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Tag: Truth
Quote Of the Week #234
28 Quotes On Trust In Leadership
Trust is an essential part of leadership…
In order to make sound decisions, to have a successful business and team, Trust is more than required. It has to be built up and most importantly maintained.
Below, I have compiled a few quotes to illustrate the importance of incorporating trust in the leadership process.
1. Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.” – Albert Einstein
2. Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself. – Robert E. Lee
4. Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships. – Stephen R. Covey
5. The glue that holds all relationships together — including the relationship between the leader and the led — is trust, and trust is based on integrity. – Brian Tracy
6. Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
7. Trust should be earned inherently, without any verbal demands. – Anne Elisabeth Stengl
8. When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective. – Stephen R. Covey
9. It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. – Noël Coward
10. It has always been my contention that an individual who can be relied upon to be himself and to be honest unto himself can be relied upon in every other way. – J. Paul Getty
11. Never trust he who trusts everyone. – Carlos Ruiz Zafón
12. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. – Abraham Lincoln
13. If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. – Virginia Woolf
14. Peace and trust take years to build and seconds to shatter. – Mahogany SilverRain
15. Without trust we don’t truly collaborate; we merely coordinate or, at best, cooperate. It is trust that transforms a group of people into a team. – Stephen R. Covey
16. Trust is built when someone is vulnerable and not taken advantage of. – Bob Vanourek
17. Trust doesn’t mean that you trust that someone won’t screw up—it means you trust them when they do screw up. – Ed Catmull
18. Leadership is the relentless pursuit of truth and ceaseless creation of trust. – Jack Welch
19. Great teams have trust at the heart of their success. If you don’t trust each other, you’ll play safe. Trust makes it possible to aim higher. To leap further and to know someone has your back if you fall. – Adam Grant
20. A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other. – Simon Sinek
21. Trust starts with trustworthy leadership. It must be built into the corporate culture. – Barbara Kimmel Brooks
22. When people honor each other, there is a trust established that leads to synergy, interdependence, and deep respect. Both parties make decisions and choices based on what is right, what is best, what is valued most highly. – Blaine Lee
23. It’s mutual trust, even more than mutual interest, that holds human associations together. – H. L. Mencken
24. Trust is built with consistency. – Lincoln Chafee
25. When truth takes a backseat to ego and politics, trust is lost. – Patrick Lencioni
26. Because you believed I was capable of behaving decently, I did. – Paolo Coelho
27. Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence. – Democritus
28. You must train your intuition – you must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide. – Ingrid Bergman
Last Words Of Advice
Trust is a two-way street and is fragile. It takes years to build and a few seconds to destroy.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 Quote Of the Week #220
Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor by Bennis, Goleman, O’Toole and Biederman (part 3)
Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor is a collection of three essays written by Bennis, Goleman, O’Toole and Biederman.
The new transparency by Warren Bennis
The new transparency, by Warren Bennis, is the third and last essay of Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor. This essay defines digital transparency, focuses on the effects of the “digital revolution” and how it has made transparency quasi inevitable in modern day organizations.
What is the upside of the new transparency?
Transparency notoriously drives success, effectiveness and trust between members of an organization.
The emergence of internet has been able to fill the cultural need for transparency, to break down old rules and traditions, to erase borders and social status barriers.
In particular, the rise of blogs has transformed the mainstream media. Blogs shape the public opinion. Moreover, mainstream media now rely upon them to exchange and to create loyalty amongst their viewers.
Furthermore, the rise of blogs has transformed politics (for the better?).
Indeed, blogs have increased transparency over the years: in many countries, the government and politicians can no longer hold secrets, maintain exclusive power and absolute control over citizens.
Blogs have become a political and diplomatic tool to fight corruption and power abuse. They were able to:
- Expose insiders “secrets to outsiders” in corporations: most bloggers whistleblow freely, safely and anonymously.
- Change the societal game. Protests happen in the streets as well in the cyberspace.
- Evenly distribute information and knowledge. Seeing that knowledge is power, blogs have created a new power that have made leaders “lose their monopoly on leadership”. Blogs have given a digital platform for people from different nationalities, social categories and spheres of influence to express their opinions.
What is the downside of the new transparency?
First of all, the digital transparency incites a lack of privacy. Most individuals’ confidential information (credit card number, personal records,…) transits openly on internet, which makes them vulnerable to hacking and allows misuse of information and illegal tracking of their information.
Also, the “digital realm is wild and minimally policed”. Some users take advantage of the anonymity of internet to dishonestly compete, to openly attack an institution, organization or another individual under false pretenses.
Digital transparency has devalued, through the mainstream media, “authentic expertise by treating ordinary viewers and readers as the equals of those with genuine insight and experience” to enhance their viewers’ loyalty.
Unfortunately, it also impedes their viewers from comprehending or appropriately analyzing complex facts and events.
Warren Bennis denotes that blogs, acquiring greater influence and outreach than news paper, will substitute the latter if the content “commit to high standards of accuracy, fairness, and conduct”.
On the internet, where there are no secrets, where information persists for several lifetimes and where truth is relative, users are able to decide the perimeters of transparency, to fabricate the truth and to create the persona they want.
However, users are unable to vet and verify the actual truth.
To read the review on the first essay Creating a culture of candor by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, click here.
To read the review on the second essay Speaking truth to power by James O’Toole, click here.
Review
The new transparency by Warren Bennis is a proper conclusion to the book Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor that delivers impartial views on the internet and the blogosphere.
While reading his book, several contemporaneous examples came to mind such as the Black Lives Matter Movement that started in summer 2013, in the United States and has since then spread itself to different countries, to different nationalities and cultures.
Social Media and blogs have definitely given the Movement the tools that it needed to speak up about police brutality on African-Americans, to show proof of police misconduct, to syndicate and organize itself and finally, to resist oppression.
One example of the misuse of the internet platform is cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is the bullying of an individual over the internet, through blogs or social media. Many victims of cyberbullying have spoken publicly over this issue but due to the anonymity and the lack of regulation of the internet, the government has not yet found a way to penalize the abusers.
Favorite quote(s)
Transparency would not be a problem in a world in which everyone is decent and fair-minded.
Ratings 3/5
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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor by Bennis, Goleman, O’Toole and Biederman (Part 2)
Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor is a collection of three essays written by Bennis, Goleman, O’Toole and Biederman. To read the review on the first essay Creating a culture of candor by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, click here.
Speaking truth to power by James O’Toole
Speaking truth to power, by James O’Toole, is the second essay from Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor.
Speaking truth to power has been a long-standing issue throughout History. It is a very common and complex matter that has direct repercussions on an individual’s life, career and health.
In this essay, in order to illustrate the concerns raised by a lack of transparency, many examples have been extracted from literature, from 2500 years of History and from James O’Toole‘s personal experience during his research in corporations.
Why speak truth to power?
Speaking truth to power creates a healthy and successful company culture in any given organization.
What makes speaking truth to power so convoluted?
Speaking truth to power can be perceived as disloyalty, dissidence, insubordination or non-conformism because it challenges old assumptions, systems that are already in place, defies group-thinking and questions the authority, decisions and ego of the person in power.
Speaking the truth also implies having to make the person in power admit their mistake.
James O’Toole blames this impugning perception on the stubbornness, the stupidity and the hubris (arrogance of power) of leaders who reject good advice and are incapable of hearing the truth.
That is why, leaders must openly listen to their employees, understand their working conditions, rethink old assumptions and avoid group-thinking at all cost.
Speaking truth to power does not go without risks: most employees are not willing to report any misconduct or unethical behavior by fear of retaliation, by fear of being reprimanded, by belief that no action will be taken by management or by Human Resources (HR).
How to create transparency and trust within an organization?
According to James O’Toole, corporations should hire at leisure a “corporate fool”, term quoted by Verne Morland, an executive at NCR in the 1980s.
A “corporate fool” is a modern day jester that is capable and licensed to speak truth to power and create controversy.
The role of the “corporate fool” can be associated to the role of women in modern day organizations.
Indeed, women are unafraid to challenge the system and to speak truth to power in corporations as they have only recently been evolving in the male-dominating corporations and as a result have not learnt any ethical misbehavior. Not to mention, women have throughout History stood up courageously to authority at the peril of their lives.
The 7 characteristics of a transparent leader
Below are the characteristics that a leader must abide by to enforce transparency within their organization:
- Leaders must consistently tell the truth to their followers.
- Leaders must be comfortable with the truth.
- Leaders must practice integrity.
- Leaders must demonstrate appropriate respect towards their followers by sharing relevant information and actually including them in the flow of information.
- Leaders must gather the necessary information before making any type of decision.
- Leaders must value openness, empower those who tell the truth and must not reward those who do otherwise.
- Leaders at the top should not reward other leaders for their ability to compete nor congratulate leader’s misconduct.
Moreover, followers must be willing to put themselves on the line to be able to correct their bosses. “In sum, before speaking truth to power can be considered virtuous, the act must meet several criteria:
- It must be truthful.
- It must do no harm to innocents.
- It must not be self-interested (the benefits must go to others, or to the organization).
- It must be the product of moral reflection.
- It must come from a messenger who is willing to pay the price.
- It must have at least a chance of bringing about positive change (there is no virtue in tilting at windmills).
- It must not be done out of spite or anger.”
Throughout History, organizations have punished those that speak truth to power, have challenged their loyalty, have put their sanity to the test, have labelled them as crazy or angry people.
So why blow the whistle?
Whistleblowers are loyal to their organization and not assumably to their leaders. When the leaders betray the values and the integrity of the organization, whistleblowers come forth and are ready to denounce publicly any signs of foul-play.
Is there an appropriate time for whistleblowing or for speaking truth to power?
The time is right when one is mature enough to objectively analyze the situation at hand and is virtuous enough to be able to temper his or her anger.
To read the review on the first essay Creating a culture of candor by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, click here.
Review
Speaking truth to power is perfect for leaders who are looking to understand what transparency is all about and are starting to implement it in their organization.
In Speaking truth to power, James O’Toole makes us realize how far this issue goes back, how much human nature is to blame for a lack of transparency and why a step has not been taken to generally encourage transparency, even though success, effectiveness and trust should be incentives for corporations.
In reality, speaking from personal experience, most candid, virtuous and conscientious people do not climb the career ladder in corporations and sojourn at the bottom until they learn to moderate their opinion.
Otherwise, they are perceived by team members and leaders as being weak, insubordinate, insolent and disloyal.
I’ve seen many straightforward people being exemplary managed out of corporations while leaders kept asking their employees to be transparent and while those who did the leader’s dirty deed were promoted.
As a result, it created a toxic and unsafe environment where no one would speak up (not even HR) to the wrongdoings of management.
If candid people are not able to sugarcoat their opinion, they end up whistleblowing or leaving the organization. And so, I did.
Favorite quote(s)
In a recent scientific survey of a cross-section of American workers, over two-thirds report having personally witnessed unethical behavior on the job, but only about a third of those say they reported what they observed to their supervisors. The reasons given for their reticence range from fear of retaliation to the belief that management would not act on the information appropriately.
In essence, trust is hard to earn, easy to lose, and, once lost, nearly impossible to regain.
Ratings 4/5
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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be By Rachel Hollis
The lies Society, media, family members, bosses tell us can easily become our Truth.
There are many lies that stand at the basis of our insecurities and that are stopping us from becoming who we really want to become…
1. The Lie about Happiness
We always think that the grass is always greener on the other side.
However, this is not always true and we must figure out what makes us feel good or what feeds our spirit and do these things.
2. The Lie about Procrastination
Procrastination is like breaking a promise to yourself.
The key to overcoming procrastination is to:
- Start small and to take small steps towards your goals.
- Stay committed to your goals. That is why your goals have to be important to you so you can stay committed on the long term.
- Be honest with yourself about the reasons of your procrastination.
- Take accountability for your actions.
3. The Lie about Self-worth
In Society, we constantly feel the need to prove our worth. That desire to prove ourselves and feel good enough translates itself negatively into different areas of our lives.
To overcome the need to prove yourself, you can always:
- Get some therapy to discover who you truly are, be honest with yourself and find some internal resolve.
- Take the time you need to take care of yourself and recharge your batteries.
- Add yourself to your own priority list. As cliché as it sounds, you have to take care of yourself before taking care of others.
4. The Lie about Comparison and Judgement
We often feel the compulsive need to judge and compete with others. It becomes imperative to:
- Keep an open-mind: you don’t know everything and you don’t have everything figured out.
- Nobody is immune to judgement so work on your own insecurities and tell yourself the truth.
- Surround yourself with people who would tell you the truth, build you up instead of putting you down.
5. The Lie about Rejection
“When it comes to your dreams, no is not an answer”. No is not the final answer.
Therefore, it requires strength to:
- Reframe your mindset: what is happening to you and how you respond to it is all about perspective.
- Not accept no as the final answer
- Claim and remember your goals: you can write them down and create a vision board.
- Be bold about your goals.
- Understand that if one path towards your goal doesn’t work, change the path and not the goals.
6. The Lie about Expectations
We often feel like we haven’t achieved what we have set out to achieve fast enough.
But there is no need to worry because our goals don’t have expiration dates.
7. The Lie about Authenticity
Society lies to us and tells us that we have to fit a specific mould to exist.
The truth is there isn’t only one right way to exist.
Review
In Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be, Rachel Hollis, in a witty and self-deprecating fashion, dispels the lies perpetrated by Society — lies that we tend to believe about ourselves and accept as a fundamental truth.
After a while, these lies destroy our self worth because we find it hard to live up to the lies that Society projects when it comes to self image, relationship to others, goal accomplishment, self care, and career success.
Rachel Hollis shares her life story and perspective on why people are generally unhappy and unsuccessful.
Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be is dedicated to women who have struggled to find themselves or face the truth about themselves. It deals with all the insecurities that women may face throughout their lives and gives solutions that can be implemented through introspection.
Implementing change isn’t easy: it will take time and hard work, several trials and errors. But, it will be worth it!
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.
Judging is still one of the most hurtful, spiteful impulses we own, and our judgments keep us from building a stronger tribe… or from having a tribe in the first place. Our judgment prohibits us from beautiful, life-affirming friendships. Our judgment keeps us from connecting in deeper, richer ways because we’re too stuck on the surface level assumptions we’ve made.
The first step toward becoming the best version of yourself is being honest, truly honest, about what makes you tick.
Truly, I’ve been told no in so many different ways and by so many different people that sometimes it seems as if life itself is saying no. I am an expert in rejection—or more specifically, I am an expert in bouncing back from rejection and fighting my way toward my goal.
I am successful because I refused to take no for an answer. I am successful because I have never once believed my dreams were someone else’s to manage. That’s the incredible part about your dreams: nobody gets to tell you how big they can be.
There are many types of trauma—big, small, childhood, adult—but we all belong to a club we never asked to join. We find solidarity in numbers, in hearing other stories…
There isn’t one right way to be a woman. There isn’t one right way to be a daughter, friend, boss, wife, mother, or whatever else you categorize yourself as. There are so many different versions of each and every style on this planet, and beauty lives in that dichotomy.
Ratings 3/5
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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 Quote Of The Week #179
Rachel Hollis
Rachel Hollis is the CEO of Chic Media, a TV personality, motivational speaker and blogger.
Rachel Hollis is also the bestselling author of Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 The Four Agreements By Don Miguel Ruiz
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz gathers four “agreements” to live by to ensure a better lifestyle, a deeper understanding of life, a life in the moment.
What is an agreement?
The four agreements come from the Toltec teachings of wisdom. The goal of this book is to make each agreement a habit.
An agreement is:
- a programming of the mind.
- a language, a code that helps us understand each other.
- a belief system that has domesticated us.
It represents the rules that we abide to, that we pass down from generation to generation.
Unfortunately, we have not chosen the agreements that we live by. Most of the time, they have been chosen for us and have existed longer than we have.
The First Agreement
The first agreement is to be “impeccable with your words“. This means that you must be careful of not using words against yourself and others.
Indeed, there is power in the words that you use. Matter of fact, it is the most powerful tool at your disposal.
You can use your words to create beauty or to wreak havoc.
“What you dream, what you feel, and what you really are, will all be manifested through the word”.
What you dream, what you feel, and what you really are, will all be manifested through the word. Click To TweetPurpose of the agreement
Being “impeccable with your words” helps you suppress any toxicity from your mind, free your mind from fear and doubt, and filter out negativity.
Implementing the agreement
Furthermore, words grow and take root in your mind if you are not careful. So:
- Be true to yourself.
- Be careful of the words that you use on yourself.
- Do not speak against yourself.
- Avoid gossiping and don’t believe gossip.
- Accept and love yourself so you can demonstrate love and acceptance toward others.
The Second Agreement
The second agreement is to not “take anything personally”.
Often times, people are preoccupied with their own beliefs, feelings and opinions about themselves that they take out on others.
Even if they insult you directly, it is wise not to take their insult personally.
Purpose of the agreement
This agreement is necessary to avoid burdening yourself with people’s problem, setting “yourself up to suffer for nothing”.
Acquiring this habit will help you free yourself, keep your heart open, see people for who they really are, and be unaffected by fear.
Implementing the agreement
Understand that:
- All opinions about you are not necessarily true.
- Opinions about you depends on the person and on their moods.
- We can choose what to believe and what to agree with.
- You must trust yourself and don’t need to trust anyone else.
The Third Agreement
The third agreement consists in not making assumptions.
Undeniably, assumptions are not the truth and breeds problems.
Purpose of the agreement
The third agreement will help you build better relationships and increase your communication skills.
Implementing the agreement
To properly implement this agreement:
- Ask for clarifications rather than making assumptions.
- Remember that it is OK to ask questions.
- Collect the right data about people and situations first.
- Don’t assume that people can read your mind.
- Ask for what you want, expect yes or no. Understand that you can say yes or no as well.
The Fourth Agreement
This fourth agreement encourages you to always “do you best” and consolidates all previous three agreements.
Purpose of the agreement
Forming the habit of always doing your best will:
- Save you from harsh self-judgement.
- Increase your production.
- Mature your self-love.
Implementing the agreement
Keep in mind that:
- Your best will fluctuate all the time. It will depend on your mood, on your energy level, on your health and on your situation.
- You must take action without expecting any rewards. This way, you will be able to enjoy your actions better.
Review
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz provides a very powerful perspective on life. It encourages self-transformation, self-awareness, self acceptance, and the understanding of others.
I found out briefly that The Four Agreements, yet short, is thoughtful and goes straight to the point. It calls out society’s hypocrisy, fear and domestication.
Everyone I know who have read this book has felt elevated. It was therefore hard to resist reading it and I have to say that I did not regret it.
As you read, you will find that you already had the knowledge and the wisdom within you but have been holding it back. You will learn to trust yourself and set yourself free.
Favorite quote(s)
The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life.
Whatever people do, feel, think, or say, don’t take it personally.
Even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true; therefore, you don’t need to take whatever you hear in your own mind personally.
All the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally.
Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are.
Ratings 4.5/5
Author
Quote Of The Week #162
The Importance Of Kindness In Leadership
Kindness is extremely hard to implement in the world we live in today because according to popular belief, kindness is weakness…
However, in the workplace, kindness is essential to leadership success.
Furthermore, genuine acts of kindness in the workplace don’t go unnoticed as people tend to pay it forward.
Indeed, most people who have been through fire in their personal and professional life appreciate serenity and kindness. They would try everything to maintain their self-worth and peace of mind.
Wondering how to develop kindness in the workplace?
Benefits Of Kindness in Leadership
Kind leaders act with the best interest and on behalf of their team and organization. They are authentic, humble, have high morals and a sense of decency.
In kind organization, leaders believe that the people are the heart of the organization.
Furthermore, leaders are able to increase engagement and empower team members who gradually grow in confidence.
In addition, being kind doesn’t mean that you are soft, a pushover, that you are avoiding conflict, that you lack boundaries, that you are people pleasing or that you have to put up with bad behavior.
It means that you take time to listen and understand the people around you before acting or making a decision. It also means that you analyze the consequences of your decisions.
1. Kind leaders are kind to themselves
Kind leaders are firstly kind to themselves and the people closest to them.
They celebrate their own success, forgive themselves when they make mistakes and set clear boundaries.
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. - Lao Tzu Click To Tweet2. Kind leaders use the Golden Rule
The best and strongest leaders put people first and treat their team with kindness.
They acknowledge people, show respect and demonstrate that they care. They simply treat people the way they want to be treated. They understand that they can get more things done, they have to treat people like people.
For example, they have face to face conversations and ask people how they are doing. They can be generous with their time and actively listen to people.
3. Kind leaders set clear expectations
They let people know what needs to be done to avoid miscommunication, misinterpretation, misdirections.
They don’t give out false objectives and avoid sending their team members on a wild goose chase. They celebrate their success and the success of others..
Team members will then commit to their work and reach their goals.
4. Kind leaders tell the truth
Telling the truth encourages growth within the team and builds up the leader’s credibility and respect.
They understand that the truth comes with consequences but they also want the best out of their teams so they overpass their need for self-preservation or self-interest.
They place people in the right positions and give honest feedback to help people perform at their best.
5. Kind leaders agree to disagree
A difference in opinion doesn’t dictate their character.
They have great communication skills and can handle tough conversations.
They don’t ostracize or belittle people who don’t like them.
6. Kind leaders believe in equality and equity
They treat everyone equally, regardless of their personal bias, stereotypes, personality, character and performance.
They are culturally sensitive and advocate for inclusion.
7. Kind leaders create a safe environment
Kind workplaces increase productivity and improve the company culture.
Leaders understand that employees need to feel safe in order to be productive.
Unkind leaders instill fear and use their power and position to make their employees comply. Employees feel unsafe and tend to quit their jobs or resort to the same bad behavior to survive.
Last Words Of Advice!
What of being kind requires too much time and effort that I don’t have? Kindness is a long term investment that requires authenticity, strength and courage.
There are some people who will create chaos, use fear and anger as a management, and try to discourage you from being kind.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
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