Centered Leaders Provide Roots and Wings

Centered leaders provide roots AND wings -- Patiently.

Your people need stability AND they need constant growth. Standing still is not an option. Everyone on your team needs to be able to feel "at home" on the team while also preparing to fly at the next opportunity. Developing your people through your conversations, your projects, and your coaching is what keeps them engaged. It boosts productivity, quality, and morale.

How you do it is up to you. Leaders who retain their best people create an environment where performance is rewarded and people are accepted as both team players and unique individuals. The fully rounded team has traditions AND processes for transformation. The happy team has healthy relationships AND ambitions for growth. People spending time with your team should feel that it has been the most rewarding yet challenging days of their life so far. Is that easy? Not usually, but it is always worth the effort.

Are you creating roots?

Are you helping your people to sprout wings?

How will your team grow if you don't?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Learn more in the workshop: Building Your Team

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A Promise or A Plan?

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How are you at keeping up? Change is so rapid that adjusting, and evolving, has become a full time job. We roll with the changes, we drive new changes, we let go of the old. It's not getting easier, and it's getting faster. I work at it. I keep learning. I keep adjusting, and still... By the time I have it figured out it's time to try something else. Instead of getting frustrated, here's how I like to look at it: change is growth. Faster change is faster growth. Getting better is growth, so the more change the better. Are you with me on that? Because the alternative is slow-motion decay, and we don't want that, do we? -- Douglas Brent Smith

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Is Micro-Management Ever The Answer?

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