Communication comes with practice. As a leader you must speak the truth; listen for understanding; and learn from what you hear and do not hear.

Communication comes with practice. As a leader you must speak the truth; listen for understanding; and learn from what you hear and do not hear.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."Mark McCormack, Author and sports entrepreneur"Psychologists tell us that money is a satisfier, not a motivator... Recognition is. That's why we do what we do... Recognition is critical to self-esteem. Without it, we feel undervalued, even insignificant. Money is nice, sure. But once you establish a basis of monetary rewards, without the accompanying verbal and social affirmation, the employee will quickly become disgruntled and ask for more. Eventually, more will never be enough.

Purposeful organizations develop the next generation, not simply the next leader. My friend Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author and leading executive coach, does not like the term succession planning. Better to say, "succession development." That means you are focusing on multiple managers and grooming them to lead.

The roots of effective leadership lie in simple things, one of which is listening. Listening to someone demonstrates respect; it shows that you value their ideas and are willing to hear them.

Focusing on one's own purpose is a matter of considering what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how you will do it. Easy questions, but they do provide deep thought.

There are some terrific resources on how to find individual purpose but relative resources on how to discover purpose and apply to an organization. My challenge was to show organizations how they could unlock the purpose of their organizations and put it to good use for employees to apply to their own jobs. The net effect is to help individuals, teams and organizations to optimize performance by understanding how to use purpose for good intention.