Posted on Thursday, 12th March 2009 by chris wignall

I’m just back from an excellent trip to Columbia and Nicaragua with some of our partner organizations (more on that in future posts). At dinner one night in Cartagena one of the others on the trip, who is a successful CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, commented on being at a meeting with some of [...]

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Posted on Friday, 27th February 2009 by chris wignall

“The careful telling of the story creates ripples for everybody; including me” – Brian Stiller, Tyndale Seminary (from a FreeFORM interview). Defining, redefining, revealing, and sharing our vision is one of the difficult challenges of leadership. There are endless resources on how to do this, but lately I’ve found the best and most intuitive way [...]

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Posted on Saturday, 7th February 2009 by chris wignall

In the last two weeks I’ve talked with two leaders who listened to me talk about some of my experiences and offered their perspectives. In both cases it really seemed like they were looking past my words and eyes and into my soul. That’s what the best mentors do. What’s most interesting is that these [...]

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Posted on Friday, 23rd January 2009 by chris wignall

Yesterday I had lunch with David Sweet, Member of Parliament for the riding of Ancaster/Dundas/Flamborough/Westdale (where I live). He is a Conservative backbencher and the former CEO of Promisekeepers Canada. In the interest of honesty I should say that I have never attended a Promisekeepers event and I did not vote for Mr. Sweet in [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 21st January 2009 by chris wignall

Building on a recent post… Being intentional about your own leadership development is important. That doesn’t mean responding to every networking opportunity, reading every book in your field, and participating in every course and conference. Eventually the breadth of opportunities that is helpful in expanding your understanding in the beginning must give way to more [...]

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Posted on Monday, 19th January 2009 by chris wignall

I tend toward the optimistic side of most issues, occasionally to my detriment. The state of the economy is undeniably bad the world over, but I’m reluctant to spend much time lamenting the situation. Doing so serves mostly to distract us from mission and probably contributes to the self-fulfilling prophecy of doom that is simultaneously [...]

Tags: Leadership, Resources
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Posted on Sunday, 18th January 2009 by chris wignall

Nonprofits sometimes struggle to justify leadership development. It may be a lack of funds, time, or inclination; though the reason given is almost always budget. One of the things that motivates us is to challenge those excuses by lessening the costs to access high quality training. In our current economic uncertainty many charities are facing [...]

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Posted on Saturday, 6th December 2008 by chris wignall

In the last year I’ve spent more time in a variety of leadership workshops and training seminars than ever before, including the last two days. I like learning and leadership is a topic for which I have a large appetite. So why is it that in the vast majority of cases I am checking email [...]

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Posted on Monday, 24th November 2008 by chris wignall

I am coming to really like Patrick Lencioni‘s work. I recently read his latest book and am eager to try applying the principles and strategies to my own family. Now, he has again written something quite stimulating in his POV newsletter. (sign up here) This time he argues that no Executive/leadership team/board, whoever really makes [...]

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Posted on Friday, 21st November 2008 by chris wignall

Is your organization redundant? If you were being totally honest and no one else had to hear what you said, could you convince yourself that what you are currently doing couldn’t be done as well or better by someone else? The way you answer this question is pretty revealing. If you can’t quickly point to [...]

Tags: Leadership, Vision
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