Articles, tools, and ideas for business owners, managers, and team leaders who are serious about growing.
Why your personal mission — not your company's mission — is the most important leadership tool you'll ever build. Plus a framework to create yours today.
Read More →The PLAN system — a practical framework for taking any vision from concept to completion, from strategic planning to getting your car inspected.
Read More →A practical, field-tested system for weekly calendar planning that keeps you on track across every role in your life — using both digital and paper tools.
Read More →Three questions every leader must answer before posting a job — plus a proven framework for onboarding that actually prepares people to succeed.
Read More →Problem-solving is the most overlooked path to leadership. The five traits that separate leaders who solve problems from those who create more of them.
Read More →Five honest questions that close the gap between what you think you know and what your team actually needs — and what to do with the answers.
Read More →This article will cover some critical parts of becoming and growing as a leader. The goal is to lay a framework that will help you create a positive attitude that will give you an edge. The first essential item is completing a clear personal mission for yourself. The second crucial thing is checking your attitude and perspective.
Stephen Covey writes extensively in The 7 Habits about paradigm shifts — shifts in perspective and attitude. Throughout life, we view most things through the lens of our experiences. Covey tells the story of sitting in a subway car when a father and two unruly children got on. Eventually Covey asked the father to get control of his children. The father looked up and said, "We're on the way home from the hospital where their mother just died. They don't know what to do. The truth is, I don't know what to do either." That new understanding changed everything. Can you think of times a significant perspective change has made you see things differently?
You should have a mission for your business, your personal life, and your family. Your attitude will naturally improve when you have a mission or purpose. Here's why purpose matters:
One way to craft your mission: imagine your obituary and what you'd want people to say about you. Use those statements as the elements. A commercial airliner is off course 90% of the time — yet we arrive because the pilot understands the mission and makes hundreds of small corrections. Without a mission and a good attitude, your chances of reaching the intended destination drop dramatically.
Having a mission doesn't magically make your attitude better — you still have to work on it. Watch for these four traps that signal an attitude adjustment is needed:
Get these in working order and you'll notice your attitude improves each day — you'll start operating as though you're obligated to deliver the mission, and your work will become part of who you are as a leader.
Want help building your personal mission statement? This is foundational work Amos does in executive coaching engagements. Reach out to start a conversation.
Anyone who has worked in management has done planning of some sort. Experienced successful leaders take time to create plans and visions, but they also allow for course adjustments along the way. If a project goes entirely without a hitch, there's probably something you're missing.
For this article, "Vision" and "Project" are synonymous — any result that requires multiple steps to complete. You can use this process for complicated strategic planning or simply getting your car inspected when it needs tires, exhaust, and brakes.
P — Plan to Plan. Allow proper time for planning before you begin. Planning is the first step to a good strategy. Make sure you budget for its impact on your daily tasks.
P — Pinpoint Specific Goals. Write out all goals and make sure they are measurable, realistic, and tied to a specific outcome. The worst thing you can do at this point is create a goal that's unreasonable or unmeasurable.
L — Link Goals and Owners. Assign clear responsibility — but use caution. Be absolute about whether the person has the power to complete the task. A common mistake: assigning a task to someone who doesn't have access to the tools needed to complete it.
A — Add Tasks. Prioritize all needs and situations. Make sure nothing is hidden from view and your team agrees on the most critical sub-goals. Then build your timeline.
N — Name Key Dates. A great vision without a completion date is nothing more than an idea. Get everything on the calendar — deadlines, progress updates, and scheduled reminders of the big picture.
Also: budget everything you can — both time and money. Plans without budgets lead to frustration and disconnects between leadership and managers.
Practice mercy and grace when things go sideways. When someone's task doesn't go as expected, help them see how to correct course while staying aligned with the vision — don't just evaluate the failure.
Need help applying this to your organization? Amos works with teams on strategic planning and project execution. Book a free discovery call.
Calendar management is a common issue for everyone — not just busy executives. With calendar apps everywhere, wouldn't it be nice if your calendar was a place of comfort and success instead of stress and broken commitments? Here are a few processes I use every week.
Many of these tips come from books like Getting Things Done (David Allen), The Four Hour Work Week (Timothy Ferriss), and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey). I've combined parts of many systems to build something that actually works.
Should I keep separate calendars for different areas of my life? No — unless your company requires it. Keep all digital calendar items in one place. Multiple calendars prolong your weekly review and create the potential for missed appointments.
Should I share my calendar with others? Yes — and let them see all details. If you don't, they won't take your scheduled events seriously. If there's something you don't want others to see, mark it private. Trusting others with your calendar causes them to respect it.
Should I put all my tasks in my digital calendar? No. Digital calendars are for appointments and date-specific reminders only — not tasks. Your task list belongs elsewhere. If you share your calendar, you can block time as "project work" so others don't schedule over it.
I've found it far less stressful to plan by the week rather than by the day. Here's the process:
This paper calendar sits on my desk for the week. At the end of each day, anything undone simply moves to another slot. At the end of the week, I know how I tracked against each role — and I can plan accordingly for the next week.
Productivity is a leadership discipline. Amos covers calendar and priority management in coaching and workshop settings. Learn more about working together.
When hiring or looking for a volunteer, leaders face a lot of decisions. The first question to ask yourself is: how much time are you willing to give up? There is no way to bring on a direct report without devoting time to train, mentor, and prepare that person for success. How much time you can give will help determine what skill level the person needs to have on day one.
Once you've answered these, lay out what that development plan will look like and use it to create your job posting. You need to know how you will get this person the skills from question three. The answer cannot simply be "I will teach them." You need a plan and curriculum.
You've hired someone to lessen your organization's workload — but the worst thing you can do is hire the person and not work a plan to hand off duties to them. Follow these three steps:
If you follow these steps and treat your people based on their future potential rather than their present status, you will have many more successes than failures.
Building a stronger team starts with better hiring and onboarding. Amos works with managers on people development frameworks. Let's talk.
Problem-solving is often the most overlooked path to gaining leadership responsibilities — and often the fastest way to build an excellent reputation. Leadership is not only about making decisions. It's also about problem-solving.
I received my start in management by honing my skills as a problem solver in a manufacturing plant. The plant had upgraded all its equipment to automated systems, but the experienced operators lacked the skills to troubleshoot the new technology. I became an expert in it and quickly found myself as plant manager. You don't need a master's degree to become a great problem solver — you need these five traits.
Stay close to the operations you're involved with — whether you're on a board of directors or a construction site. If you stay close to what's happening and listen to people, you'll anticipate problems before they get out of hand.
No one likes to be wrong, but a good problem solver knows that being right always is impossible. Listening to others — especially those with a different point of view — lets you see all sides and find the best solution. Leaders often ignore reality when it doesn't fit their strategic plan. The truth is the truth; the sooner you embrace it, the sooner you can adjust.
Seeing the big picture means understanding how all the pieces fit together and thinking long-term, not just about the immediate issue. When dealing with a problem, look at the larger goal and make your decision based on it — not just the problem in front of you.
Break big problems into smaller pieces. Handling one task at a time instead of the entire issue allows you to focus on solutions instead of becoming overwhelmed. It also significantly lowers stress. For example: if a staff member isn't cutting it and you fire them before finding someone to absorb their duties, you've created unnecessary havoc that good sequencing could have prevented.
Not giving up doesn't mean you don't take breaks — it means you don't quit when things get tough. A great problem solver knows there's always a solution, even if it takes time to find it. In the words of Winston Churchill: "Never, never give up."
Problem-solving is a trainable skill. Amos works with managers and executives to build the frameworks that make better decisions possible. Start with a free discovery call.
Most leaders think they have a pretty good read on their team. And most of the time, they're partly right. They know who's performing, who's struggling, who gets along with whom. But there's a gap between what leaders think they know and what their team actually needs — and that gap is where turnover, disengagement, and missed potential live.
The good news: you can close that gap with five questions. Not a performance review. Not a survey. Just five honest conversations that most leaders never have because they're afraid of what they might hear.
This one takes courage. Leaders almost never ask it, which means they keep doing the thing — indefinitely — without realizing the cost. The answers will surprise you. It's rarely what you expect. And the act of asking builds more trust than the answer ever could.
Your best people always have more to give than their job description asks for. When those capabilities go unrecognized and unused, people start looking for places where they'll be seen. This question tells you where the talent is hiding — and gives you a roadmap for retention.
Training, tools, information, relationships — different people need different things. The answer to this question is often inexpensive and almost always impactful. Most managers never ask because they assume the answer is "more money." It usually isn't.
This is the question that closes the distance between leaders and their teams. Every team has context their manager doesn't have. When you invite people to share that context, you make better decisions — and they feel genuinely respected in the process.
Recognition is one of the most powerful leadership tools there is — and it only works when it's specific. This question uncovers the work that happens below the surface, the wins that never get mentioned in meetings, the effort that's been invisible. Shine a light on it.
These questions only work if you actually listen to the answers. Don't defend, explain, or minimize what you hear. Just listen, thank the person for their honesty, and then do something with it. That last part — following through — is what separates a leader who asks good questions from one who builds real trust.
Want to go deeper? These five questions are part of the coaching work Amos does with executives and managers. Reach out to talk about what a coaching engagement might look like for you.