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How to Embrace ‘Tabula Rasa’ and Prepare for a New Year

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How to Embrace ‘Tabula Rasa’ and Prepare for a New Year

Every New Year gives us a chance for a fresh start and to build on the momentum from the previous 12 months. It’s a chance for leaders at all levels to reflect, assess and set new goals for the coming year.

The calendar, after all, is an artifice. Like the clock, it is a device we use to…


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Managing Transitions; Private Sector Considerations from a Military Mindset

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Managing Transitions; Private Sector Considerations from a Military Mindset

Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. These words seem to define business and the non-profit operating environment. Changing politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, supply challenges, and changing labor attitudes represent only a few of the many topics that leaders must address. However…

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Empowerment; How to Focus on the Rising Tide and Stop Searching for Rogue Waves

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Empowerment; How to Focus on the Rising Tide and Stop Searching for Rogue Waves

After an event like the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a good time to check our sight picture. While my experience is as an aviator, I will use a nautical metaphor to explain the challenge in this moment in time. After being hit by a rogue wave, our tendency is to…

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PICKING YOUR TEAM: Building a high-performing culture

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PICKING YOUR TEAM: Building a high-performing culture

The sounds of simulated gunfire and explosions reverberated thru the compound. Instructors barked orders at our class thru megaphones, hosed us with water, made us crawl thru the mud. For one entire week my class went thru…

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Bad Leaders Part One – Serving & Learning

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Bad Leaders Part One – Serving & Learning

As a Fighter Wing Commander, one of my favorite recurring events was engaging with our Airmen who were about to graduate Airmen Leadership School (ALS) along with my Command Chief. ALS is the first tier of professional military education for our enlisted force. Airmen must attend this course before taking their first level supervisory position as a non-commissioned officer (NCO). Up until this point in their careers, they have

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The Art of Recognition

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The Art of Recognition

Remember the last time you received a real authentic compliment and how you felt? Hopefully it hasn’t been so long that you’ve forgotten! And by this, I mean receiving real praise – thoughtful and heartfelt, delivered in a…

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What lessons can we learn from the Super Bowl matchup between San Francisco and Kansas City?

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What lessons can we learn from the Super Bowl matchup between San Francisco and Kansas City?

Hint – they are using the Good to Great playbook, First Who……. Then What principle of Level 5 Leadership. For those who have not read the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, the first principle or character trait of a Level 5 Leader is this “First get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it…

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What I learn from working with Navy SEALs everyday...Part 2

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What I learn from working with Navy SEALs everyday...Part 2

I decided to write this knowing that most have never met, worked with or know a Navy SEAL and as a result, do not know all the character traits and mindset they all have.

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Uncomfortable Leadership

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Uncomfortable Leadership

Top performers often get a pass on the "little things." My first failure as a leader taught me a humbling lesson that is relevant to this day. It was nearly 20 years ago, and I was…

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Principle Based Decision Making: What is Your ‘True North’?

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Principle Based Decision Making: What is Your ‘True North’?

Have you noticed that some people that are otherwise capable leaders with a past record of solid achievement, struggle with decisions? Perhaps their decisions, taken as a whole, or as body of work, do not seem aligned or consistent, leaving their teams…

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70% Comfortable, 100% Committed.

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70% Comfortable, 100% Committed.

In our daily lives, both professionally and personally, how many times do we hear the phrase “I’m all in”?  The inference here is that one is fully committed, in total agreement, has unwavering support.  It that what we really see as a result?

Victory Strategies is a Veteran Owned Business.