“Leaders are born, not made.”

If you’re reading this, you’re either a leader or a prospective leader. But do you believe you were born with the knowledge to succeed? In other words, can you learn from mistakes you haven’t made or have heard of others making? Like cross-stitching, organic chemistry, and riding a bicycle, leadership is at once a skill, a field of study, and a practiced instinct that requires training to learn and master. Taking an online leadership course puts you ahead of the learning curve. Those who take online courses in leadership, apply themselves, and learn the right lessons are in a sense reborn as leaders — and even the elusive “born leader” knows that a good leader is always learning.

With the commitment to learn comes the next issue: not all leadership situations are the same, and leadership training is not one-size-fits-all. Whether you’re leading a group of young artists or a grizzled aircraft maintenance team, you should take an online leadership course that matches your situation. But which one? Accounting for variety, here are the top seven online courses in leadership.

Take your leadership to the next level

Upgrade your leadership skills with our online courses.

Harvard University

Exercising Leadership: Foundational Principles

Harvard’s online leadership course stands on the cutting edge of the latest academic and management theories. If you’re a leader who will need to speak to other leaders in the most up-to-date terminology and with learned authority, there is no more comprehensive source than Harvard’s “Foundational Principles”.

Pros: From DEI to conflict management, you’ll be familiar with every term and practice of leadership in large corporate environments.

Cons: An academic focus may not serve the needs of mission-oriented leaders.

The Eighth Mile Consulting

Personal Development and Leadership Course

The Eighth Mile stresses candor and “lessons learned” as vital tools for continuous improvement. As leaders themselves under the rigors of active-duty military service, they have learned both to handle high-pressure environments and develop teams who can succeed under pressure.

Military leadership particularly stresses experience as a continuous improvement practice of finding mistakes, even in success, and learning from them. The Eighth Mile carries this leadership training philosophy forward, allowing you to learn from others’ mistakes and putting you ahead of the learning curve — without the oftentimes high cost.

Pros: Learn practical leadership skills from military professionals who have translated this real-life experience into useful lessons for team leaders, owners, and CEOs.

Cons: May not be appropriate for all personality types. The Eighth Mile’s online leadership courses work best for those who are not afraid of performing honest and sometimes challenging self-evaluations.

cta_style_4

Oxford University

Home Study Center Leadership Training Series

For the brand new leader who has no idea where to start, Oxford’s online courses in leadership help you take your first baby steps toward becoming a leader. From learning about interpersonal skills and the difference between a manager and a leader Oxford’s online leadership courses will answer the question, “What is leadership?”

Pros: For the complete beginner the Oxford Home Study online leadership courses make no assumptions. It will guide you from square zero.

Cons: Those with at least some experience will want more hands-on courses in online leadership that challenge them to improve, not a review of introductory theory.

Harvard University

Design Thinking And Innovation

Harvard makes the list twice with its best-in-class offering on “Design Thinking”. For the mission-oriented problem-solver facing “people problems”, “Design Thinking” is a problem-solving paradigm that proceduralizes empathy with customers and stakeholders to make human relations more accessible to leaders in STEM where people skills are often undeveloped. This online leadership course leverages the engineering mindset to bootstrap those vital people skills and unlock the student’s leadership potential.

Pros: Engineers and scientists can readily adopt people skills when leadership training models those skills as a problem-solving paradigm. If this is the way you think, this is the fastest way to learn.

Cons: Most leaders won’t need a formal engineering paradigm to develop their people skills.

Bocconi University

International Leadership and Organizational Behavior

The leadership of an international team requires international expertise. This online course in leadership is specialized for teams from different countries, especially those with different customs. International teams, particularly those with diverse cultural backgrounds, have a long list of unique requirements and restrictions.

Pros: If you’re navigating international cross-cultural challenges, you absolutely need this specialized online leadership course.

Cons: If you don’t employ a cross-cultural team, this course will not serve you as well as the others. Furthermore, if you do need this course, its narrow focus may be limiting. You might consider supplementing it with a more straightforward online course in leadership in addition.

Yale University

Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty and Stress

An online leadership training course focused directly on dealing with the emotional needs of team members is a great choice for leaders working with teenagers and young adults. Creative people with highly developed minds but still learning emotional self-control need special understanding, and this requires a leader who has learned the patience and wisdom to manage emotions.

Pros: Every summer camp counselor has dealt with groups that are highly motivated but with delicate emotional sensibilities. When success or failure hangs on this razor’s edge, a wise leader can turn a looming disaster into a spectacular success. An online leadership training course in emotional intelligence could tip the balance.

Cons: For more emotionally mature teams, a more mission-oriented course may be a better fit.

Scrum.org

Professional Agile Leadership Essential Training

Leading an agile project management team requires a delicate balance of taking charge to get things on track versus stepping back and letting your highly skilled and creative teams go about their work, mediated by your own technical understanding of the project. Needless to say, this specialized level of leadership requires specialized online leadership courses. If you need to know the difference between scrum and kanban in order to credibly lead your teams, then you need Agile training, and there’s no better teacher than the inventors of Scrum.

Pros: This course will make sure you can handle the unique challenges of software project management. Your teams will likely find you more credible if you’re up to date on the latest design methodologies.

Cons: Leaders of teams not mostly composed of STEM specialists will find Agile Design Methodology alienating without careful rewording and simplification of developer jargon. Investing time in teaching engineering costs time away from actually leading the team.

Choose The Right Online Course in Leadership

With so many online leadership courses out there, one thing is clear: there are very few “born leaders,” if any at all. There is always a learning curve, even when you learn by doing. By seeking out the right online leadership course for your situation, you’re taking the first step toward understanding your style and cultivating your abilities.
If you are the type of leader who doesn’t mind unfiltered honesty and is looking to improve yourself through the guidance of experienced professionals with firsthand knowledge of what it takes to be a leader, The Eighth Mile Consulting might be the road for you. Take a look at our online courses in leadership.

Contact Us

Reach out to the team to book a consult.

Do you ever wonder why you feel stagnant? Or alternatively, are you a kettle about to boil over? Have you ever considered learning how to reinvent yourself?

Part 3 in our Reinvent Yourself series discusses the role that motivation and discipline play in the reinvention process. Specifically, we’ll explore the difference between being driven by what we’re running from and being motivated by what we’re running toward.

We also introduce a reinvention strategy roadmap to help guide you while learning how to reinvent yourself. Whether you’re looking to make a major career change or simply want to refresh your personal goals, here you’ll find all the tools and insights you need to make meaningful progress toward your aspirations.

This is Part 3 in our 4-part Reinvent Yourself series.

Want to achieve your full potential?

Reinvent Yourself Today!

Motivation vs. Discipline

Part of learning how to reinvent yourself involves understanding motivation and discipline. Motivation and discipline are sometimes viewed as opposites, yet they’re also closely linked. But what do these terms mean, exactly?

Motivation is what drives you to take action.

Discipline is your ability to consistently follow through on that action, even when you don’t feel motivated.

A primary difference between motivation and discipline is:

  • Motivation is often driven by external factors, such as rewards or incentives. Motivation can come and go, and our moods, surroundings, and circumstances can influence it.
  • Discipline is an internal characteristic. Discipline is a trait that is built into the fabric of each person’s character. It helps us stick to our goals and commitments, even when facing obstacles or distractions.

As far as similarities, motivation and discipline both require:

  • Self-control
  • Determination
  • Setting clear goals
  • Planning to achieve those goals

Motivation and discipline are closely related and work together in tandem to help us achieve our goals. Motivation can provide the initial spark that gets us started, while discipline helps us stay the course and see things through to the end — no matter how bumpy the road might get.

But what actually drives you toward a goal — toward change — and what motivates you to keep chasing it? Understanding yourself and assessing your motives and discipline (or lack thereof) is crucial. The key to success is finding the balance between motivation and discipline. It’s important to have the initial drive to take action, but it’s equally important to have the discipline to focus and follow through. This is how you reinvent yourself by setting up long-term success and accomplishing the things you truly desire.

5-Step Reinvent Yourself Strategy — The Roadmap to Success

The concept of reinvention isn’t new; people and businesses have been reinventing themselves for centuries to adapt to and remain relevant in changing circumstances. However, in today’s fast-paced, constantly evolving social and business spheres, the need for reinvention has become even more pressing. Whether you’re an individual looking to pivot your career or a business owner trying to stay ahead of your competition, a clear, concise reinvention roadmap is crucial.

Step 1: Setting SMART Goals

You’ve likely heard this term before: SMART goals. But what does that mean? Why are they smart? SMART is an apropos name for this type of goal because they’re:

  • Specific: Can you visualize and describe exactly what you’re working toward and why it’s important in your overall reinvention plan? Be specific.
  • Measurable: Start with your desired result and work backward. What needs to happen right before you reach your goal? And right before that? Keep brainstorming each preceding event till you arrive where you are right now. Write each of these tasks or accomplishments in the correct order. You now have a specific goal, measurable in milestones.
  • Attainable: Review the milestones. Are they realistic tasks you can accomplish?
  • Relevant: Are your milestones (and your overall goal) relevant to your new direction? Your reinvented self?
  • Time-Bound: Set a date to accomplish the goal and ensure each milestone can realistically be achieved within that timeframe.

As you set and achieve goals, each act of completion rewards your motivation and improves your self-discipline.

Step 2: Incorporate Both Motivation and Discipline as Tools to Achieve These Goals

Motivation drives you to pursue goals and can come from internal or external sources, while discipline is your innate ability to follow through on those goals. Both motivation and discipline are essential in your reinvention journey.

Without motivation and discipline, it’s easy to get sidetracked or give up in the face of obstacles. Where your motivation and discipline meet is at the intersection of positive and negative reinforcement.

Motivation and positive reinforcement work hand in hand. you have a desire that’s pulling you toward a goal. Your desire to meet that goal is your motivation. As you meet small milestones along the way, you might reward yourself (positive reinforcement), which pushes you to keep going to the next milestone, and so on.

But sometimes, motivation fails. Perhaps you’ve become so bogged down in the day-to-day grind that you’ve lost sight of your goals. This is where discipline and a bit of negative reinforcement come into play. If you’ve lost sight of what you’re aiming for, remembering what you’re trying to run from may help. If you stop working toward your goal, what will happen? Will you fall back into back habits or land yourself in a bad situation? It’s not as pleasant as motivation, but this negative reinforcement can provide you with the extra boost you may need to refocus yourself on both what your goal is and why you’re trying to get there.

By following your reinvention roadmap, you can stay on track for achievement. And that’s easy to do if you’re consistently motivated, always working toward your goals, and ticking off the boxes on your way to achievement.

Step 3: Acknowledge Your Fears and Use Them to Stay Focused

It’s natural to feel fear or uncertainty when embarking on a journey of reinvention. However, it’s important to recognize that fears can hold you back from reaching your full potential. By acknowledging your fears and using them as motivation to stay focused, you can overcome any obstacles. Consider developing strategies for managing your fears, such as mindfulness techniques or seeking support from friends and loved ones. By actively addressing your fears, you can use them as tools to stay focused on achieving your reinvention goals.

Step 4: Accept Failure as a Learning Tool

No journey is without its setbacks and failures, and your road to reinvent yourself is no exception. Failure is a natural part of the process and can be an opportunity to learn and grow. By accepting failure as a learning tool, you can use it as a source of motivation to try again and do better next time. Reframe your perspective on failure and use it to set better goals, all while seeking feedback as you go.

Step 5: Celebrate the Small Wins

Understanding how to reinvent yourself and putting each step into motion can be challenging, but taking time to celebrate your progress and milestone accomplishments along the way is important. It helps you see that all your work isn’t for nothing. Recognizing and celebrating the small wins builds your momentum toward your larger goals. This can involve setting small, achievable milestones and taking time to appreciate how far you’ve come, no matter how small the accomplishment may seem.

Reinvent Yourself With Guidance from The Eighth Mile

Keep this reinvention roadmap top of mind as you learn how to reinvent yourself. For additional guidance, consider Eighth Mile Consulting’s Reinvent Yourself course. This comprehensive course covers everything you need to know to effectively change direction, reinvent yourself, and achieve your goals.

Want to achieve your full potential?

Reinvent Yourself Today!

Our experiences over the last decade, specifically transitioning from the military into the corporate world, have given me and David Neal a unique perspective on characterizing leadership. One of the questions we hear the most is, “Am I ready for leadership?”

Well, you’re the only one who can answer this. Are you ready for leadership? How do you know?

One of the signs you are ready for a leadership role is understanding and preparing for the challenges ahead. It isn’t just a matter of stepping up to the plate. You have to be ready to swing.

Take your leadership to the next level

Upgrade your leadership skills with our online courses.

Am I Ready for Leadership?

Asking the question is the first step, but not the last. In a nutshell, you’ll know you are ready for leadership when:

  • You can give great feedback. Anyone can tell someone about their horrible performance. It takes a leader to look at that performance from an objective standpoint. Offering serious, analytical feedback that’s also positive is an art. You must be constructive, while still providing accurate assessment and direction to help them along their career journey. If you often offer fellow teammates advice or constructive direction, and those teammates not only find it helpful but grab that productivity baton as if the starting pistol was just fired — congratulations. That’s a sign you are ready for leadership.
  • You’re calm, decisive, and can say no when the situation calls for it. Do your superiors and teammates often tell you how well you perform under pressure? Or maybe they give you compliments on how your decision-making skills seem to sharpen the crazier things get? These abilities are definitely prerequisites and good signs you are ready for leadership. Knowing when to say no to favors and additional projects when you honestly don’t have the time is an art.
  • Your team likes you. If you’re well-liked, you are ready for leadership. The idea that leaders have to be rough, crass, and overly demanding to maintain control is simply not true. And how many movies have proven this? Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in The Devil Wears Prada or John Milton (Al Pacino) in The Devil’s Advocate — sensing a trend here? If you’re not well-liked, you don’t stand much chance of leading the team.
  • You hold your team in high esteem but you also hold them accountable. From the moment you assume a leadership role, you also assume responsibility for every teammate who reports to you. You are ready for leadership if you share in their mistakes as much as their successes. Working and growing together is now on your shoulders, and that is probably the most important aspect of what it means to be a leader.

If this sounds doable to you, you might be ready to take that step into a leadership position. If you’re still not sure, here are some more questions to help you assess your leadership readiness.

Are You Ready for Constant Growing Pains?

Leadership isn’t a “nine-to-five” job. It requires constant evolution to remain relevant. The leader you were when you began the journey isn’t the leader you should be today. The lessons from failure and success shape your leadership style and effectiveness. When you shift roles, projects, and teams, the dynamic and the personalities change. Therefore, your approach must change. Can you adapt? You need to be able to constantly evolve.

Are You Ready to Take the Hits?

Poor leadership blames others for mediocre performance or unmotivated teams. Subject matter experts may be involved in planning and preparation, and tech experts may execute the practical and technical delivery, but the leader owns the outcome. As a leader, you need to accept responsibility for the performance of your team and provide a means to isolate them from unnecessary business friction and white noise so they can do their best work.

Are You Ready to Abandon Self-Interest?

Your co-workers are more important than you. If you genuinely care about your people, open yourself up to professional feedback on your performance from them. After all, they will influence your projects when you’re not present. By building rapport and loyalty, your team will protect your interests (aka, the team’s interests).  For example, strong leaders fight for raises for their staff, not themselves.

The team’s outputs will determine whether a leader is deserving of progression. Never take for granted those who surged, stayed late, and put their own needs aside to deliver on a goal that ultimately reflects favorably on you.

Are You Ready To Be 100% Accountable?

Team decisions are your decisions. Own them and deliver the outcomes. If something fails, it is your failure. Learn from it, and evolve. You may benefit from the team’s success in the long term, but your personal recognition cannot be your primary focus.

So…Are You Ready for Leadership?

These are our observations, and in no way are they a sequenced road map to succeeding. That is your responsibility as a leader to find and shape. David and I are passionate about leadership and investing in teams. We believe that people make a team, and teams make an organization.

If you have answered “no” to many of the above questions, then leadership may not be a good fit for you. In that case, you have three options:

  1. Make way for management to find a better leader.
  2. Become a better leader.
  3. Choose and mentor a better leader.

A useful explanation can be found in this article on change management.

On the other hand, if you have evaluated yourself honestly, believe you have what it takes to be an accountable and respectful leader for your team, and you are ready for leadership, then we want to help. We believe that a good leader can lead anyone, and knows how to be led. The Eighth Mile offers leadership courses and an 8-week personal development leadership program. To learn more, contact us today.

Contact Us

Reach out to the team to book a consult.

Have you ever found yourself stuck in a rut, feeling like you’re just going through the motions of your daily routine without any real purpose or direction? It’s a common feeling, but it doesn’t have to be a permanent state. In fact, knowing how to change habits by reinventing your habits can help you create a new and improved version of yourself that’s more in line with your goals and values.

But can you learn how to change your habits? It all starts with a willingness to change and a desire to improve. From there, you can follow these steps:

  • Identify the habits you want to change
  • Set specific and achievable goals
  • Make a plan
  • Be consistent
  • Stay flexible
  • Celebrate your progress

This is Part 2 in our 4-part Reinvent Yourself series.

Want to achieve your full potential?

Reinvent Yourself Today!

How to Change Habits by Evaluating Your Habits

Changing habits can be challenging, but it’s possible with the right mindset and approach. The first thing you must do is evaluate your current habits and determine whether they’re helping you or not.

Are Your Habits Helpful?

How do your habits influence your life? Here are a few ways to determine if your habits are helping you:

  • Aligning with your values and goals: If a habit doesn’t align with your values and goals, it’s not helping you.
  • Consider the consequences: Does it positively or negatively impact your life? If the habit has a negative impact, it’s likely not helping you.
  • Pay attention to how you feel: If a habit makes you feel good, it might help you. If it makes you feel stressed or anxious, it’s probably one you’ll want to change.
  • Evaluate your progress: If you’re making progress and feel good about your direction, your habits are likely helping you. If you’re not making progress or feel stuck, it might be time to learn how to change your habits.

Whether a habit helps you depends on your individual goals and values. It’s important to regularly evaluate your habits and make adjustments to ensure they’re supporting you on your path to success.

Making A Habit (Almost) Involuntary

Habits become almost involuntary through a process called habit formation, which occurs when behavior becomes automatic and no longer requires conscious thought. This process happens through repetition and reinforcement.

  • Repetition: When you engage in a behavior repeatedly, your brain begins to create neural pathways that make it easier to perform that behavior. The more you repeat a behavior, the stronger these pathways become, and the more automatic the behavior becomes.
  • Reinforcement: Reinforcement occurs when you’re rewarded for engaging in a behavior. The more you’re reinforced for engaging in a behavior, the more likely it is to become a habit.

Eventually, the behavior becomes so ingrained that it becomes almost — but not completely — involuntary.

You can turn good habits into almost involuntary behaviors by consistently practicing good habits and reinforcing them with rewards. New habits can replace old ones that aren’t supporting you and your goals.

Reinforcing Positive Habits

You can use several strategies to reinforce positive habits:

  • Stay motivated with achievable goals: Setting achievable goals can help you stay motivated and focused on your positive habits. Make sure to break your goals down into smaller, more manageable steps to make the process easier.
  • Celebrate your progress: Take time to celebrate your progress as you work to establish your positive habits. This could be as simple as treating yourself to something you enjoy or sharing your progress with a friend or family member.
  • Find accountability: Consider enlisting the help of a friend or family member to hold you accountable and encourage you while learning how to change habits and establish new, positive habits.
  • Use rewards: When you reach a desired outcome or milestone, reward yourself with a special treat, a little extra free time, or a special outing.
  • Track your progress: Tracking your progress can help you see how far you’ve come and how much you’ve improved. Consider using a journal, app, or spreadsheet to track your progress.

By consistently reinforcing your positive habits, you can make them more automatic and ingrained in your daily routine.

How to Change Habits By Addressing The Bad Ones

Breaking the cycle of bad habits can be an even bigger challenge than establishing good ones, but it’s possible with the right mindset and approach. Here are some strategies you can use to address and break the bad habit cycle by learning how to change habits:

  • Identify the triggers: Certain environmental cues or stimuli often trigger habits. Identifying the triggers for your habits can help you understand what prompts you to engage in that behavior. Once you know the triggers, you can try to modify them or find ways to avoid them.
  • Seek support: Changing habits can be easier when you have the support of others. Consider enlisting the help of a friend or family member to help you stay on track or seek guidance from a professional, such as a coach or therapist.
  • Be consistent: Consistency is key when it comes to breaking bad habits. Make an effort to practice your new habit every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes at a time.
  • Practice self-compassion: It’s important to be patient with yourself while you’re learning how to change habits and remember that changing takes time and effort. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you slip up or have a setback. Instead, focus on the progress you’ve made and be kind to yourself as you work to break the cycle of bad habits.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to change habits can be a difficult process, but it’s also a rewarding one. By making small, consistent changes, you can create a new and improved version of yourself that aligns with your goals and values.

Learn how to change habits and start reinventing yourself today with the Eighth Mile. Enroll in the Reinvent Yourself course and see the amazing transformation you can make in your life.

Want to achieve your full potential?

Reinvent Yourself Today!

Team building, motivation, workplace culture, and telling uncomfortable truths are the benefits of well-crafted workplace comedy. The manager who understands it builds resilient teams with confidence in their leader. The manager who doesn’t will be resented as a scold and — worse — leave teams brittle and unable to endure challenges. Workplace comedy invariably offends someone. A wise manager must balance the risk of offense against the necessity of comedy in the workplace.

Every Court Needs a Jester

The term “jester” is derived from the Anglo-Norman (Old French) words gestour or jestour, meaning storyteller or minstrel. Over time, the role of this entertainer became far more vital than mere entertainment: The jester could tell the truth that could not otherwise be told. Who could tell the king he had lost a battle? Who could declare taxes were too high or confidence in military leadership too low? This guy — unless an unwise king ordered his hapless jester beheaded.
To the wise business manager, comedy in the workplace serves the very same function — with the same caveat.

Level Up Your Leadership

View our self-paced, online courses designed to level up your leadership skills and take that next step in your career.

A Jester Beheaded

When I was a new Lieutenant, I had a soldier in my platoon I’ll call “Steve.” Steve was an experienced troublemaker with a natural charismatic aura. The other soldiers respected and looked up to him, and he in turn asserted himself socially as their representative. The secret of his success was perfectly timed and executed comedy.

Gaining Insight

Steve had the rare ability to point out the elephant in the room, the thing no one else wanted to acknowledge or address. With surgical precision, he would crack a joke that would draw attention to the forbidden and make his teammates laugh it off.
What turned this comedian into a leader was how he shaped and targeted his humor to hit everyone equally but fairly. His jokes were pointed but never mean, his demeanor was always friendly, he didn’t hold back because of rank, and his jokes always contained an element of truth. As a result, his leaders found him as valuable as his teammates, and no one felt unfairly treated. To a wise manager, he was a walking informal complaints department who provided an unofficial way to deal with problems before they became official.

Losing Perspective

To my regret, however, during a period of weakness brought on by too little sleep and too much responsibility, I lashed out at Steve when he was doing no worse than just being Steve. The result of this lapse in judgment was a break in rapport, who abruptly retreated into his metaphorical shell. I had beheaded the jester.
Suddenly, I was blinded to the needs and feelings of my men. The section commanders did an adequate job of allaying the soldiers’ concerns, but even the best section commander is somewhat detached due to rank and hierarchy. Comedy in the workplace was my back channel, and now it was gone.
Luckily, after some time had passed, Steve regained his confidence, thus restoring the team dynamic of my platoon. Once again, he became a reliable source of information. And I learned a permanent lesson at a — thankfully — temporary cost.

Gaining Perspective

In essence, the Jester is and has always been the last line of defense in the battle for common sense. They have forever been the pressure tester of ideas and the illuminator of idiocy, hypocrisies, and inconsistencies. They identify social patterns and have the courage to communicate their observations. By their very nature, they are incredibly intelligent and observant.

Political Correctness Also Kills

During my time in the infantry, I noticed it was invariably the class clowns who bonded teams. Their jokes knew few limits, and no one was exempt. An officer who could take a joke on the chin and walk it off demonstrated his strength of character and earned the respect of his team, who rightly expected he would demonstrate equal resilience in other, more challenging situations.
Conversely, how can you trust an officer with the lives of his men if he can’t even handle a joke? The teams with the best-developed comedy in the workplace were the ones who survived the greatest hardships, plain and simple. The leaders who were unable to value comedy in the workplace destroyed morale and fractured teams.

Private Sector Fun Police

When I transitioned from military officer to business management, widespread censorship hit me with the subtlety of a freight train. Even my top-secret work had never been this censorious. It was as if an unseen presence imposed an unspoken taboo that to give offense was the gravest of crimes, forbidden under any circumstances. Even a hint of workplace comedy earned the would-be jester an interrogation by the Fun Police — uptight managers who kept the workplace on edge and the workers wound tight.

Is Offense Subjective?

What is okay for one person might be highly offensive to someone else. As such, it is impossible to uphold a policy of “never offend anyone, and yet many workplaces accept that as the preferred mode of operation. Have they never learned that comedy in the workplace is the key to getting through tough times? Have they never experienced “tough times”? Perhaps Gabrielle Union was right:
“Drama can feel like therapy whereas comedy feels like there’s been a pressure and a weight lifted off of you.”
I’d seen brittleness turn to failure before, and I knew what it took to endure hardship: a sense of humor — some comedy in the workplace.

Conformity By Exhaustion

Nevertheless, the censorship was there, always pressing down. The best practices I’d learned in the field prompted “correction” so often that I, too, began to conform. Slowly, the humor drained from the workplace, and with it the insight it brought. Looking back, I see how avoiding humor translated into avoiding problems by not addressing them.
I finally realized how I’d let myself down when, at a leadership conference, I answered the question, “What do you think is the most important function of a leader?” Drawing from my own experience as a leader, I said, “Good leaders are those who can articulate and contextualize the truth.” At that moment, I realized I wasn’t living up to my own leadership standards.
Political correctness also kills. No leadership, no jester. No jester, no truth.

Offense Taken, Not Given

Though modernity may have killed the fearless jester, comedy in the workplace need not follow. Applying balance to what is acceptable (while taking subjectivity into account) is how good managers must confront the challenge. To address this balance, I’ve developed three principles:
  1. Bullying vs Banter. Banter is good-natured. Bullying intends to harm. The difference is in the intent. A wise manager divines the intent before addressing a conflict.
  2. Problem vs Person. A good jester can delineate between the problem and the person responsible, and target their joke appropriately. Subtle changes in language can mean the difference between constructive criticism and personal attack. The most proficient jester can talk about the elephant in the room and leave out the person behind the pachyderm.
  3. “Time and Place” vs. “In Your Face.” There’s a time for jokes and banter, and there’s a time for seriousness and decorum. A good jester needs to read the room, and a good manager needs to provide guidance on how to do that.
Ultimately, to fear the jester is to fear the truth. To kill the jester is to sail in willful blindness toward whatever peril might be lurking before you. Are people going to take offense? Of course. Will you allow them to destroy morale and turn your teams into fearful, wounded wrecks? Not if you want to weather the storms that inevitably lie ahead.

Comedy in the Workplace and Learning Leadership

To conclude, be mindful when silencing your jesters, particularly if they might be telling you something you need to hear. If you have a jester in your team or organization, be grateful — and careful. Too much offense might ultimately expose you to legal liability, sure. But if you behead the jester who provides truth and common sense, you may not see key issues in your team until it’s too late. Wise managers must nurture healthy, resilient, and capable teams. There’s no better way to do that than by introducing a little comedy in the workplace.

Workplace comedy is serious business — and we’re brave enough to say it. The Eighth Mile offers an 8-week leadership course where we share all the important lessons (and some hard truths) we’ve learned from our experiences as leaders. View the course page to see if this program might be a good fit for your career journey.

Contact Us

Reach out to the team to book a consult.

This is the first in our four-part series on reinventing yourself.

Reinventing yourself involves taking a step back to reflect on who you are and what you want to achieve in life, and then taking action to make those goals a reality. It can be a time of self-discovery, a time to ask, “What are my values?” as you shed old habits and ways of thinking and embrace new opportunities and challenges for personal growth. Ask yourself: What are my values? What do I want? Do I want to make a career change, or is it something deeper?”

Whether you’re looking to make a career change, pursue a new hobby, or simply become a better version of yourself, reinvention requires determination, self-awareness, and willingness to take risks. With the right mindset and approach, anyone can embark on this journey, make a career change — or a soul-level change — and create a brighter, more fulfilling future for themselves.

The first step in this process is to understand your current position and determine if you genuinely want to change. In other words, you need to know the problem.

Start by assessing the situation. What is the problem? What opportunities are available? What are your values? You should also seek out alternate frames of reference to help you understand the issues you’re facing or the aspects of yourself you want to improve or change. Remember, you can only grow when you’re challenged internally or externally, so embracing this opportunity for change can be an important step in your personal development.

If you want to make a career change or you’re considering making an overall change in your life, here are some steps to help you get started.

Identify The Reason For Wanting to Change

Is it an internal desire for personal growth or an external factor that’s driving the desire for transformation? Understanding the root cause of your desire to change can help you stay motivated and focused on your goals.

Another important factor to consider is how you want to be remembered. Ask yourself again, “What are my values?” What is your legacy, and how do you want others to remember you? Identifying why you want to change can help guide your choices, give you a long-term perspective, and help you develop a sense of perspective outside yourself. It can also inspire you to become a better version of yourself.

 

Want to achieve your full potential?

Reinvent Yourself Today!

Set Specific, Achievable Goals

Once you know the reason for wanting to change, you must set goals for what you want to accomplish. This might involve identifying specific areas of your life that you want to change or improve, such as your career, job skills, relationships, or personal habits. Set both long-term and short-term goals to help you stay on track and measure your progress. And don’t forget to break down your goals into actionable steps to help you stay focused and motivated.

Seek Support and Accountability

Of course, making a change also requires sacrifice. It’s important to identify and weigh those potential sacrifices. For example, consider who you associate with on a regular basis. Are the people in your life helping or hindering your progress?

Reinventing yourself can be a lonely process, so you’ll want to surround yourself with a supportive network of friends, family, and mentors who can offer guidance and encouragement. Consider joining a support or mastermind group or working with a coach or therapist to help you stay accountable and on track. You can also find accountability by tracking your progress and sharing it with others, such as an accountability partner or online community. However, at the end of the day, what progress you make is your responsibility, and yours alone. Whether you succeed or fail on that account lies squarely within your control.

Embrace Self-Care and Personal Development

Self-care is an essential component of personal transformation. Make time for activities that promote your physical, mental, and emotional well-being, such as exercise, meditation, or hobbies that enrich you and bring you joy. Invest in your education and seek new learning or skill-development opportunities to help you grow and develop.

Be Patient and Resilient

Change takes time and effort, and setbacks are a normal part of the process. Don’t let setbacks discourage you. Instead, use them as opportunities to learn and grow. Remember to celebrate your progress and accomplishments along the way, and stay positive and focused on your goals.

Reflect and Reassess

Check with yourself and your goals periodically to ensure you’re on track. Don’t be afraid to reassess your goals and make changes as needed. Personal transformation is a continuous process, and it’s okay to adapt and evolve as you grow and change. Keep an open mind and be open to new opportunities and challenges as they arise.

Ready to Make a Career Change?

You may think you’re ready for a new career. But is that really what needs to change, or is there more to the situation? To understand what is truly happening in your life and how you may (or may not) need to change it, you first need to:

  • Understand your current position
  • Acknowledge you want to change it
  • Identify your opportunities
  • Seek alternate frames of reference to understand what you want to change
  • Surround yourself with people who have your back
  • Think about the long term

Doing what you’ve always done and making sure you’re comfortable is all well and good. But after enough time passes, that can become stagnant and stifling, contributing to a lack of personal and professional growth. A little discomfort now for a lifetime of contentment later means everything.

By understanding your current position, identifying your goals and desired legacy, and weighing the sacrifices you would have to make, you can take the first step toward becoming the best version of yourself.

If you’re looking for help as you make a career change, the Eighth Mile could be the solution. Learn more about our latest course: Reinvent Yourself.

 

Want to achieve your full potential?

Reinvent Yourself Today!

The OODA Loop is an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. It’s also called the Boyd Cycle, named for military strategist U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd, who developed this decision-making process. In a nutshell, it is a cybernetic theory of strategic planning in business that can apply to any situation or process. By using these four distinct steps, individuals or organizations learn how to make better decisions faster.

OODA Loop-Related Terminology and Why it’s Important to Strategic Planning in Business

Before we get into the finer points of the OODA loop, how to make decisions faster, and learning to be strategic about planning for your business, there are a few terms you should be familiar with first.

  • Maneuver warfare is a military strategy of outwitting enemy forces in battle, rendering them vulnerable to attack. Maneuver warfare draws heavily on the principle of acting fast with available resources. It’s the concept from which the OODA loop originated.

  • Mental models are a way to evaluate your thoughts, which helps you understand how to make decisions faster. They help reveal and overcome any pre-existing assumptions that could prevent you from being strategic in planning for your business.

  • Situational awareness describes an individual’s knowledge of a situation and how much of that knowledge they receive from sources outside their direct influence. Drawing information from multiple sources is crucial for making better decisions faster rather than relying solely on your own perception.

  • Reaction time is the time it takes you to react to a stimulus. Tracking reaction time as tasks get added to a process can help planners optimize strategies.

The 4 Steps of OODA

Like other problem-solving methods, the OODA loop is an interactive, iterative process that involves repeating the cycle, observing and measuring results, reviewing and revising the initial decision, and advancing to the next step. While the process is not always simple or linear, the four phases are relatively easy to understand.

  1. Observe: The first step in the OODA Loop is to observe what’s going on in your environment. This step includes taking in as much information as possible from the surrounding environment. This includes gathering intelligence and looking for patterns, signals, and cues that may indicate either a threat or opportunity in your industry.

  2. Orient: The second step of the process is to orient yourself in response to what you’ve observed based on your company’s goals and values. This is an evaluative period of the loop, in which you decide whether your company should respond to a given circumstance and what that response might look like.

  3. Decide: After you have developed a number of potential responses to the situation, the third step is to choose a course of action. Perhaps you choose to engage the “enemy” directly, or perhaps you decide to pursue an alternate route to the same destination. Either way, you must be prepared to fully commit to this single course of action.

  4. Act: Finally, after gathering data and determining the best course of action, the fourth and final phase is to put your chosen plan into effect.

But that’s not the end of the process — it’s called a “loop” for a reason. After you’ve acted, you must return to the beginning to observe how your action has affected the environment and how that will affect your next move.

Only 32% of data available to enterprises is put to work. The remaining 68% is unleveraged.

Seagate

Use the OODA Loop to Make Faster Decisions in Strategic Business Planning

Military strategies are designed to be effective under chaotic, conflicting scenarios and allow for versatile reactions. In the business world, agility is essential for any company to succeed. Organizations that can adapt or react the fastest are the ones that win. Thus, the OODA loop has seamlessly translated into strategic planning in business.

So how might this look in your business?

Let’s say a competitor has a wildly successful online presence that you’d like to emulate or overtake. You can use the OODA Loop to learn how to make decisions faster and be strategic about planning for your business.

  1. Observe the competitor’s actions online. What do they do? How do they interact with customers? What platforms and strategies are they using?
  2. Orient your company’s online marketing strategy while staying true to your unique business persona and values.
  3. Decide on the online marketing strategy that’s most appropriate and feasible for your company.
  4. Act by putting your strategy into effect.
  5. Start the cycle again. Observe the response to your new approach and orient/decide/act again. Repeat until you achieve your desired outcome.
You’ll always be in some phase of the loop with your decisions. Maintaining awareness of your position will improve your decision-making skills and the outcome.

Online Leadership Guidance from Eighth Mile

Using the OODA Loop in your business takes more than following a simple series of steps to make decisions faster. It requires self-awareness, honesty, courage, and plenty of practice. The Eighth Mile helps business leaders develop highly effective leadership skills that build dedicated, high-performance teams. Whether you’re an entry-level to mid-career employee, a new manager, or an entrepreneur, our eight-week online leadership course will help you make decisions that make a difference. Get in touch to learn more.

As leaders and managers, part of our responsibility is to find credible information to assist practical and informed decision-making. Unfortunately, decisions often have to be made on deadline — without all the necessary information available. Decision makers in these circumstances must leverage their management experience to estimate the likely risk-to-reward ratio of a business decision and act within their authority on limited information. How to make better decisions faster is a skill all leaders must learn, or else they may be left behind.
 

Indecision Is a Decision

From my own experiences, I have often observed leaders who are very uncomfortable making decisions without “all” the information. But to not make a decision is also a choice. In a competitive environment, indecision is the kiss of death: Situational opportunities get snatched up by competitors who are more adaptable and agile. Decisiveness now on an incomplete set of facts beats a perfectly informed decision later — provided the educated guess was close enough.
 
Military strategist Carl von Clausewitz coined the phrase “the fog of war” to describe uncertainty within the complex, high-stakes arena of military conflict. It addresses the complexities of gathering accurate and timely information in a constantly changing environment against thinking opponents.
 
Key to the “fog” metaphor is the importance of how to make command decisions faster with what little information one has. Fog is also everywhere; there is no place to hide from it. Indecision does not lie outside the Fog of War, but within.
 
In war, achieving goals requires maintaining momentum. Momentum requires action. The skilled commander must timely act within the Fog of War, maintaining momentum on limited information rather than losing by default to indecision.
 

No Perfect Decisions in the Fog of War

So why can’t people conceive of making better decisions in the absence of “all” the information? The simple answer is fear of making the wrong decision. With no information at all, this prudent caution is perfectly understandable. But there is no prudence in wasting time on an endless search for the “perfect decision” because it does not exist, except maybe in hindsight.
 
If there is no such thing as a time-constrained “perfect decision,” and if all decisions are time-constrained, making better decisions while maintaining momentum is the wiser course. A leader whose decisions are rash and ill-considered doesn’t stay a leader for long. Overcompensating for this, however, is no better.
 
What a wise leader will find is that the most effective balance lies closer to action. From my own experience in competitive environments, I’ve found that making faster decisions that are good 80% of the time beats 100% of the decisions made too late. Making better decisions while maintaining momentum creates the most reliable recipe for projects succeeding on time.
 

In the Fog of War, Information Is on a Budget

On a time budget, gathering data is not income but expense. To make better decisions, your information needs to be worth more than the time it takes to gather. For every data-gathering endeavor, ask yourself, “Am I gathering the right amount of the right data? Was the time I spent worth the cost?”
 
Sir Richard Branson once said, “There’s no such thing as perfect decision making — only hindsight can determine whether you made the ‘right call.’”
 
One of Branson’s techniques places greater emphasis on a small set of key questions, gathering the most accurate information possible on a small set of parameters to inform the broader decision. “Perfect information” on a narrow set of specifics is a viable technique — it’s the time budget that matters. If budgeting all the time on a narrow set of specifics provides a way to make better decisions faster, it’s a good method.
 
Too often, people appear to be gathering information without a good understanding of what decision it will influence. In these instances, people are most certainly busy; unfortunately, they are likely collecting the wrong information. Quantity without quality is wasteful spending of the time budget. Getting the right data and only the right data is how to make decisions faster.
 

4 Ways to Manage the Fog of War

As a trained leader, there are several things you can do to assist your team members so they spend the minimum of their precious time collecting the most valuable information:
  • Prioritize your questions of fact. Determine what one must know versus what is nice to know. In some cases, a metric applied to the data itself might signal the end of the useful collection. Always place greater emphasis on answering questions that will determine go/no go criteria for the project.
  • Route the right questions to the right stakeholders. Too often, we engage the wrong people with our critical questions. When engaging with subject matter experts, ensure that your question drives toward a decision and that you ask in language or vernacular appropriate to your audience, as words often mean different things to different professionals. Don’t make the common mistake of assuming every project manager knows complex engineering terminology.
  • Streamline data collection toward specific questions targeted to make better decisions. Effective project managers adequately define the project scope and ensure the project remains oriented toward a measurable end-state. If you are collecting information that does not target how to make decisions faster, stop collecting it.
  • Sequence your data collection to align toward project milestones. Get what you need most first. Do, however, keep one eye on preserving data you might need later.

Make Better Decisions Within the Fog of War

If you wait too long for too much information, you can miss critical opportunities as projects and situations evolve. The Fog of War will never part to reveal the perfect decision until it’s too late to matter. Do you have enough information to make a “good enough” decision now? Make it. Learn how to make decisions faster, and you’ll find you can make better decisions.
 
These principles inform our work at The Eighth Mile Consulting. We work with good people who are ready to take a critical inventory of their skills and make the changes necessary to become better leaders for their teams and businesses. If you’re facing the uncertainty of the Fog of War, we’re a good ally to have on your side. Take a look at our 8-week online leadership course and see how The Eighth Mile can help you make better decisions faster.

Adults make over 35,000 decisions each day. Many of the choices you make are automatic and proceed without much conscious consideration, such as getting out of bed or the route you take to the office. Other decisions carry more weight and require additional time and thought before making a judgment. But what about making decisions at work? Do you have a decision-making method to determine the right course of action?

Most of us have never been formally coached on how to make important decisions. If you’ve had difficulty making decisions at work, or if the calls you’ve been making are resulting in undesired outcomes, there might be something wrong. Not necessarily with the decisions themselves, but with how you are making them.

What if you took a more methodical approach to decision-making? Decision-making methods do exist. In fact, the military wouldn’t be able to function without a system for making rational decisions we call the FASD method. Could implementing a similar decision-making method at work help you develop and hone your decision-making skills?

Take your leadership to the next level

Upgrade your leadership skills with our online courses.

What Is the FASD Decision-Making Method?

The FASD approach is a military decision-making method that provides a framework for making informed decisions. This method guides choice-making with a systematic approach. To use this method for making decisions at work, you first determine the possible courses of action. Next, measure each of the options against the four FASD principles:

  1. Feasibility

  2. Acceptability

  3. Sustainability

  4. Discernibility

Both the Australian and American military use a variation of these terms in their decision-making methods. Let’s cover each one.

Feasible

Is the course of action feasible? Meaning can it be done within any restrictions you may have, including physical limitations, access to resources, and so on? Consider the amount of time required, the location, and the manpower needed.

For a simple example, let’s say your company’s fax machine has broken, and you are trying to choose whether to repair it or replace it. Is one option more financially feasible than the other? Do you have the staffing capacity to spend time comparing and testing new models? What about physical space–would a new machine take up more room, and can dedicate the square footage to this piece of equipment?

If it passes the feasibility test, you can move on to the next parameter.

Acceptable

Take the time to do a risk assessment. If a given option plays out as you expect it to, what are the consequences? Define the risks and determine if they are more detrimental than doing nothing. Balance the cost of this choice, which includes the risk involved in relation to the potential gain.

Continuing with the broken fax machine example, are the consequences of replacing vs. repairing the fax machine acceptable? If you replace it, the cost will be more significant, but repairing it may only buy time until another breakdown. Which option is more acceptable to you?

Sustainable (or Suitable)

In other words, are you capable of following through with this decision and maintaining the outcome on a long-term basis? Also, take a look at suitability — does the end result effectively resolve the problem you set out to solve with this decision-making method?

Referring back to our example, will the company be able to absorb the cost of replacing the fax machine, or will it do irreparable harm to the budget? Or, if you repair it, how long will it last until it breaks down again, thus incurring another cost?

Discernible

Lastly, look at whether each course of action is discernible. If the options you have identified at the beginning are not significantly different from each other, then you aren’t really making a decision — or rather, you’ve already made the decision, and who knows if it was the right one? If this is the case, return to the beginning of the process and redefine your potential courses of action, making sure each one solves the initial problem through a distinct and differing result.

In this case, our example problem of replacing vs. repairing broken equipment might have the same outcome if all other factors, such as cost and downtime, are the same. If that’s the situation, you should consider what problem you are really trying to solve. Is your end goal to send faxes? Or is it simply that you need a secure way of sending documents to clients? Are there other ways of accomplishing that goal other than a fax machine? Can you pivot to electronic signatures via an online platform or email? Or would you benefit from in-person meetings to go over these documents? Now, instead of tying yourself to a “choice” where you ultimately up in the same place no matter which option you choose (still using a fax machine), you have three truly unique options to choose from (fax machine, electronic sending, or in-person meetings).

From there, you can take the options that have passed the FASD criteria and conduct a course of action analysis to make a better and more informed decision at work.

Why the FASD Method Is Better Than Most Decision-Making Methods

The FASD decision-making method gives decision-makers the steps to complete a thorough assessment and review before making critical calls. This approach to decision-making is better than most others for various reasons. To understand this, let’s take a quick look at some other common ways decisions are made.

Common Alternatives to the FASD Decision-Making Method

Some of the common decision-making methods used to make decisions at work today include:

  • Commanding: Making decisions on your own without outside input

  • Consulting: Considering input from a small group of peers to make a decision

  • Voting: A group consensus where the majority rules

Each of the above methods fails to include one crucial step that the FASD masters: setting up the game properly. To make truly informed decisions as a leader in business, you first need to develop feasible options to compare. Each option has to be able to stand on its own merit and be entirely different (not just a slight deviation from the same plan).

The FASD method ensures that you’re choosing from the right set of choices. Assessing each course of action against the four principles above provides clarity in two ways. First, it acts as screening criteria to ensure each option is thoroughly considered. This prevents proceeding with a decision that fails to meet one of the FASD principles. Second, it enhances problem-solving abilities by requiring a thorough understanding of the situation before making any rash decisions to solve the problem.

When you adopt the FASD decision-making method, you can find your true power as a leader by adopting a military-like approach to your business. Doing a thorough review of your options before you choose one removes subjectivity and impulsive conclusions from your process, thereby earning you more respect from your team.

Take Your Decision-Making Method to the Next Level

Learning the right methods for how to make decisions at work can be a daunting task. If you feel this way, you are not alone. Luckily, there is help. At The Eighth Mile Consulting, our goal is to work with good people looking to improve themselves as employers and leaders.

If you’re looking for lessons that will take your leadership to the next level, take a look at our 8-week online leadership course to see if it might help you make better decisions at work and become a better leader for your team.

Contact Us

Reach out to the team to book a consult.

Some time ago, I posted this on LinkedIn, on the topic of leadership.

Word on black background: Your reputation is your real business card

In response, I got many references to a popular John Wooden quote challenging that claim:

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

I admit fully that John Wooden is a smarter guy than me, and this quote does raise an important distinction and connection. In essence, Wooden is saying that by consistently adhering to strong personal values (in other words, having a good character), a good professional reputation will follow. I don’t disagree with this equation. But when it comes to being a leader, which one is really more important?

What Does It Mean to Be a Leader?

Before we can start to answer that question, we need to understand what a leader really is.

Forbes defines leadership in the following way:

“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.”

In other words, leadership stems not from authority or power, but from having the ability to guide and rally others. A leader leads people, regardless of whether they are “direct reports.” True leadership, it seems, speaks more to the service of others instead of a reliance on formal structures and authorities.

If we agree that a leader influences others, regardless of their formal role, then surely a leader’s professional reputation is an incredibly important indicator of how they are doing. You might even say that one’s reputation is a social litmus test. 

  • Does this leader communicate effectively? 
  • Are they able to align people around a shared intent? 
  • Are they clear on their expectations and reasoning? 
  • Are they ready to face adversity or problems?

What Influences Influence the Most?

I am fortunate to have worked alongside some of the most amazing and influential leaders in the world, all of whom have had excellent professional reputations. Even when they had to make unpopular decisions, the respect people had for them never wavered. Because they were consistent and authentic, their followers trusted them no matter what. Leaders like that are an incredibly valuable resource, particularly in complex environments characterized by uncertainty and confusion. Even if all they do is make tough calls, they still manage to leave nothing but positivity in their wake.

It is important to know that it was other people who took the leader’s message to different forums. These people are known as “evangelists.” They go out of their way to tout the leader’s message and character, simply because they believe in it that much. The power of good character and social influence can spawn these ultra-loyal followers whose support can bolster the leader’s professional reputation. 

A Good Leader, Objectively Speaking

On the flip side, we have those who develop professional reputations that are not aligned with their intent or values.

Say an individual joined an organization with one approach in mind, only to find that the organization’s culture or goals are completely at odds with that mindset. Because of this disconnect, the individual may develop a poor reputation that is not a true depiction of their character. Viewing the situation subjectively, without fully understanding the context, they may very well look like a “bad” leader.

If we look at the situation objectively, we see that both sides–the leader and the organization–played a part in lowering this person’s social influence and professional reputation. However, the leader must be the one to decide where to go from here. If they are truly of good character, they should be able to apply what they learned from this misstep and identify a better position for themselves in the future. If they do that successfully, they will repair their professional reputation in no time.

The Matter of Legacy

Like many of us, one of my personal life goals is to leave a positive legacy as a “good person.” That legacy will be measured not in dollars and cents, but in the number of people that surround my deathbed, watching over me with love and support. It is in the positive message I hope to leave behind.

A person’s legacy is a form of reputation. It is what remains alive when we have left. So, while a good character may be the font from which a good reputation springs, reputation is what lingers long after we are gone.

In Conclusion

It is my firm belief that the best leaders commit themselves to the pursuit of truth in every respect. That includes the truth about themselves, their performance, their teams, and their impacts.

As leaders, we cannot be so quick to discount the importance of one’s professional reputation. It tells you how your message impacts others and where you need to improve as a leader.

At Eighth Mile Consulting, we aim to help those interested in genuine self-improvement grow into better leaders. We offer individualized coaching as well as an online leadership course that informs on everything from motivating team members to improving your decision-making.