Strategic Planning

Mountaineering teaches lessons that go far beyond the climb. As I ventured into the snowy wilderness with my friend and his brothers, each step brought challenges and fears, not unlike the ones we face in life and business. In those moments, when doubt and uncertainty crept in, I realized how crucial it is to have guidance and support—someone to remind us to focus on the next step and keep moving forward, no matter the obstacles ahead.

I recently observed something unexpected that got me thinking about the subtle yet powerful forces that shape our actions. What I saw made me realize just how deeply ingrained certain behaviors can be, especially when they’re tied to the culture we’re part of. This experience highlighted an important lesson for leaders: the environment you cultivate has a direct impact on your outcomes. Curious to learn more? Read to find out how this surprising observation connects to leadership and culture.

How many of our business practices resemble using a spoon for a smoothie when we could be using straws?

What practices do you need to question, update, and reintegrate?

What practices could you do away with all together?

After sitting down to slurp a smoothie and reflecting on these questions, I encourage you to open up to the insight passing beside you every day—your people—and simply ask, “What practices can we improve and how?”

Change is not just a possibility, it’s a certainty; and it’s happening everywhere I go. Old school leaders say, “We can’t find any help; people don’t want to work anymore” and “I’m constantly bending over backward to appease my staff”. Gone are the days when people needed your job. In today’s world, they can easily find another JOB or, better yet, make their own way. The bottom line is they don’t need you and your job anymore. You have to adapt or die or, at a minimum, become an irrelevant leader. The world has changed, and it will never return to how it was. And I think that is actually a good thing.

I’m going to venture to say in our businesses and organizations there would be a similar occurrence if we moved from one person operating as an island to singing with the crowd because there is beauty when we collaborate and sing together.

It’s time to rethink what truly makes a leader effective. Recent neuroscience discoveries, like mirror neurons, reveal the surprising ways our intentions and actions are subconsciously mirrored by others. This means every move you make as a leader is reflected back to you by your team. Curious about how this works and what it means for your leadership style? Dive deeper into this post to learn how to cultivate trust and build a more engaged, motivated team.

Written by Tyler Head Yvonne Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, once said, “I wanted to build a company where when I left, my people would know who to call when there was a fire: the fire department.” He spent three months away each year, confident in his team’s ability to handle things.  Culture is the pattern…

The brief summary of this concept is that transactional leaders focus on control and tasks while transformational leaders focus on building capable, competent, fully engaged team members who buy-in to the “why”.