Training Magazine

It’s a familiar story. A high-potential leader with exceptional performance receives a promotion and then begins to struggle. Lack of follow-through, over-managing, and difficulty meeting deadlines. Despite all of the dedication and hard work, a lack of success. But this isn’t necessarily a sign of failure. It could be an example of misalignment. Leadership alignment isn’t just about having the right person in the right position.

Curiosity is not a nice-to-have; it is how business actually works when it works well. I learned that in the most practical classroom possible, a Frito-Lay route truck at 4 a.m. Stacking racks, talking with store managers, and watching what moved off the shelf taught me that one question, asked at the right moment, can change everything. Later, as I moved from the truck to leadership roles and then into consulting, I saw the same pattern repeat.

1 POSTS Debra Clary is a leadership strategist, researcher, and executive coach with more than four decades of leadership experience at some of the world’s most iconic companies, including Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Jack Daniel’s, and Humana.

Excuse Patterns That Hold You Back There’s a fine line between reasons and excuses. Reasons lead to action; excuses defend inaction. Here are a few excuse patterns, or saboteurs of action, that we have all likely employed. “I’M NOT READY ENOUGH YET.” This excuse is clearly rooted in the fear of failure. If this thought prevents you from acting, ask yourself: What would happen if that were true, and you did the thing anyway? What would the best – and worst-case performance scenarios for you look like?

Home Authors Posts by Christopher O. H. Williams Please Help Shape the Future of Training Can you provide some illumination into your organization’s training spending, staffing, delivery, and technology usage for our 2026 Training Industry Report? This resource will help shape the future of training—plus you could win a $50 AMEX gift card for participating. Share your input. Turn Stories into Learning Impact Learn how to use storytelling to make learning memorable, relatable, and effective.

Accounting firm EisnerAmper sought to increase employee engagement year-over-year as measured by its annual employee engagement survey and, by extension, improve team dynamics. It specifically targeted peer relationship scores and a billable hours target across participating teams to directly link improved team dynamics with enhanced productivity and client service delivery. Program Details EisnerAmper’s Me to We to Lead program aims to help the firm achieve those goals.

Explore how true leadership demonstration sets effective leaders apart; it is about proof, not just words or titles. Leadership isn’t declared. It is demonstrated. Leadership has become one of the most overused and misunderstood words in business. There. I said it. Someone had to. It shows up in mission statements, onboarding decks, strategy meetings, and every glossy culture slide known to humankind. The assumption seems to be that if we repeat the word often enough, leaders will somehow materialize.

1 POSTS John Murphy is a Leadership and Client Experience Strategist. He is also the Founder and Principal of Slaney Consulting.

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Group,Or,Team,Of,Business,People,Engaged,In,A,Working In 1982, Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson published “The One Minute Manager,” a parable about a young man searching for an effective manager. It spent three years on The New York Times Best Sellers list, sold more than 15 million copies, and revolutionized the way people thought about leadership. The book’s power lay not in models or acronyms—but in story.