Mark Miller's Blog, page 13

Training vs Trying

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been reminded again about the value of training. My family and I just returned from trekking in Peru. For several reasons, I was unable to train like I have for previous trips. As the trip approached, I made a classic error that transcends the outdoor adventure world: In the absence of training, I assumed I would just try harder.

As we began to climb on our first day, I was quickly reminded that trying is no substitute for training. As a guy who’s been in th...

Today’s Challenge: Do I Know You?

Each week, I respond to a question submitted by a reader. Today, the question is from a leader who understands the power of community within a team. The issue is how to make the concept of community a reality on a large and diverse team. The challenge is real and formidable.

Because I’ve written about how to build community before, I don’t want to repeat myself. Here’s a link to my previous post. However, I do want to point out a couple of things based on the question.

First, congratulations if...

Why Some Leaders Struggle

One of the reasons I’m excited about my new book, The Heart of Leadership, is my belief it can help a lot of leaders whose careers are stalled. Granted, the reasons leaders struggle can be multi-faceted. In some cases, a leader’s challenges are out of his or her control – I get that. However, most often, I believe leaders make their own future.

Here’s the basic premise: as leaders, we control our readiness; others control our opportunities.

I know for some of you, this may be discouraging. It s...

The Ultimate Product Demonstration

My family just returned from a trekking adventure in Peru. The scenery was great, and the time together was amazing. One of the more memorable moments was our time with a lady named Santusa. She created a remarkable experience for all of us.

Our group was invited to visit Santusa’s home to learn more about her coffee business. When we arrived, we entered a small structure to find a wood-burning stove, a workbench and about a dozen guiena pigs scampering around the floor. If you didn’t know, th...

Today’s Challenge: Leading From the Middle

Today’s Challenge is a weekly post in which I respond to a question submitted by a leader somewhere in the world. Today’s question isHow do I lead if I’m not the senior leader?

Here’s the truth, very few of us are the senior leader. So the question is a good one! This is a daily challenge for 99.9% of leaders. In most organizations, there’s only one leader at the top and a very small percentage of “senior leaders.”

Over the last couple of years, I’ve written about several facets of this questio...

Help Your Kids Cultivate a Leader’s Heart

As we approach the launch of The Heart of Leadership, I’m reminded of how grateful I am that several of the leadership character traits I outline in the book were instilled in me early in life. I’ve not mastered all of them, but thanks to my parents, I wasn’t starting from scratch as an adult.

For years, when asked about helping someone develop leadership character traits, my response has most often been, “It’s called parenting.” I still stand by that sentiment. Thankfully, adults can still fo...

7 Ways to Build Trust

One of my favorite people on the planet is Jack Lannom. His organization helps companies put “People First.” Jack has had a tremendous impact on my life and my family.I first met Jack through an audio program entitled Memory Genius. If you get nothing else from this post, check out that program. It can change your life.

The reason I start this post with an introduction to Jack is he has a model for building trust I want to share with you. Please understand, this is a 50,000 foot view of a topi...

Today’s Challenge: Measuring Leadership

For almost a year, I’ve been devoting one post a week to answer a question from a reader. Today, the question is about a challenge virtually every organization faces – How do you measure leadership development?

This is a question I’ve been thinking about for many, many years. My conclusion is that a scorecard containing several key metrics makes the most sense.

Here are a few of the type of analytics you may want to consider as you create your leadership scorecard.

Training Activity – Although i...

Guard Your Heart!

My upcoming book, The Heart of Leadership is built upon a simple premise. Unless your heart is right, no one cares about your skills. This may sound harsh, but it’s true. If people don’t trust our heart, they don’t trust us. If they don’t trust us – they won’t follow our leadership.

That’s the idea the book is built upon and for the last several weeks, I’ve been doing a deep dive on the ways our leadership character shows up in our day-to-day lives. When we demonstrate leadership character, ot...

What Do You Do For Fun?

My passion and my calling is to encourage and equip leaders. So, why would I write a post built around the question, “What do you do for fun?”Well, my motive is multi-faceted. I have four reasons. The first is not strategic at all, hopefully, the other three are.

#1 I’m getting ready to go on a fun trip with my family, and I was wondering what you do for fun. I told you this wasn’t strategic. We’re going trekking. It’s a guided expedition for our family and eight strangers. We’ll be in the wes...