Is the leadership crisis really about a lack of skill—or is it something deeper? In this powerful post, Dr. Rob McKenna makes the case that the true crisis in leadership is a crisis of trust. Drawing on insights from the WiLD Trust Index, he shows how many leaders are unknowingly surrounded by low-trust environments—and why trust can’t be built without doing the personal work first.
This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being whole. Whole leaders lead with clarity, courage, and care—and it’s this kind of leadership that fuels real trust, high performance, and lasting impact.
If you care about growing as a leader or shaping the next generation of leadership in your organization, this is a must-read.
Every person you know has a story occurring at the center of their identity and their progress that is too often expressed as an unanswered question: How do I connect my driving purpose to what I am doing every day? We ask it in different ways, but at the core of who we are as human beings is the question that connects the invisible pieces of our hearts with the visible pieces of our actions.
True leadership requires the courage to let go of what’s good in order to receive what’s better. Whether it’s possessions, positions, or plans, holding loosely allows us to lead with open hands, ready for transformation, collaboration, and God’s greater purpose.
You did it! You started a business with nothing more than a dream and a willingness to roll up your sleeves. You worked hard, really hard, and the business grew. You didn’t know what you were doing half the time, but you figured it out. You made it up as you went, and now you’re leading your very own multi-million dollar business.
The fastest way to lose sight of your business is to stop listening to your customers. What you think is happening inside your company and what your customers are actually experiencing might be two completely different stories. Too often, leaders rely on assumptions instead of real feedback—and that gap can cost you growth, loyalty, and trust.
In this post, Convene Chair Mike Edwards shares how to check in with your customers in meaningful, non-intrusive ways—and how to turn their insights into quick, high-impact improvements.
In Iraq in 2014 you could tell if someone voted by the purple color of their finger which had been dipped in ink. About 28 countries have used “election ink” to indicate a voter had cast their preference for a candidate. When you or your team members say, “I choose him or her to lead,” in their city, county, state or country, they are exercising a right that guides their future. They are saying, “this is how I believe it should be”.
Management retreats, Board of Directors meetings and strategy planning sessions are common practices in almost every business. They can range from intense, creative, and disciplined approaches to recreational getaways, and everywhere along that continuum. Our challenge to you and your management team is “How effective are your annual planning retreats, considering the resources (time, money and people) devoted to them?”
Traditionally the human resources (HR) department has struggled to become a key player on the executive team. Executives have not understood what would happen if they took a strategic approach to HR and how it would impact an organization growing from transactional to transformational within its processes.
Strategic Human Resource Planning (SHRP) is a synergistic process intersecting an organization’s management practices and human resource practices to bring about efficient and satisfied human capital within an organization.
Once the process is in place, SHRP becomes the road for a transformational HR department, providing committed employees and resources, strategically aligned to fulfill the key objectives and metrics of the organization.
A strategically aligned human resource department will have every decision, action, and initiative it undertakes focused directly or indirectly on supporting the fulfillment of the organization’s annual objectives and be able to share “how so” if asked.
The SHRP process is pivotal for understanding how a firm effectively manages people to support one’s organizational strategy and create a competitive advantage. The SHRP process contains six (6) key result-focused areas, with each area being strategically vital to support the objectives and mission of an organization through the human resources department. All initiatives ultimately fall under one of these key areas, with specific topics as sub-headings. The key result areas include:
Determining the Organizational Climate Towards Your Human Capital
Fulfilling Human Capital Needs
Acquiring Human Capital
On-boarding Human Capital
Developing Human Capital
Retaining Human Capital
The word “transaction” literally means to “go through” or complete an action. For the purpose of Human Resource Management (HRM), transaction is taking content, either internal or legal, and placing it in a process or system that is necessary for the legal and administrative aspects of HRM to be completed. Transactions include, but are not limited to, payroll, attendance, benefits, hiring, feedback, discipline, performance monitoring, terminations, workers’ compensation to name a few.
Any process or system can be transactional in nature if the process is followed correctly. The real question is what was the quality of the process i.e. when the transaction took place, was it transformational in nature and promoting a change in the quality of a person or process for the enhanced betterment of those involved, including but not limited to, other employees, the team, department, and/or organization. What was transformed as a result of the process? …or was the transaction simply “completed”, not taking in to account the impact on the people or organization (so often the case)?
One key focus of HRM within the various necessary transactional processes, is to have the processes presented in a transformational manner that focuses on both the employee and key departmental initiatives and organizational objectives. Then and only then can the process become strategic in nature.
The first two areas are assessments that support the planning process.
1 - Determining the Organizational Climate Towards Your Human Capital Management
4 key questions are asked with a Line-of-sight focus.
Does my organization have a clear vision, mission and set of values?
Does my organization regularly conduct a SWOT analysis et al?
Does my organization set both organization and department objectives et al?
Does my organization display a managerial attitude that HR is vital to its’ success?
2 - Fulfilling Human Capital Needs
Today HR is responsible for many areas. Assessing the fulfillment of human capital needs is a key focus of HR. Once assessed, it allows an HR department to determine if they are fulfilling the current administrative and functional needs of the organization while looking deeper strategically. The question to be asked; “is HR demonstrating a timely responsibility in the KEY transactional areas that can impact the strategy of the organization and result in transformation?
3 - Acquiring Human Capital
Companies with better selection capabilities report a 20% increase in company performance.
4 - On-boarding Human Capital
When on-boarding human capital, every part of the process becomes a key variable within the employee’s orientation in to the organization. What are the total costs and time for on-boarding?
5 - Developing Human Capital
Solid training & talent development programs have a 46% positive impact on organizational performance and retention. Most important, growing others builds trust.
6 - Retaining Human Capital
Turnover, the opposite of retention, is clearly one benchmark that demonstrates the value an organization places on human capital. What programs are in place to support longevity in the organization?
Being strategic is a philosophy resulting in action. When an HR department is being a strategic partner within an organization, they are ensuring that every transaction, every initiative, every action is focusing on meeting the objectives and metrics of the organization within the 6 KEY RESULT areas of the Strategic Human Resource Plan. The strategy is focused on the organization and/or the objectives of other departments:
Determining the Organizational Climate Towards Your Human Capital
Fulfilling Human Capital Needs
Acquiring Human Capital
On-boarding Human Capital
Developing Human Capital
Retaining Human Capital
By assisting the departments to achieve their initiatives and results focusing on these key result areas of the SHRP will assist the HR department to think, act and respond consistently in a strategic manner to the other departments and the organization as a whole.
Whenever anything is carried out in the HR department, transactional or developmental in origin, the employee, if asked, should always be able to share the transformational aspects of what is being carried out and how the action or process is strategically assisting the organization to reach its annual objectives and metrics within the vision, mission, and values of the organization.
If this cannot or does not occur chaos, strife, miscommunication and distrust are the outcomes.
When it does occur, and only when, HR will be implementing culture change in the organization that will bring about synergized impact moving towards becoming nothing short of “good to great”!
Ron is both president and founder of Synergistic Resource Associates, a full service human resources (HR) / development boutique consultancy group that successfully brings about strategic transformational change for both marketplace and ministry organizations.
Research is emerging from King’s College, London, suggesting that post-infection immunity to Covid-19 may fall off drastically in the months following infection and recovery. Researchers followed 59 patients and 6 healthcare workers with confirmed Covid cases: gathering and analyzing sequential serum samples for 94 days following the onset of symptoms. The objective? Provide insight into the human antibody response to Covid-19 infection, uncover how long antibody levels are maintained by the body, and find out whether they will provide protection from re-infection for patients who recover.
While the world is in crisis and no one is sure what will happen next with the global economy, your customers’ priorities, needs, and motivations are changing by the minute. Whether you lead a consumer-facing or B2B organization, your customers are distracted by the chaos that is happening around them.
