If I were to ask 100 people their most important advice on Leadership, I’d get 100 different answers. Perhaps no topic in the world is more common and less understood than Leadership. All 100 answers may be excellent, but none are really ever complete. While we can’t solve that problem here, we can discuss one leadership trait that’s been on my mind: Talk. Words matter. Being aware of your words before you speak them is an...

I really don’t care much for Halloween. Ghosts and goblins and magic spells just aren’t my scene. October is my birth month, and here in South Louisiana the weather begins to cool down a bit, so I do love this time of year with football, the World Series, satsumas, and boiled peanuts. But you can have the hocus pocus. I started my own business in 1995, and I can assure you there’s nothing magic about success in business. It t...

People are starving for true leadership. In the absence of it, they tend to follow anyone with a microphone, and that can lead to some pretty screwed up situations. Just take a look around you. Where do you see true leadership? Where do you see the posers? The good news is that this void of quality leadership means that true leadership will stand out. True leaders are different. They have substance. They make things change, and they hav...

I remember standing next to US Army (ret) General “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf, the leader of the US invasion of Iraqi during Desert Shield, before his address to a crowd of McDonald’s agency people back in 1993. He was a big barrel-chested guy and he held command even in a suit and tie. He was jovial, full of life, and seemed approachable. I was 28, never served in the military, and on the rise in the McDonald’s ad...