Blog Posts by Courtney McBath

If you’re anything like me, you want to see improvement this year. You want to be better, you want those you love to experience greater joy and peace, and you want the people you work with to be successful at a new level. I knew it! You are a LEADER! Leaders always long for growth, improvement, and increase.

The only sure way to experience that is to do things differently than last year, and I would like to suggest a good place to start. What if, right here in January, in the first few days of this new year, we made a decision that could change our lives, not just this year? Ready?

1) REEVALUATE YOUR PRIORITIES

I know, not profound at all, but this action can change everything. Too often, we have forgotten to put the first things first, and we may start in the right direction and veer off the path. Someone once told me, “Only a good thing can go bad!” The key is to evaluate what’s important, plan actions to improve and become accountable to the plan.

I...

Leadership will often require us to be courageous. It will occasionally challenge our biases and views about several circumstances. But, on the other hand, sometimes, leadership requires that you do the challenging.

Making changes to the process looks very different depending on the context of your role or what you have to rethink. Several times, challenging the process begins with you. It starts with searching for the ways you have gotten comfortable. Choosing to push yourself toward innovation and growth by honestly assessing your performance is the most radical form of challenging the process. Because your team never really does what you say they should do; instead, they do what they have seen you do.

Next, we must seek challenging tasks that test our skills and abilities. Growth comes not from doing what you are best at but from doing the hard things. What do you struggle with that is essential to you and your team’s growth? What classes are you taking to...

If you are reading this, you have probably taken the time to weigh your Big Rocks and see how you are doing as we are halfway through the year. If you haven’t yet, no problem, you can always go back to read the last letter and weigh your Big Rocks against some of the questions I shared.

After checking your 2022 Big Rocks progress, many of us might feel discouraged because we have not achieved what we planned by this time of year. Of course, this could be because of circumstances outside of our control. Still, we must remember that it is not over. Instead, it is an opportunity to nurture success from despair.

This is the essence of assessing our goals, taking a step back, and making corrections where necessary. Maybe you could not achieve your goals because of the people needed for your big rocks to take shape. Speak with them or find more people. Perhaps it was because you spent more time feeding distractions. Work towards managing your time better.

No...

Welcome to the month of June, the halfway mark of the year 2022. We have come a long way despite the many challenges of the year in our society and lives. You should be very proud of how far you have come.

June is one of my favorite months because it is the perfect time to sit back and take stock of how far you have come, especially concerning your Big Rocks (goals) for the year.

We started the year with our written-down goals and took things a step further by breaking them in detail about how we intend to nurture them to fruition. So, it is time to ask yourself:

• How am I doing so far?
• Am I closer to my goals than I was when I wrote out my big rocks?
• Am I where I said I would be by this time of the year?

The beauty of setting goals is reaching them. However, we will not know how we are doing and what can be improved upon if we don’t conduct assessments on our goals. Take a moment, check your progress so far and begin to chart the course for...

One-fourth of the year has already elapsed, and nine months remain to complete our plans for 2022. How well have we done so far in walking in purpose, remaining accountable to our Big Rocks, and encouraging others in their plans and goals?

In the classic book on leadership, The Leadership Challenge by Barry Posner and James Kouzes, they highlight five attributes of all exemplary leaders. These traits provide a comprehensive benchmark for us all as we process our own leadership journey. The study proposes that all great leaders will

• Model the Way…lead by example.
• Inspire a Shared Vision…cast a vision that connects people
• Challenge the Process…refuse to accept the status quo
• Enable Others to Act…empower others to utilize their gifts
• Encourage the Heart…build up others through words and actions.

When you look at these first three months of the 2022 journey, how well have you functioned as an exemplary leader? You see, leadership is not just...