leaders – Page 3 – CainEllsworth

Rarely Easy

“Right is right, even if no one else does it.” – Juliette Gordon Low How do you handle difficult situations? The topic came up in this space a couple of weeks ago, but, probably because of some things I’ve seen and heard during that time, it’s front of mind again. As leaders, we’re involved in … Read more

Get Out Of The Cave

“Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid.” – William Faulkner It’s in our nature as humans to comfort. We want to be comfortable at work and at home. We want to be comfortable financially. We want our relationships to be comfortable. The root of that comfort-seeking comes from our ancestors. If you … Read more

Difficult = Normal

“Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.” – Saadi We would all love it if the world went exactly the way we want. We make a plan, and everything falls into place. We take some chances, and every potential roadblock disappears. We make some assumptions, charge ahead, and find out that every … Read more

Stop Accepting Defeat

“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.” – Ray Goforth Part of Newton’s First Law of Motion says that an object in motion stays in motion with the same … Read more

What Are You Still Doing?

“A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.” – Muhammad Ali I heard someone say recently that one of the things she was most proud of in her career was the fact that she’d stuck to the same principles in 2024 … Read more

Forward Or Backward

“The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors – it’s to improve conditions for our successors.” – Adam Grant A few weeks ago, I was working with a leader who faced a frustrating, but not unusual problem. He was dealing with what I’ll call an Alumni Leader. The individual who had been … Read more

Be Your Best You

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer Money matters. It’s not something we directly address in this space very often, but as a business, at some point you have to be profitable, or you won’t … Read more

Room To Breathe

“If you don’t modify workloads to retain your best people, you’ll be forced to modify workloads when they leave.” – Jeremy Clopton Last week in this space the topic was people, and how no matter what great ideas we have, or what great products and services we offer, we won’t get very far if we … Read more

The First Thing

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt I was fortunate enough recently to have the opportunity to assist the leaders of a 120+ year-old business that was … Read more

Make Your Own Decisions

“Not to decide is to decide.” – Harvey Cox I talk to a lot of leaders who say that “being decisive” is a key trait of a leader. I’m not sure exactly what they mean by that. The dictionary says that the word decisive means “settling an issue” or “producing a definite result”, or “having … Read more

GPS Blog

It's time to go "Beyond the Numbers".