, Arizona. After three years of rollercoaster revenue and team growth, Austin and Rand decided to see if a business coach could help take their business to the next level.
A business consultant, or a business coach, is a professional who offers objective support to help business owners take their company to the next level. A good business consultant is an individual with a wide array of skills, experiences, and knowledge who works...
It’s important to have a growth mindset. Here are books that will help you with self & business management, and operational excellence.
The right coach is the one you trust, believe in, click with, and have the skill set you need to achieve your goals. That sounds like a statement of the obvious, yet many may not pause, take a step back, and become intentional about what they would like to achieve. Ken shares 3 tips on how to find the right coach for you.
If you’re like most business owners, you wear a lot of hats. You’re the CEO, the marketing director, the salesperson, the bookkeeper, and more. But what happens when you hit a roadblock or need help growing your business beyond a plateau? That’s where a business coach comes in.
A key reason that nearly every one of us coaches uses a profiling tool, whether working with individuals or teams, is that we need to take inventory of different ways of thinking, perspective, and what we call, native genius. Why? If you live in the United States and have traveled to other english-speaking countries, then you’ve experienced speaking to an Australian, for example, knowing that you understand their words, yet cannot seem to understand what they mean.
Effective communication can be a challenge in any context which requires interaction between two or more people from different backgrounds. These challenges are compounded when you consider the global nature of LinkedIn that spans a wide variety of beliefs, languages, and behaviors. Today, we’ll dive into ten ways to communicate effectively on LinkedIn and discuss what effective communication is in practice — and what it’s not.
Whenever I’m contacted by a current or prospective client about “friction” they are confronting in their organization, or I’m feeling “tension” in some of my relationships, chances are we will be able to label it a lack of effective communication. On the surface, we probably have a sense of what is happening, yet upon further reflection, great communication skills have far less to do with speaking well and much more to do with several more important soft skills.
There are countless good reasons to pursue business growth. By expanding your company, you may hope to strengthen your position in the market, increase revenue, and boost brand awareness. When a new business or startup begins earning a profit from its initial products or services, focusing on expansion is the next logical step.
Similarly, if you own a small business and spot a potential opportunity to increase your share of the market, an expansion might seem the obvious solution.
Be forewarned: with growth comes complexity. Whether it’s legal challenges, hiring headaches, or production problems, complexity scales to the size of the business. Without strategic planning, growth can lead to revenue loss or even mark the end of a business.
For those in the professional HR world, they would be the first to say that there are ‘many factors’ weighed when making hiring decisions. The following are some thoughts, suggestions, and alternatives based on work with clients.
Nearly every entrepreneur, owner and executive leader that I work with is concerned about attracting, hiring, and retaining top talent. The fallacy many of us come face-to-face with is twofold: hiring is a continuous process rather than a one-time event when an opening occurs; and a resume that demonstrates a quantity of ‘experience’ will translate into both skill and fit.
You can create a predictable, repeatable process for hiring talent, integrating their genius into your existing team, and tapping into the very best of what they have to offer.
Talent Dynamics is a leading intrapersonal profiling tool used by more than 500,000 leaders and businesspeople around the world to build trust and flow. The Talent Dynamics test was created by Robert James Hamilton and is based on the Chinese I Ching philosophy. This ancient divination text also served as the inspiration for Carl Jung’s personality archetypes developed in the early 20th century.
According to Gallup, only 1 in 10 people possess the talents required to be a great manager. Even those with the natural talent to lead have to work to gain the knowledge and learn the skills that will help them excel in a leadership role. Great managers can help their team go beyond expectations and reach their full potential. Bad managers, on the other hand, hold their teams and employees back. Employee engagement can make or break a business, and research shows that managers account for as much as 70% of employee engagement variances. It’s said that when an employee leaves a company, they’re really leaving their manager. While every employee has their reason for leaving a job, one of the most common complaints among dissatisfied employees is micromanagement.
Nearly every business owner or executive leader that seeks a conversation about coaching with me likely presents a variation on the following theme: what used to deliver results has stopped working. Often they cannot be more specific; they’re troubled by the feeling that something is ‘off’, perhaps the team isn’t ‘jibing’, or they are questioning whether or not they have the right priorities.
It has always intrigued me that some people just seem to get more done, with high quality, a great attitude, and a focus that is second to none. In my pursuit of growth, books that help me be better: at work, at home, in my community, and in general, always catch my eye.
No. Ne. Nej. Nee. Non. Nein. Na. No matter what language you speak, it can be surprisingly difficult to say “no.” Whether a new entrepreneur, small business owner, or seasoned executive, learning to be more comfortable saying “no” is a crucial skill to practice and, eventually, master.
If you are anything like me, you have read your share of articles, studies, and analytics that quantifiably prove that repeatedly working long hours does not yield bigger, much less better results. Rather, working extended hours for about two weeks seems to be the limit before the detrimental effect of getting less sleep, especially in the context of higher stress, begins to backfire as this HBR article details. And while an important component of effective business coaching to combat burnout is an ongoing effort, the following are both mindset and behavior shifts anyone can adopt, adapt, and apply for immediate improvement.
As a leader, it’s your responsibility to protect the interests of your employees, customers, and shareholders and uncover and helm any opportunities hiding amid the maelstrom. While it may sound impossible, insightful leaders are often able to guide their businesses through a crisis, so they emerge stronger than before. As former CEO of Intel Andy Grove once observed, “Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.” So, how do you turn a crisis into an opportunity? Below are a few of the elements seasoned leaders wield to help them emerge from challenges more robust and more successful than before.
Any elite athlete in any sport, whether team or individual, that has achieved greatness defined as winning championships, competing at an elite level, including the Olympics, and has been rewarded with the accolades that prove their performance, understood the distinction between good and great. Many entrepreneur owners and entrepreneurial-minded corporate executives would like to capture this “lightning in a bottle” to achieve greatness. There are actions you can take to create the foundation for greatness. Keep in mind that inspiration precedes perspiration; to tap into the talent of your entire team, be intentional with the following methods.
In your development as a leader, you’ve learned how to get motivated to work. Unless you’re running a company of one, you’ll eventually need to learn the ins and outs of team motivation, as well.
While Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram provide opportunities to connect with friends and family, LinkedIn is the only social media platform solely focused on our professional lives. When used strategically and thoughtfully, a LinkedIn company page is a powerful tool to boost your business, expand your network, and gain the attention of new and existing customers.
The most frequently asked the first question I hear is, “so, how does business coaching work?” Embedded in that question are several layers, not the least of which is, what kind of impact will this have on me and my business – more succinctly referred to as ROI. On my website, we describe the variety of ways that we work with clients and the categories that we typically cover: organization – the processes used to deliver what you think of as your ‘secret sauce’, accountability – the structure used to empower and foster a sense of ownership in every team member, and communication – including the way you onboard employees, maintain the culture, and articulate core values to employees and customers.
Efficient business performance management systems are critical to business success. Still, businesses of all sizes struggle to implement them, leading to disjointed divisions and ineffective activities that don’t produce meaningful results. Some inexperienced managers will double-down on inefficient efforts and experience shock anew when they don’t yield improvements. Smart leaders, however, know when to hit pause, adjust, and put their over-extended organizations back on the track to success.
In our work as an Executive Coaching Firm, we describe our focus as organization, communication, and accountability. An integral part of any conversation assessing the current set of leadership skills nearly always turns to critical thinking. Entrepreneurs and executives nearly always point to that skill above others as a key indicator of a team member’s value and contribution.
In a world where a single tweet can become breaking news, social media influences us all. Whether you enthusiastically engage on every new platform or choose to eschew social media engagement, there’s no denying how much it has changed the ways we live and work. LinkedIn might seem like one more social network on its surface, on par with Facebook and Instagram, but with a professional tilt. While the map of LinkedIn might resemble other social media, the terrain couldn’t be more different. If you’re interested in how to improve your LinkedIn presence, the first step is to check if your methods fit the medium.
To intrinsically understand how the LinkedIn ecosystem is different, let’s call out what it is not. It is not Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, or any other social platform. It is business, plain and simple. And while it’s not the place to post a witty political meme or a photo of lunch, it is a platform to connect the business community in a genuine, transparent, engaging, and relevant way by being strategic, consistent, and intentional in how you use it with a non-automated, personal touch in all you do. There are several ways that we have been working to serve our clients in this purpose – read this blog to learn more.
“I don’t have time for this.” – nearly every leader, business owner, and executive at one time or another. Time is a fixed resource, therefore using it the most effective way possible benefits all involved. And methodically calling out the issues, courageously seeking the root, and making a decision to solve it will allow you to move on.
Only extroverts make good leaders – that is a falsehood. Many people think that in American business culture, leadership is synonymous with being an extrovert, that the top tiers of leadership are reserved for those who have no trouble addressing a large crowd, who live for schmoozing with other business owners and potential clients at networking events, and who immediately voice their loud opinions in meetings.
While there is much to be learned from a famous leader like Melinda Gates, there is inspiration in knowing about the leaders that walk among us. Acknowledging their impact is critical to anchoring the power of strong leaders who may never write a book, or testify to Congress, or be interviewed by Oprah. Nonetheless, these elite leaders make a tremendous contribution to their teams, their companies, their communities, and their families. Therefore, this is a tribute to five people that I have worked with, admire, and have learned from. They continue to lead, learn, guide, and inspire.
SMART goals – do you have them? The importance of goal setting cannot be overemphasized, but do you ever wonder how it is that you set goals and just cannot seem to achieve them? Do you find yourself constantly pushing your goals back or spinning your wheels feeling stuck like you cannot make progress towards your goals?
Take stock of your current goals and assess whether they are SMART goals
Every business would like to be successful by showing great financial results. They would also like their team members to deliver above and beyond their defined role, contributing to their ability rather than simply delivering the requirement. This is where we call out the difference between responsibility and accountability and more importantly, why business owners and leaders ought to care. One will deliver what’s required and defined, while the other has the potential to yield exponential results. Consider this: an elite athlete, whether in an individual or team sport, has a coach; there are zero examples of an athlete winning a championship without a coaching relationship. That said, there are many athletes that play in intermediate or amateur leagues that perform well, yet do not win. Elite businesses incorporate coaching to make the transition from responsibility alone to the mindset and execution of accountability.
Want results and retention? Stop micromanaging and start developing.
Business has always fascinated me; most notably, businesses that deliver a commodity, yet perform exceptionally well against their competitors. In nearly every case that I have directly experienced or closely analyzed there are some themes that emerge. In this article, the focus will be on how these highly successful businesses approach their human capital, most importantly the development of their talent.
Business owners often recognize they need to become more proactive but struggle with how to be proactive. The good news is that you can make a shift to become more proactive and here are my 3 quick tips on how to be proactive vs reactive.
Whether when mentoring, speaking about executive business coaching, or describing my personal philosophy behind Leader’s Cut, the question often arises, “what books do you recommend.” And while I always have a current favorite, there are four timeless classics that I tout as foundational for business success.
As a business coach, I have seen first hand the difference between positive and negative business owners. I have seen how their attitude towards the current economic climate impacts the performance of their business. If you are feeling negative, don’t worry as that attitude can be changed. It takes work, you can absolutely turn things around, but you must start immediately. Here is why attitude is everything – a successful business start to 2021 begins today!
We have 24 hours each day (168 hours per week), with an ideal work day of 8 hours per day for five days. How often do you wish you had more hours in a day?! Do you know how to get the most out of every minute of your work day? Effective planning and time management is the backbone of productivity for you and your business. Have you investigated where you are losing time? Do a time audit by tracking time to identify time thieves.
Every business owner and business leader hits a ceiling from time-to-time; in fact it often occurs and recurs over time, wondering how to get motivated. In pre-pandemic times we would normally be focused on finishing the year as we were reaching goals. That may or may not be true in 2020 as so many were forced to pause, change, or completely evolve from what it was in January. The great news is that the same techniques we use to get motivated to work in our current climate will also work in “normal” times when your effort doesn’t yield the results it used to, when you love your work and still seem frustrated, or when you feel like you need a vacation – sometimes on the day after returning home from a vacation.
As 2020 comes to a close and the uncertainty of this year spills over into 2021, it’s no wonder why businesses around the world are working with business coaches to prepare for whatever might happen next. Before you close your books for 2020, take a hard look at your business – where it is, where you want to go, and whether you have a clearly defined roadmap of how to achieve your goals. Working with a small business coach will help you create a plan for 2021 and help you adapt as things come up. With a year of uncertainty behind us and another ahead, having that support will be crucial for the short and long term future of your business. Here are the top 8 reasons to hire a small business coach for 2021.
Many companies are getting their team together and want to make sure that they are united in the effort to move forward in the next month, quarter, and year. Even a global pandemic does not change the forward-looking nature of setting an agenda, inspiring a team, and demonstrating appreciation for both past and future efforts. In fact, many are realizing that unifying in an effort by all rowing in the same direction, could mean the difference between success and failure.
Looking for a quick read on how to enhance the effectiveness of your leadership team? You have come to the right place! My name is Ken Kilday of Leader’s Cut, and I have been helping businesses incorporate leadership training to enhance their team effectiveness for years. Here are my 3 Quick Tips to enhance team effectiveness in your business.
One of the most frequent questions I field is a variation on one of the following themes: why did you get into executive coaching? When did you know it was time to leave corporate America? What is it about business coaching that draws you? How did you make the leap into entrepreneurship?
As I write this article, it has been four days since Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away. Irrespective of politics, she served as a role model for gender equality, speaking with a powerful, persuasive force, and being deeply admired by the Justices that served alongside her during her 27 years on the High Court.
We are all living through a global pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in 100 years – meaning few (if any) people living today have any memory of what the last pandemic was like. That said, our reactions to crises vary widely be they economic (recession, depression, etc.) or a health crisis like this one that has created severe economic pain.
The key reason CEOs, Business Owners, and Executive Leaders hire me, whether as their Executive Business Coach or as their EOS Implementer® is because they seek to change. They understand that what got them this far can only get them THIS FAR. A new outcome will require a new way. Yet, we all know how difficult change is: over 80% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned within a week. As the saying goes, if change were easy, we’d all be wealthy, fit, and happy. Why is it that we may know exactly what we want from ourselves or our business, but we cannot seem to get our new habits to take root and remain consistent? Even when we know this new behavior would benefit us greatly, why isn’t the change easy in that circumstance?
Business coaching appeals to the highly motivated. Just like high level athletes (and those aspiring to be high level athletes) hire accomplished coaches in their athletic disciplines, so do business owners who want their businesses to succeed and to get an edge over their competition. So what is business coaching? Business coaching offers personalized support, guidance, and mentorship for leaders in small business. Improving leadership skills and productivity of the entire leadership team creates benefits throughout the organization as those skills permeate throughout. Investing in your team members, and thus your business, through a business coaching program tailored to your needs yields tremendous return. Here are the 5 ways business coaching programs enhance productivity.
Strong and effective leaders within a company are what make or break the success of a business. Developing strong leadership skills within the workplace requires more than just an annual or quarterly performance review of employees, thus many businesses struggle to keep their best employees engaged or help them reach their full potential.
The global pandemic of SARS-CoV2, a novel Coronavirus causing the CoViD-19 disease, continues to storm the United States as various companies respond with innovation as well as rigid denial. Some CEOs like Waye Peacock at USAA, plan with the same philosophy of the United States Military: there are no Black Swans, only effective planning, enabling them to move 34,000 to a work-at-home status in 9 days. Others were forced to do the right thing after initially balking over their own failure to plan, being called out in the media, and then having to course correct. The difference? Wayne, and leaders like him, focus on mission as opposed to method.
::Executive business coaching has become highly popular for one reason – it works. CEOs, small business owners, managers, and other executive leaders within companies have seen the benefits of working with an executive business coach. Improved efficiency, effective communication, increased self-awareness, better leadership, and a significant return on investment is why the business coaching industry has skyrocketed over the past few years.
Coaches – we all need them in our lives. Small business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs, managers, and other high-ranking individuals in leadership positions within a business are no exception. You might be thinking, why do I need a coach? Look how far I have made it on my own! To be a business owner or high level executive you have to be a driven and self motivated person to begin with. You have had success in your career without a coach thus far and you might be thinking coaches are only for people with “problems” in their leadership or interpersonal skills. Maybe you think an executive business coach is expensive and worry about whether it is a worthwhile investment of your time and money.
The first time I shared the following, in its entirety, was from a stage at a leadership conference during my time as a corporate executive. Attendees included various levels of leadership: peers, two reporting-levels higher, and two reporting-levels below. Some close friends knew bits and pieces of this story, but not the details, context, and outcome. Here was how I told the most formative experience of my life.
In an ever increasing tight labor market resulting in a continual fight for talent, the cost of this “zombie” mentality could be significant if leaders are unwilling to end the dissemination of others thoughts and instead chew on solving three specific barriers to leadership success.
