Good food is all about timing, intention, and a willingness to experiment. Leadership is no different. So, this holiday, let’s take a detour from boring leadership jargon and straight into the heart of the kitchen—a place where raw ingredients transform into something magic. Great leadership, like great food, can feed the soul. Here are the essential ingredients for the perfect leadership dish.
Remote and hybrid work models have reshaped the workplace, with high-performing leaders often excelling due to their autonomy, discipline, and results-oriented approach, while lower-performing employees may struggle without direct supervision. Research, such as the Stanford University study, highlights the benefits of hybrid work, particularly in enhancing productivity and retention, though challenges arise when remote work is poorly managed. The future of work requires organizations to balance flexibility and accountability, fostering environments that empower diverse employees and adapt to changing expectations.
This post explores the critical role of strategic planning and visioning in helping organizations navigate uncertainty and long-term challenges. It emphasizes the importance of staying at a strategic level, resisting the pull toward immediate tactical fixes, and focusing on the pillars that drive success: leadership, innovation, operations, and customer focus. With actionable steps and insights, it provides a framework for crafting meaningful, future-oriented plans that transform strategic dreams into achievable realities.
True innovation exists at the intersection of trust, vulnerability, and constructive conflict. As leaders, our role is to create the conditions for innovation to thrive. That means checking our egos, fostering trust, and modeling vulnerability. It means leaning into conflict, embracing discomfort, and having the courage to confront the most brutal facts of our current reality.
When teaching or coaching emerging leaders, one topic I push hard on is values. Values refer to the fundamental beliefs and guiding principles that define what an individual, organization, or community stands for. These principles act as a moral and operational compass, influencing behavior, decision-making, and culture. They are part of the magic three: mission, vision and values.
Belief-behavior conversations, as we discussed in our e-book: Revitalize and Retain Staff, aim to address the root causes behind actions, rather than merely correcting surface-level behavior. Pixar’s leadership used this approach to facilitate open, meaningful dialogues, helping the team uncover the underlying beliefs fueling their actions. Once these beliefs were identified, leaders guided team members toward reframing them, creating lasting behavioral change.
Culture and community are two intertwined concepts that shape the fabric of societies, defining the uniqueness of each group. While culture helps us differentiate societies, community goes beyond mere description, fostering a sense of fellowship among individuals who share common attitudes, interests, and goals within a specific area
Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) and the Bennington Opioid Response Team, with support from a state Community Action Grant and Catamount Access Television, present Promoting Change: Creating a New Landscape for Individuals with Substance Use Disorder. Author and Speaker Matt Harrington will moderate. Panelists include Pam Aulicino, MSN, RN; Julea Larson; and Benjamin Lerner.
The workplace is needing to reimagine their organizational culture as the Millennial generation come with different expectations, approaches and lifestyles then previous generations. Learn from generations specialist Matt Harrington about 3 areas to focus on when looking for the right cultural fit for your Millennial workers.
Are we suppose to change the retention-adverse Millennial worker and figure out ways to keep them in our organizations? Or, should we acknowledge this paradigm shift in the ways new workers move around from company to company and figure out new ways to equip our organizations to handle the swinging door?
The mix of internal branding with the increasing ease and availability of media platforms will be the next marketing and communications explosion. This is not just for the Zappos or the Targets of the world, but we will see this from small to mid-size companies as well who look to create a more engaging and dynamic workplace culture for Millennials.
