It was failing. There was no doubt that the huge risk taken by the CEO was not going to pay off. The lost resources financially, in personnel, and in production time, were large. With the project spiraling downward, all eyes were on this CEO. How he chose to handle this difficult situation would go a long way toward defining his legacy as a leader wi...

Let's be honest. It's a mess.

We are in a place in our country (I realize some of you are not in the U.S. but are aware of what is happening here.) that we have never been. At least not in our life time. It appears that there is more polarization and dissension in this election than we have seen in a long time.

While it is very important for all of us t...

The situation was difficult. The tension in the room was high; opinions and passions were being thrown around like a beach ball in a stadium of rowdy fans.

He couldn't stay quiet any longer. It was all he could take. With his boiling point reached, he began to spew an emotional outrage that left others in the meeting with one certain thought: Their...

A successful leader was talking with me recently. He told me that his leaders had called him in for a meeting. He was told that changes were coming on a corporate level, but not to worry. They said he could decide where he wanted to contribute in the new organizational structure.
 
His boss realized that he was respected and valued by his peers and team....

As I write this, we are hosting the 10th annual Eagle Executive Leadership Forum. This is a short time when a few executives whom we serve gather from across the country.

This year finds us at a beautiful beach house (2 actually) in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. The number of leaders is intentionally small, and the purpose is strategically simple: We are he...

We were visiting the Muir Woods close to San Francisco. The trip was for the purpose of celebrating my aging yet another year.

While there, I observed a young boy looking amazedly at the many age rings of a fallen great redwood tree. The sign beside the tree indicated that it was hundreds of years old. When the boy read that sign, he turned to his dad an...

I was talking with the CEO of an international corporation. She leads an organization that consists of a very large number of employees.
 
As I talked with her, I listened to her passion; I witnessed her intense desire to grow and her unyielding demand for excellence. While these are all admirable traits, they can be found in many successful executives. W...

You've heard it said, "The most effective leaders are those who are driven."
 
I have observed and walked with these driven leaders who have diverse personalities, backgrounds, and cultures. Some are incredibly wealthy while others are not. Some are CEOs of billion dollar enterprises, and others are entrepreneurs leading small start-up businesses.

Each o...

I was attending a college football game recently when I noticed that just before the game, the entire team was taking a knee. These young athletes were about to play a game in front of almost 90,000 people. They were going to perform on national TV, and the media was covering the game in droves. The players were on center stage and were being seen by mill...

The balance of being an assertive leader without being too aggressive or too passive is hard to ascertain…
 
A senior executive, whom I serve, was talking with me about how to communicate this principle to his leadership team. He said, "It is important to know how to be in the room and demonstrate value without dominating. You need to have a ‘subtle aware...