What do you want your business to do? Make money, of course. To pay for people and supplies, to be able to grow.

A thinking partner who isn't an echo chamber... How many of us dare to have such collaborators?

Making those around you feel invisible is the opposite of leadership.

Most executives I know are so action-oriented, or action-addicted, that time for reflection is the first casualty of their success.

Building businesses takes tremendous stamina, and success isn't achieved without it.

We know - intellectually - that confronting an issue is the only way to resolve it. But any resolution will disrupt the status quo. Given the choice between conflict and change on the one hand, and inertia on the other, the ostrich position can seem very attractive.

Many CEOs and leaders think that silence is indeed golden, that consensus is bliss. It is - sometimes. But more often what it signifies is that there are no respected processes for surfacing concerns and dissent.