Not long ago, my son called me from Oregon.  He was driving some friends to the airport when his car suddenly quit and wouldn’t restart.  Beyond attempting to diagnose the problem over the phone, there was little I could do to help from where I was in Minnesota. The good news was that we were […]

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Could your efforts to lead actually lead to demotivation? A team’s spirit means everything when it comes to productivity, engagement, and satisfaction.  But sometimes, despite our best intentions, the way we lead can become a source of demotivation. Here are seven things you might be doing that deplete your team’s morale, and what you can […]

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What should a leader do when they make a mistake? Nobody likes to “step in it,” but leadership mistakes will happen.  What you do when they occur makes all the difference. Do these three things well, and you may end up with a stronger team than you started with. Stepping In It First, a word […]

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What does it take to be a great boss? Some bosses are more memorable than others, and some perhaps you’d like to forget.  But what does it take to be a great boss?  What distinguishes the one that people remember years later as the leader who made a difference? I was fortunate to work for […]

The post How to Be a Great Boss: 9 Ways to Get a 5-Star Rating From Your Team appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

Is it better to be feared or loved as a leader? It’s an age-old question that seems to keep cropping up.  Authoritative writers talk about how leaders need to be open, transparent, empathetic, and willing to listen.  Yet like the Humble Leader Paradox, if that’s the way you act, great, but what’s to keep people […]

The post The Role of Fear in Leadership: Is it Better to be Feared or Loved as a Leader? appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

How come 1+1+1 does not equal 3? You would think that the more people on a project, the greater the output.  Sadly, that’s not always the case.  A phenomenon called Social Loafing leads some team members to do the minimum possible.  They drag down group productivity like a boat anchor. Today we’ll look at why […]

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What happens when you set a goal and fail to achieve it? In January of this year I set a personal goal.  Made it public on this web site.  Tweeted about it almost daily.  Posted weekly updates on Facebook.  I worked at it just about every day – hours of exertion, sweat, even a little […]

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With the turn of the New Year come new resolutions.  But too often these goals fall by the wayside before the snow has had a chance to melt.  With all the writing I’ve been doing recently on goals, I thought it might be fun to put my money where my mouth is, set a New […]

The post Goal Setting: Crash Test Dummy Edition appeared first on RapidStart Leadership.

If you have big ideas, great.  If you have turned them into goals, super.  But if you want to make them become real, the question is:  What’s your accountability plan?  Today we’ll talk about accountability and how you can turn it into a powerful tool to help make that goal a reality. Setting the Conditions […]

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One of the things I like to do is get my day started on a positive note with a quick win first thing in the morning.  You can pick any activity you like, so long as it is something you can control and you have a reasonably good chance of succeeding at.  Getting in a […]

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