This five part series addresses 5 Questions Every Successful Leader Asks and why these particular questions in order to grow, up-level, and move forward.

Q1 - What went right?

Q2 - What could have been better?

Q3 - What did you learn?

Q4 - How did you encourage or teach others?

Q5 - What key take-aways will you carry into the next planning cycle?

With each question, make some time today to grab a sheet of paper and a pen or open the notes app on your phone and voice all of your thoughts and responses to see what comes up.

When you use these five questions in your business reviews, they will help you to better understand where you’ve been, so you can move forward and achieve even more.

Pro tip: Schedule your business reviews into your planner or calendar and make this part of your leadership practice. The more frequently you answer these questions, the better results you will see.

This five part series addresses 5 Questions Every Successful Leader Asks and why these particular questions in order to grow, up-level, and move forward.

Q1 - What went right?

Q2 - What could have been better?

Q3 - What did you learn?

Q4 - How did you encourage or teach others?

Q5 - What key take-aways will you carry into the next planning cycle?

With each question, make some time today to grab a sheet of paper and a pen or open the notes app on your phone and voice all of your thoughts and responses to see what comes up.

When you use these five questions in your business reviews, they will help you to better understand where you’ve been, so you can move forward and achieve even more.

Pro tip: Schedule your business reviews into your planner or calendar and make this part of your leadership practice. The more frequently you answer these questions, the better results you will see.

This five part series addresses 5 Questions Every Successful Leader Asks and why these particular questions in order to grow, up-level, and move forward.

Q1 - What went right?

Q2 - What could have been better?

Q3 - What did you learn?

Q4 - How did you encourage or teach others?

Q5 - What key take-aways will you carry into the next planning cycle?

With each question, make some time today to grab a sheet of paper and a pen or open the notes app on your phone and voice all of your thoughts and responses to see what comes up.

When you use these five questions in your business reviews, they will help you to better understand where you’ve been, so you can move forward and achieve even more.

Pro tip: Schedule your business reviews into your planner or calendar and make this part of your leadership practice. The more frequently you answer these questions, the better results you will see.

You know I love quotes.

Sometimes they are little bursts of inspiration or motivation, and sometimes they are gentle reminders to take action to change.

When I first saw this quote by Therese Fowler: 

“Some rules are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change”

two different paths came to mind – one was external and the other was internal.

Let’s take the external one first.

For your business to grow, systems and guidelines are essential. They create the opportunity to streamline work, increase productivity, set clear expectations, and map processes so that everyone involved is on the same sheet of music. These can easily become habits for the business or organization. Habits because it’s what is known and expected, even if they don’t make sense anymore.

What was helpful at one time may be outdated now, but unless it’s revisited and reexamined, it will continue to do what it’s always done.

To make sure your business...

When you think of point of view or POV as it relates to a book, it’s the perspective of the character and how the story is told. Are you coming from the main character’s vantage point or more of an observer and not knowing what’s happening with their inner thoughts?

Same can be said for leadership and driving your overall vision forward.

Just take a moment and think about where you are in your organization or business….. are you in the weeds? Are you really heavily in the details? Or are you at the 10,000 or 100,000 foot view?

Changing your point of view can help you see progress from a different perspective.

It can help you determine what changes are needed.

Each vantage point gives you a different perspective, and each one helps you to change your point of view.

When you run into a challenge, do you typically view them as a problem or opportunities to do something different?

Sometimes shifting your point of view makes it easier or even quicker to find a...

Let me start by saying that I think it’s absolutely amazing how we are all uniquely and wonderfully made. That there's only one of you, one of me. Yet how many times have you felt unsure about yourself and letting yourself be seen for who you are?

Getting visible?

Putting yourself out there?

Let yourself be seen and heard?

As the incredibly talented leader you are, being yourself and daring to be different is exactly what’s needed to lead your best life and to lead in your organization or business.

When you are being true to yourself, leveraging your strengths, following your vision and speaking authentically – you are creating your brand and your tribe will resonate with that and want to be in your world. That’s how you differentiate yourself from another business.

And if you're in the corporate world, you are still creating your personal brand and that is what will enable you to be part of and lead high-visibility projects. And that will also extend to...

I’m a big fan of quotes and one from Fred Rogers, otherwise known as Mr. Rogers, comes to mind when I think of employee engagement:

“Whether we’re a preschooler or a young teen, a graduating college senior or a retired person, we human beings all want to know that we’re acceptable, that our being alive somehow makes a difference in the lives of others.”

Let’s take a few minutes and really let these words sink in.

It really doesn’t matter who we are, what we’ve accomplished, or what we have yet to do.

What matters is that we want to add value. And to take it a step further, we want to know that we have added value.

Now, adding value can look different for each one of us. It could be as simple as lending a helping hand or listening to a friend who needs a sounding board. It could be working with an important client and winning new business for your company or properly diagnosing an illness to enable someone to start feeling better.

So...

If your mindset is aligned with making your team a priority and taking care of your people, then your actions will follow suit.

Your team will feel the difference and start engaging in a more meaningful way with you, each other, and those outside of your organization.

This mindset shift will set a new level of excellence for you.

When your actions and language are congruent with this new mindset, your team will rise to the level you set and they will start doing more because they will feel appreciated.

What's one small change you can start today AND that you'd be willing to do everyday going forward to be more congruent with your actions and language that shows your peeps that you genuinely care about them? 

Your thoughts and language reflect how confident you feel and are perceived by others. The more your thoughts are of a “can do” attitude, the words you use for self-talk as well as shared with others will reflect this way of thinking. As the affirming thoughts and words keep playing on your mental loop, you will exude confidence.

To bring this full circle, let’s say you were asked to give a presentation to a large group. And let's say that it's either your first one for this magnitude or public speaking is something you've yet to become more confident in doing.

What would your first thought be? What would you initially feel? And what would you tell yourself?

So, let’s say that you felt unsure of yourself and really didn’t want to do it, how might you shift this feeling and thought so that you felt more confidence delivering the presentation? Instead of allowing the negative thoughts and feelings replay over and over in your mind, try telling...

Let’s approach this by continuing with the example about you being asked to give a presentation to a large group. It's a big speaking opportunity and your first one like this to do as a speaker.

What would you tell yourself?

Would you say words of encouragement or words of defeat?

What you tell yourself, about yourself, really matters. Your mind believes what you tell it, especially when you are speaking about yourself. You know that inner critic that sometimes creeps up? The critic started from a thought and the words that followed amplified that thought. On the other side, when you think you will do well at something, have you noticed that the words that follow are supportive and encouraging?

Once those words get started, they can also create their own replay, sometimes at a moment’s notice. They can raise your spirits, even if you are nervous, or they can perpetuate a frustrating situation to seem worse than it is. Then once this loop starts, it feeds your thoughts.