If you’ve ever struggled as a leader with how to meaningfully connect with your team members while staying focused on achieving your organization's goals, you’re not alone. The generative tension that exists between demonstrating care and concern for others and...
Let's Grow Together Blog
Blogs to help you grow with purpose.
Self-awareness Creates Conscious Choice for Leaders
Are leaders born or made? I believe we are all born with innate strengths and styles. I also believe that leaders are made when they consciously put those innate strengths and styles to good use and mitigate weakness by surrounding themselves with people that bring...
Leading with a Sense of Discovery and Purpose: A conversation with Ana E. Wood
My most recent leadership conversation was with Ana E. Wood, Waste & Recycling Director for Polk County Board of County Commissioners. Wood has responsibility for all field operations, including the environmental and social impact of waste management activities....
Leadership Starts With Relating Well
Often, I begin an executive coaching engagement or leadership development training with this series of questions: When you are operating at your highest and best as a leader, what are you doing? Who are you being? What is the impact? These questions are designed to...
Looking Back to Chart a Path Forward
The turn of the calendar is typically a time when my plans for the upcoming year take shape. The new year marks a time for me to reset, reimagine, refocus, reprioritize, and use that energy to regain my inspiration and motivation. The close of one year and the...
Local Leaders Optimistic About Lakeland’s Economy & Growth, But Worried Teams Are Unprepared to Achieve Results
Recently, I had the privilege to collaborate once again with the Lakeland Economic Development Council to survey Lakeland-based CEOs about their outlook on their businesses and the broader economy as we emerge from the pandemic. Three years ago, we conducted a similar...
Top Five Reasons Why You Need Coaching More Than Ever Right Now
As we wrap up International Coaching Week 2020, I’m proud to be part of a worldwide community of nearly 35,000 professional coaches. The ways in which we are serving our clients is more important than ever these days. Over the past week, I have shared the “Top Five...
5 Fundamentals for Keeping Your Team Engaged and Productive
Let's face it. The last few months have been anything but normal. Leaders have made a rushed conversion to remote working teams and managed the complexities of overseeing newly distanced employees. And just as the routines of remote work started to stabilize,...
Strategic Planning: Don’t Mistake Strategy for Planning
“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” ~Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor Strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources,...
How to Cultivate and Sustain a Healthy Organizational Culture
“Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game–—it is the game. In the end, an organization is no more than the collective capacity of its people to create value” ~ Lou Gerstner, former chairman of IBM Culture matters. Culture is recognized as such a significant factor in...
Top Blogs
How Designing Alliances Will Cultivate Cohesive Teams
Every leader has been involved in spearheading a strategic initiative that has gotten off track. When this has happened to you, were you able to identify the cause of the setback and quickly get your team back on track? Perhaps there was some misalignment about...
How To Create Meaningful Connection
If you’ve ever struggled as a leader with how to meaningfully connect with your team members while staying focused on achieving your organization's goals, you’re not alone. The generative tension that exists between demonstrating care and concern for others and...
Kim Long – Seeking First to Understand
Kim Long as the Executive Director for Polk Vision, leads a county-wide collective impact organization dedicated to aligning resources across Polk County. Prior to her current position, Kim’s varied career spans the corporate, non-profit, and private sectors and she...