Happy New Year!
I hope 2025 is off to a good start for all of you.
Many people consider the start of a new year as an opportunity to start a few good habits, break a bad habits, or otherwise improve. Unfortunately, many such resolutions fade quickly—but they can stick if you’re committed, reasonable, and have a few resources to help you.
With that in mind, if you’d like to take your leadership at work to the next level, here are few items to get you started. You might consider (1) adopting a few leadership principles from the military, (2) listening to a few podcast episodes, or (3) engaging in a full leader development program. Below you’ll find opportunities for all three of those.
1. Adopt a few leadership principles from the military.
Many useful models of leadership behaviors and traits exist across all of the U.S. military branches. The U.S. Navy continues to evolve its models, but the one we had to memorize way back when I first started my Navy journey focused on 11 leadership principles.
They’re similar to ones listed by other services (such as the U.S. Army), but given that I learned them from the Navy—in fact, I had to memorize all of them in order at some point during that first year—I’m attributing them to my particular branch of service.
Revisiting them now, I find that these 11 principles comprise a set of useful ideas. Like any model, it’s incomplete, but I think you’ll find that the principles within this model are fairly universal and full of good advice—regardless of whether the context is the government, a non-profit or any part of the private sector.
Here are the 11 principles:
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Know yourself and seek self-improvement
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Be technically and tactically proficient
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Know your people and look out for their welfare
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Keep your people informed
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Set the example
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Make sure the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished
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Train your unit as a team
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Make sound and timely decisions
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Develop a sense of responsibility among your people
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Employ your command in accordance with its capabilities
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Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions
You can learn more about all of them by clicking here.
2. Listen to a few podcast episodes.
The world is now awash in podcasts. Some are excellent; some are terrible. Although it’s a been a while since Chris Everett and I have published new episodes, I’m proud of the some 130+ episodes of The Indigo Podcast that we’ve released thus far. Here are few to consider as you begin the new year.
New Year, New Habits, New You
This episode delves into the idea of new year resolutions: should you make them, goal-setting and what works, and how to create new habits. Here’s the episode post, or you can listen on Spotify below.
Reflect on How You Lead—and Then Lead Better
A lot of what people know about leadership and organizations is based only on their own thoughts, observations, and maybe some pop psychology books. In our experience, much of what we hear people saying about leadership is just wrong.
In this episode, we discuss how learning about leadership through unthoughtful observation doesn’t work, how we might think about our leadership as a product that we need to iterate based on evidence-based practice, and implications for all of us. Here’s the episode post, or you can listen on Spotify below.
What it Takes to be an Executive
What does it really take to be an effective senior leader? Beyond just getting promoted, what is it about people at higher levels that helps them genuinely succeed in those roles? In this episode, we explore what skills people need to lead at different levels along with paths toward gaining those skills. Here’s the episode post, or you can listen on Spotify below.
3. Engage in a full leader development program.
The reason we’ve been away from recording and releasing new episodes of The Indigo Podcast for a while is that we’ve been fully immersed in creating and delivering our new flagship leader development program.
It’s called Good Leaders Do This™, and we were pleased to deliver it with a truly wonderful group of leaders at Shook Construction in 2024.
We’re set to deliver it again with a new group of Shook Construction leaders in 2025, and we’d love to explore what it might look like for your organization.
If robust-yet-practical program that’s built for busy professionals seems like something you’d like to learn more about, here’s what to do:
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Download this overview of the program—click on the link below—and share it with others in your organization.
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Then, contact us to learn more! Use this contact form to reach us.
We developed this curriculum because we believe that the world is better when people flourish at work.
Good Leaders Do This™ is based upon decades of research, industry best practices, and real-life experience in organizations. It delivers the insights, knowledge, and skills needed for real leaders to succeed in today’s dynamic business environment—and we’d love to explore it more with you.
Above all, I hope that 2025 brings you peace, connection, and prosperity. I wish you the very best, and thanks for being a part of our community.
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