February 2025
New Video Reel:
Drum roll, please! I’m very excited to share this new video reel showcasing my work. It’s the first time I’ve invested in creating high quality video featuring my material, and I’m interested in what you think of it. Please watch and let me know.
In upcoming newsletters, I’ll be sharing more new videos, including a series on topics from The Growth Leader and more. I’m not quite ready to venture on to TikTok, but all my new video content will be on my website and YouTube soon.
Individual Leadership: Credibility and Trust
Here is some interesting research for understanding the state of the world and its future: the 25th Edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual report on the ultimate currency in the relationship that all institutions build with their stakeholders. (Thank you to Marc Ross of Caracal (link) for sharing this with me.) There are many insights in this report, but one stood out as vital for all leaders, regardless of organization or role.
Leadership credibility collapse: Trust in leaders has hit historic lows. 69% believe government leaders purposely mislead people (up 11 percentage points since 2021), alongside similar distrust of business leaders (68%) and journalists (70%). This represents an all-time high in leadership skepticism.
Bottom line: If you're a leader, you aren’t trusted. So, what should leaders do? Here are three ways you can focus on credibility and fortifying trusting relationships:
1. Demonstrate competence and solid decision making. Share your rationale for decisions and help people understand the “why” behind the “what.”
2. Invest in relationships. You already know this is the key to driving results through people. Be curious, respectful, and create a sense of mutual trust that grows naturally over time.
3. Acknowledge and take responsibility for mistakes. Own your missteps openly, demonstrating accountability and integrity. It’s the key to being role model.
To learn more about building your credibility, the seminal work on this topic is Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It, by James S. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner.
Organization Leadership: The Strategy and Sales Connection
Too many leaders miss the connection between strategy and sales. If you rely on a sales organization to connect with customers and produce revenue and profit, then strategy and sales are inextricably linked. That means your sales organization is responsible for the execution of your strategy in the market with customers every day. As I wrote in The Growth Leader, this can be either a massive accumulation of wins, or death by 1000 cuts.
Here is the question to ask if you are an executive:
Is your organization selling what you want, to who you want, in the way you want? Or are you selling whatever you can, to whomever you can, however you can?
You can probably think of examples of both scenarios happening in your organization. But if the latter is generating more than 15% or 20% of your revenue, you have a problem. Because your strategy is not doing enough to influence the decisions, choices, actions, and behaviors of your Sales Organization.
This connection and alignment of strategy with sales has to start in the C-suite.
If you want more on this, check out my HBR article How to Get Your Salespeople to Execute Your Strategy.
LinkedIn Live
The Strategy and Sales Connection
As the previous article suggests, this is an area that deserves greater focus from executives. But the C-suite can’t get in the weeds and play the role of sales manager. It’s all about aligning strategy, leadership and sales. In this LinkedIn Live, we explore how executives can provide the leadership that the sales organization needs to execute your strategy in the market every day.
Join me on Feb at 10:00am ET to discuss how leaders can create growth by driving strategy through the sales organization.