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Ensuring ‘quality of life’ for your business

As a leader, you are responsible for everything - especially the “quality of life” that you create in your business. As individuals, we make choices regarding how we choose to live our lives. As spouses and parents, we make choices regarding family, lifestyle and how to raise our children. But leading a company is an entirely different responsibility. As the leader, every action you take, every decision you make, how you show up at work every day, how you praise, how you discipline and how you step up and lead your company through the inevitable challenges it will encounter, dictate the quality of life of your business.

When a business meanders from one crisis to the next, its quality of life is compromised. Whether it’s a cash crisis, performance crisis, or contaminated culture crisis, there is a leader who “led” it there. In contrast, when a business is thriving, dynamic and profitable, there is a leader who led it there through good decision-making, a sense of urgency and accountability to the vision.

How would you describe the quality of life you created for your business? Is it inspiring, engaging, nurturing, courageous, determined and prosperous for you and your employees? If it’s anything less, consider the following strategies:


  • Are you leading and really in the game? Challenging economic times and the general stress of leading a business can wear you down and cause you to withdraw. It’s time to snap out of it and rekindle your passion for leadership. How do you snap out of it? The first step is to take ownership of the situations you created. Otherwise, you’ll just be firing blame off on everyone and everything around you.

  • Define the quality of life you want from your business: Why did you start your company? Why did you want to be a leader? What were the rewards you were seeking? You must be able to define what you want your business to provide in order to achieve it.

  • Define the quality of life you want for your business: This is pretty high-level thinking that you really need to immerse yourself in. I’m not talking just profitability and making money - making money is an outcome. Dig deep to define the principles, values, opportunities, engagement and how your company can provide extraordinary futures for you and every employee. Lead your company to a better place. Stop wallowing in your current reality.

  • Get in touch with your passion to do great things: Leaders do great things. Leaders keep the clarity of the vision alive. Leaders keep the drumbeat steady to maintain momentum. Leaders lift their team when it’s down. Leaders take their company to a better place. Raising the bar to achieve that infamous “next level” grabs everyone’s attention. It delivers a challenge worthy of the entire company’s efforts. What’s “great” for you?


I put everything I have every day into lifting and improving the quality of life of my company. For me, it’s personal. It’s real. It’s what I devoted my working life to. And, along the way, I try to share this level of commitment with those I teach and coach. If the quality of life of your company needs lifting, give the four bullet points some focused attention. Then, engage and lead.

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Please share your thoughts with me about today’s Monday Morning Wake-Up. Click below to comment.

Neil Ducoff, Founder & CEO of Strategies and author of No-Compromise Leadership

Pass this e-mail on to your business colleagues, managers and friends. They’ll appreciate it.

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