Words to Lead by...

Practical perspectives for today’s leader from Lee J. Colan

• All great things start as one small thing.
• A life filled with positive attitude is also filled with positive impact.
• Life's rewards go to those who let their actions rise above their excuses.
• Those who give the best of themselves get the best from others.
• A single act does make a difference...it creates a ripple effect that can be felt many miles and people away.

• Live your company values before you communicate them to your employees.
• Corporate culture is nothing more than a compilation of behaviors. So, culture change is really about behavior modification.
• Organizational change is just a concept that is brought to life by individuals who change.
• The old assertion that ‘the happy employee is the productive employee’ was refuted long ago. In fact the reverse is true: the productive worker is the happy worker. Therefore, we must change employees’ behavior then their hearts will follow.
• More companies die from organizational indigestion than die from organizational expansion.

• Saying ‘Yes’ to one thing always means saying ‘No’ to something else.
• If you do not take care of the little things over the long term, you won’t take care of the big things.
• The biggest challenge for today's business leaders is not the lack of well-founding principles for running an excellent company, but the lack of disciplined application of those principles.
• Measure what matters, then manage what you measure.
• A blurred company vision yields diffused employee efforts.

• High revenue growth forgives many sins.
• Leaders who manage growth most effectively, force themselves to get off the treadmill of working in their business and step into the eagle’s nest to work on their business.
• The entrepreneur says, “The next deal is king,” while the leader says, “The customer is king.”

• Those who underestimate the intelligence of their employees generally overestimate their own.
• Great leaders appreciate their employees, not just their contributions.
• Employees who are searching for answers typically fill in the blanks with the worse case scenario.
• The most important conversation you will ever have is the one with yourself.