Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

I found a new leadership book that does an exceptional job in short, digestible chapters, describing how to lead in today’s environment.

Author Gifford Thomas wrote The Blueprint of Leadership: Strategies For A New Era: Build Trust, Inspire Teams and Achieve Extraordinary Results

It is absolutely worth the read.

Starting out with a quote from John Maxwell, “Everything rises on falls on leadership.”, Thomas whets the appetite with a quick story about Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO.

“…if your culture is toxic and your leaders are ineffective, your potential is already capped.”

Other great lines that stick out:

•”True leadership is not defined by a title, a corner office or the authority to command. It’s fundamentally defined by one measurable outcome; growth. If your presence, mentorship, and guidance fail to cultivate development in the people around you, then you simply can’t call yourself a leader.”

•”In the strategic boardroom, discussions often center on market share, innovation pipelines, and quarterly profits. Yet, one of the most significant -and often underestimated factors impacting a company’s long-term financial health is the cost of losing good employees”

•”Effective collaboration is no longer just about putting knowledgeable people in a room; it is about creating a “People-First” ecosystem where those individuals feel safe enough to be brilliant.”

Leadership creates the environment. Culture determines what happens inside that environment. And the people in that environment ultimately determine what an organization can accomplish.

We spend a tremendous amount of time building business plans, strategic plans and financial forecasts. But perhaps we should spend just as much time building the leadership blueprint that allows those plans to become reality.

Are the people around you growing?

Do they feel valued enough to stay?

Do they feel safe enough to challenge an idea, speak up or bring their best thinking to the table?

Those aren’t soft questions. They are leadership questions—and increasingly, business questions.

Every leader leaves a blueprint behind. The question is whether the people who follow us will be stronger, more capable and more confident because we were part of their journey.

That seems like a pretty good measure of leadership to me.

Have a blessed weekend!

Eric