Leadership Inspirations Library
Explore our library leadership articles.
Explore Our Library
Learning, Leading, and Serving
We officially welcomed our 2019 staff members to the Leadership Inspirations team this weekend!
I’m Inspired, Now What?
Inspiration vs. Motivation, what’s the difference?
The Truth About Company Culture
Everyone is talking about “organizational culture”, what do we need to know?
Mentorship Matters
We have a lot of people that we look up to in our lives, and our mentors are some of the most influential.
Monkey See, Monkey (Can’t) Do
The way we learn is often reduced to the old saying “monkey see, monkey do”, when it’s really much more nuanced than that!
Every Day We’re Hustling
“We’re all products of the hustle culture”. What does that mean for us?
The Leader As Team Translator
As leaders it’s our responsibility to make sure all the different groups that make up our organizations can understand each other.
Relationships In The Digital Age
Technology has forever changed the way that we cultivate relationships with others.
Taking Ownership, Taking The Field
We can take ownership and responsibility or we can play the blame game. Which will it be?
The Avengers Challenge
The Avengers display the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership (R) as they prepare to save the universe.
Storm Warning: When To Regroup
Of course we hope that our groups and organizations are aligned and high performing because those things help us to be successful. But, it’s unrealistic to think we can do those things all the time. These strategies are helpful for recovery and regrouping when needed!
Navigating Transitions
Transitions are a natural part of our lives but navigating them can be a challenge. We can help ourselves through these changes with meaningful reflection and action.
Listen More, Talk Less
We spend more time listening than speaking, and yet, it’s not something we’re very skilled in. Discover how to listen better to the important things in our lives with this week’s post.
Developing our Multiple Intelligences
We have a traditionally narrow view of what it means to be “intelligent”. In reality, we possess multiple intelligences that help us to acquire knowledge and skills.
Activity Spotlight: I Am A Tree
Check out this week’s activity spotlight: I Am A Tree is a great, simple energizer that can be used to facilitate important conversations about things like group dynamics, inclusion and involvement, and trust.
Activity Spotlight: Tick Tock
Check out this week’s activity spotlight: Tick Tock is a great activity to talk about how your group manages their time.
Activity Spotlight: Is, Does, Says, Does Not
We’ve just added 20+ activities to our Activities Database. We’ll be highlighting some of these activities each week to help you to meet your group’s needs!
5 New Activities to Energize Your Team
We’ve just added 10+ activities to our Activities Database to meet your groups needs. Use these energizers to motivate, engage, and play!
7 Networking Tips to Make the Most of Conference Season
Conference season is here! Check out these 7 networking tips to make the most of your experience!
We (All) Need Help
At some point within the last few decades, the word “help” has become a word of powerlessness. Starting right now, let’s change that!
Bada** Brainstorming
Brainstorming has a bad reputation that it doesn’t deserve. Let’s change that with these bada** brainstorming techniques!
Responding to Resistance
Resistance is a natural part of our group’s development. Here’s how we can respond positively.
Free Solo: An Examination of Risk
Rock climber, Alex Honnold, made history and sparked a conversation on risk taking.
An Update on Trust
Trust is a process: check in on this post from last year!
Promise? Promise.
In 2019, let’s keep the promises we make to ourselves.
Happy Two Years!
Celebrating TWO years in publication with 6 post flashbacks for the New Year!
Rethinking Resolutions
We tackle New Years Resolutions the same way each year, let’s mix it up in 2019!
Maintaining Motivation
We shouldn’t limit our motivation to after the new year! With this model we can finish the year strong with our teams.
How It’s Played
We’ve added video to our activity instructions! Check it out!
I Think, I Know
“There’s a big difference between knowing and thinking”
The Head and the Heart
The battle of the head and the heart may be as old as time but who’s to say they can’t get along?
All About the Little Things
Cultivating meaningful connections is all about the little things
The Power of Positivity
Thinking positively can actually help us to lead more healthy and positive lives!
Purpose Over Passion
We are inundated with messages to “follow our passion” all the time, but how often do we think about our purpose?
Midterm Musings
There are a few things we all need to remember this week leading up to November 6th!
Building a Network of Support
“No person is an island”. We can create strong support systems for ourselves with helpful people and processes!
Tell Me About It: Learning Through Debriefing
When we wonder, we are inclined to ask questions, and those questions will help your group to process and learn big things together.
“Don’t Wait in Line”: Putting Yourself First
The song goes, “Shorty, don’t wait in line. Shorty don’t wait ’til your life goes by.” What does it have to do with self-care?
Say Hello to Gen Z
With four distinct generations now in the workforce, what can we actually do to effectively work across generations?
Uncontrollable Pegasus: The Importance of Language
As leaders, we can help the people we work with to feel understood, respected, and comfortable in our group by using inclusive language.
It’s Not “Goodbye”
We need to give more time to the process of “adjourning” as we go through change, transitions, and farewells.
Back to Basics: Setting Groundrules
While our relationships might not require rules or contracts, they do benefit from certain “groundrules”. Setting groundrules helps get everyone on the same page about how to work effectively together!
But, We’re Not a Family: Why Work Dynamics Are Different
Many organizations want “to feel like a family”, but these groups aren’t our families and they serve a very different purpose. So, how can we still develop that sense of trust, loyalty, and connection?
5 New Activities to Help Your Team Grow
We just added 20+ new activities to our free online Activities Database to help you reach your groups learning goals – from simply getting to know each other to improving public speaking skills.
Dancing Through the Great Unknown
“Get used to living in the unknown because you never know what you’ll find there.”
Don’t Skip the Introductions
How many of us have ever said, “I’m sorry, I’m just really bad at remembering names”?
The Power of Change
“Nothing is permanent but change”
Your Ethical Footprint
Ethics is not something to think about once in awhile, it should be a perspective or a lens you view all situations through.
Just Checking In
We get so caught up in the process of everything that we forget to check in on the people around us. Check ins and check outs are one of the simplest and most underrated tools in our leadership toolbox.
Want to Beat Burnout? Practice Sustainable Leadership
A great way to think of energy and leadership is like water in a bucket. The more water in the bucket, the more energy we have to accomplish tasks and reach our goals.
Let’s Agree to Disagree
We need to disagree more. Disagreeing, when done right, is the key to our growth, change, and transformation.
3 Things You Should Be Doing to Foster Accountability
Many of the ways that we try to address accountability in our organizations are ineffective or outdated. It’s time to revamp and build up our groups to take ownership and follow through.
It’s Not Too Late for Spring Cleaning
We dread spring cleaning but we should really think of it as an exciting opportunity to open our lives up to new things, thoughts, and experiences.
Do You Trust Me?
Trust smooths the way to deep relationships and enables things to get done – whether personal things or professional things – and allows us to show up as who we are, so we can also become the best versions of ourselves.
Let The Past Be Your Guide
Recently, I’ve found myself complaining about the gray skies and cool temperature. As a scientist, my first instinct was to go online to research what actually causes May Gray and June Gloom.
If You Can’t Control the Weather
Recently, I’ve found myself complaining about the gray skies and cool temperature. As a scientist, my first instinct was to go online to research what actually causes May Gray and June Gloom.
Dear Graduate
I think it’s important to recognize the less Instagram-worthy parts of graduating and “becoming an adult.”
Leadership Lessons from a Chair and a Dog
As leaders, we all need a great chair. I don’t mean literally, but we should all have a place or practice that allows us to decompress, to ponder, to think bigger and better than we might on a daily basis.
Feedback Dos and Don’ts
Feedback takes practice. Make the most of feedback opportunities with these feedback ‘dos and don’ts’.
The Case for Feedback
Most organizations fall under what I like to call the “feedback fallacy,” which is the belief that we are fostering a culture of feedback when in reality we are going about it all wrong.
9 Ways To Be A Better Servant Leader
I started asking people around me how they use servant leadership themselves. I was inspired by their answers and loved that, regardless of what profession they were in, they could still find ways to serve first.
7 Networking Tips That Are More Helpful Than “Just Be Yourself”
We have to start by changing the way that we think about networking. Networking, in its simplest form, is about relationship-building.
Responsibility v. Fault
When we can take responsibility for our actions instead of placing fault, we become powerful forces in our own lives.
Discovering Your Leadership Style
Whether or not we consider ourselves to be “leaders”, each of us has our own distinct leadership style or philosophy that helps to guide what we value, how we make decisions, and how we interact with others.
Zero to Hero: Conquering Conflict
Ugh, conflict. When you hear that word you might think of things like arguments, tension, trouble, fighting, misunderstanding, frustration, or even a battle.
How Being An Effective Follower Can Make You A Better Leader
The best leaders know when to lead and when to follow.
7 Tips for Effective Leadership Writing
Communication is key to leadership – most theories and practices emphasize the importance of being able to clearly communicate with others.
Becoming A “Polymath”
So often we make ‘learning’ out to be synonymous with ‘school’ or ‘education’. But we limit ourselves with this mindset by discrediting the vast amount of things that we learn outside of a traditional classroom.
How To: Show Appreciation All Ways
Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching and whether you love or loathe this holiday, each year February 14th marks a day where we have the chance to formally recognize and appreciate the most important people in our lives (including ourselves!).
Growing Your Team
Growing up, one of my favorite activities to do with my mom and grandma was tending to our gardens. There’s just something about being outside, turning the soil, watering seedlings everyday, and watching tiny green leaves emerge from the ground and blossom into something beautiful.
Leadership with a Side of Fries
A restaurant is a dynamic, fast-paced, fun, and ever-changing environment and as such, you learn something new every day! Here are some of the key lessons that I have learned over the years:
Lessons in Conflict: CrossFit Edition
The clock hanging on the wall began to sound as the instructor addressed the class. After looking at the whiteboard to see today’s agenda, I could only mentally prepare myself for what I knew would be a long and painful hour. This was no regular classroom. This … was my CrossFit gym.
New Year, New Motivation
So, we’re almost all done with January. The new year is in its early stages, but the “new year, new me” mentality left the building just days after the 2017 clock struck midnight. So, how is that resolution going?
Three Tips for Success in the Workplace
If you have a typical full-time job, you spend 40 hours of your life at work over five consecutive days. This is almost a quarter of your entire week, while another quarter of it is spent sleeping!
How To Make Working From Home Work For You
Usually when I tell people that I work from home, their response is something like, “That’s amazing!” or “You’re so lucky!” However, I’ve found that there is an assumption that because I work from home I have the freedom to be lazy, distracted, and unproductive at my job. This got me thinking about how I manage to work effectively from home.
This Year, I’m Gonna Do It!
The new year is beginning, so as we wave goodbye to 2017 and say hello to 2018, it’s time to make our New Year’s resolutions! New Year’s resolutions can be super exciting!
How To Review Your Year
As the year comes to a close, I’m thinking about what I want to accomplish for next year. I want to take a different approach to my goal setting and planning for the year. In fact, I want to get away from the concept of “planning” – which is kind of shocking.
Growing From Our Roots
The roots of a tree provide it with stability, connection, and life. A person’s roots act in a very similar way – giving us history, community, and purpose.
The One Word That Helped Me Succeed
‘Success’ is a hot topic today, and pretty much always. We find ourselves looking for ways to be successful in our career, education, and relationships – whether it’s agreeing to an extra work shift, taking on someone else’s task for a project, or even just making the drive to the airport to pick up a friend.
Worth the Wait: Mastering the Art of Patience
Our high speed lives are consistently being placed on hold. We are told to wait for our food, wait in line, wait for the results, and wait our turn. And through all this waiting, we learn a thing or two about patience.
Feeling Grateful
What are you thankful for? This is a question that many of us are only prompted to reflect on once a year. Some of the things that come to mind might be family, friends, health, financial security, coffee or Netflix.
Define Me Differently: Exploring Our Identities!
While I was at work the other day, I was talking with a coworker and we had a very interesting conversation that challenged my worldview.
Invisible Impact
9:05 AM. Late. My shoes were soaking wet from the puddle of rain I had just stepped in, and while trying to get to class on time I had slipped and dropped my Starbucks. It was just not my day.
A Haunting We Will Go: Tackling Life’s Spookiest Obstacles
Tis’ the season for all things spooky and sweet! Bulk candy, giant pumpkins, quaint corn mazes, elaborate costumes, and, of course, the return of haunted houses mark the beginning of the Halloween season.
Finding Your Groove
A colleague walked passed my office in the middle of the week to see how I was doing. I half-heartedly smiled and told him the truth: I was struggling to find my groove.
Put It Into Practice
In the third grade my mother signed me up for a youth basketball league. I loved the game of basketball, but had a difficult time understanding the concept of defense.
Get Wild: Leadership Lessons from Mother Nature
I was only two years old the first time my parents took me camping. From that moment, the mountains, rivers, and deserts in my backyard became my playground and my classroom.
Happy to Have “Failed”
As a society, we love success stories. And understandably, those stories have a warm-and-fuzzy-feel-good-thing going for them that motivate us and give us hope.
‘Me’ Time: Rest, Reflect, Recuperate
Dang, I feel so good about what I did! I put in full effort! I put in WORK! I gave my all and I’m ready to do more, right now!
Introverts v. Extroverts: What’s the Difference
I would describe myself as the “peace maker” of my family. When my brothers argue with each other, I am always the one to mediate the situation. I’m used to breaking up conflict—not causing it.
Remembering September 11th, 2001
I was seven years old on September 11, 2001. Just old enough to remember watching footage of a plane crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on our tiny kitchen television, but not old enough to understand the true weight of this national tragedy.
School Year Resolutions
Is it that time already (it feels like just yesterday that we were writing about activities to kick off the summer!)?… To ensure we are all able to take full advantage of those opportunities, we wanted to provide some insight to start the year off strong!
A Leader’s Decision
To lead or not to lead? That is the question. When we meet challenges that seem too enormous to solve, when unexpected change derails our plans, when our resolute values and principles are tested, or when we are challenged to step outside of our comfort zones to try something new, we are being called upon to lead.
Failing into the Right Path
Three weeks into the fall semester of my junior year I dropped out of my university’s business school. It was one of the greatest successes of my educational career.
How Mindfulness Forever Changed Me
When I stepped onto campus to begin a new journey as a Graduate student at Chapman University, I quickly came across an advertisement for “Mindfulness”.
Building Community: People First
One of the biggest challenges in life is finding a community where you feel at home. I was lucky enough to experience an incredibly strong community in a place I never expected.
Bold Leadership: Start Your Own Dance Party
At it’s core, bold leadership is about movement, about action. This kind of leadership pushes our comfort zones and challenges us at our very core.
F.E.A.R.less
We have all been there, right? The hour leading up to an exam, seconds before an interview, or even moments before an activity you are trying for the first time. The sensation of nerves. The petrifying gut feeling. The fear.
Wonder Woman: Lasting Impressions
Not often left speechless, the new Wonder Woman movie had many in our organization at a loss for words.
Fun in the Sun: Activities to Stay Engaged This Summer
School’s out for summer! We’ve put together a list of fun, easy, and accessible activities for every age group to try something new this season and stay engaged in their lifelong learning.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
If your teachers or parents were anything like mine, they taught you that hard work is essential in life to get to where you want to be.
From Activity to Action
One of the most challenging aspects of being a good group member or leader is being able to take all of our ideas and turn them into significant actions.
Breaking the Ice
I think that many organizations have a negative view of icebreakers, but I’m sure it’s because of we’ve all had negative experiences…which is such a shame!
From Woody to Buzz Lightyear: Leadership Development in Action
I was determined to become the “Swiss Army Knife” of any group I worked with, having the ability to identify which tools and skills are needed at the right time.
Strength or Weakness? A Fresh (Olive Green) Perspective
What if we, as leaders, took the time to shift our understanding of weakness, and considered it as a gift?
At a Moral Crossroads: The F8 of the Furious
In F8, Dom is faced with a classic ethical dilemma, one that has been used by philosophers for decades to explore the moral concepts of right and wrong.
“Help! We Don’t Speak the Same Language!”
In order for me to be able to communicate effectively with another person, we both have to agree on a mutually intelligible language. But, what happens when language is actually a barrier to communication?
Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: Fine Tuning Facilitation
I never thought that my horse would be the one who challenged me to fine tune my facilitation skills but I’ve learned so much from working with horses over the years, why not facilitation?
“You Can Sit with Us”: Fostering a Climate of Inclusion
Naturally, as people, we all want to feel included. Unfortunately for most of us, we don’t always feel this way.
Global Leadership: Kindness in Cuba
Traveling has an amazing way of shrinking the world while simultaneously expanding it and now I understand what it means to look into the hearts of people.
Technology and Leadership: Benefit or Burden?
We live in amazing times. I am a business owner and leadership consultant and the other day, I performed open heart surgery. How is this even possible (legal), you might ask?
‘Socially’ Stressed? Go Offline
How can we, as users and leaders, better engage in social media to reduce stress and effectively communicate with each other?
Assemble ‘Super’ Teams with the Group Development Model
As a self-proclaimed leadership nerd, few things in life amp me up as much as teamwork, and Marvel’s superheroes beautifully illustrate my favorite team building framework: Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development.
Self-Care 101
As leaders, we spend a lot of time thinking about other people. However, too much of any good thing can be a bad thing.
Working Across Generations
Is age really just a number? Have you ever had a challenge working with someone older or younger than you? It is a common topic of discussion because today’s workforce now includes four different generations working together.
“Real People. Real Reviews.” Creating a Culture of Positive Feedback
It is remarkable to me what Yelp has accomplished. In a culture of “keep your comments to yourself”, they have normalized customer feedback and business accountability.
The (Leadership) Academy Awards
It’s that wonderful time of year again, that time when we get to recognize and celebrate some of the greatest films in cinema that have blessed our screens this year. It’s time for the Academy Awards!
Find the ‘Value’ in Evaluations
It’s not surprising that more often than not evaluations feel like something that we have to do rather than something we want to do.
The Greatest Leaders in the World Capitalize on Facilitation
Is it tough leading others with more experience than you? Are you confident in your knowledge and work ethic, but feel judged by those around you?
Leadership Development in Action
One of the most rewarding things about the work that we do is seeing what our aspiring leaders achieve!
What’s Your Super Bowl?
Watching the division championships this weekend reminded me that success is about first downs, not Hail Marys.
Embracing the Next Four Years
Let us remember how important OUR role is in the future of this nation as we commence the next four years of leadership.
Monday Morning with a Millennial
Simon Sinek recently took the internet by storm with his video about ‘The Millennial Question’ where he passionately discusses the stereotypes that have come to define Millennials in the workplace.
Happy New Goals!
True Story: I have a love/hate relationship with New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve set a lot of them, tracked behaviors and assessed goals, and I’ve even achieved some of them.
The Holidays…Friend and Foe?
The holiday season is in full swing. For many, this is a time of mixed emotions: excitement and good cheer, along with stress and perhaps anxiety. Can the holidays be our friend and foe?
Rogue One: A Lesson in Selfless Leadership
“It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, rebel spies managed to steal secret plan’s to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star…”
Our Blog is Back!
We’ve been away awhile (eek!), but we’re back in business and looking forward to creating content that is entertaining, relevant and most of all, useful!
