I believe that asking questions is the most powerful tool in leadership. 

In John Maxwell’s Good Leaders Ask Great Questions, he notes: 

• Questions unlock and open doors that otherwise remain closed.  
• Questions are the most effective means of connecting with people.  
• Questions cultivate humility.  
• Questions help you to engage others in conversation. 
• Questions allow you to build better ideas.  
• Questions give you a different perspective.  
• Questions challenge mind-sets and get you out of ruts

All of these points seem like excellent reasons why people should not only ask but also encourage others to ask questions because good questions inform and great questions transform. 

However, lately, I have seen many relationships go awry because the individual being questioned  has interpreted the inquiry as an attack rather than a simple means to attain more information and clearer understanding.

I have observed this type of interaction at charter school board meetings between ...

Every day we have crucial conversations.

However, there is one single factor that determines whether that crucial conversation is difficult or not. 

Want to know this secret I have learned? Sometimes in the hardest way possible. 

Take 30 minutes to listen to our latest podcast and begin how to master this secret. 

"Hey, I’m Dr. Tom Miller and I’ve got an idea I want to share with you today: To be an effective leader you must inspect what you expect. 

An expectation is defined as believing that something is going to happen or believing that something should be a certain way.

However, any expectation not communicated is merely a thought. 

I know I struggle with communicating clear expectations. It is something I have to work on daily. I will allow my faulty assumptions to close that expectation gap. Which has never led to great results. 

As a consultant and coach for school leaders across the country, the lack of clearly understood and communicate expectations is the number one issue I see in broken relationships, poor performing teams and the cause of most conflicts.

As a result, the organization suffers and people quit other people. 

Here are seven steps you can adopt to communicate clearer expectations:

Get clear yourself. Most things are crystal clear in your head, but if you can’t cle...

On this day we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and I wanted to share my reflections with you on how to create a positive change in your organization, community, home and life...the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. way.

Listen to the archived lesson by clicking below.

My notes for each of the five strategies: 

On this day, as we celebrate the life of Dr. MLK – his quote the desire for lifelong learning fosters an equally strong tendency to listen. 

Strategy #1: Listen: Lead by being lead: Listen to the needs of the people – only those who do not seek power, are lucky enough to hold it. To be a life long learner, it takes listening.

• Four benefits to listening
  • Builds trust
  • Enables learning – when we talk – no learning
  • Facilitate understanding
  • Creates a connection – listen and then lead
• Constantly learning from experience so he could do better the next time 
• Do better and be better – 
• As a leader, growth never stops – when you know it all – you 

• 4 L’s of a leader...

👋 Hey, I'm Tom and there are several of you that I've connected with recently, but haven't met yet.

I'm father to the two amazing children and future world leaders, Devyn (12) and Matthew (soon to be 7), a big-time NY Yankees fan (I loved them when they sucked and Andy Hawkins threw a no-hitter and lost so don't @ me),Chicago Bears and Carolina Hurricanes (my first hometown sports team).

My hobbies include playing ice hockey (our team just won the championship at PNC ARENA), deep sea fishing, reading leadership books and watching my kids play sports. I also love living like a tourist (my #1 life goal). This means wherever I go I typically never order my own food, I seek to visit a unique or historical landmark and I hardly have a clear agenda!

I've completed five marathons, one ultra marathon. Notice I said completed and not ran. Today I love yoga and haven't run for a few years (The ultra got me).

This goal aligns perfectly to my work as a human behavior consultant and teacher of ...

I believe that being “busy” is the slow death of the school leader. 

Being “busy” cannibalizes the things that you should be doing.

Being “busy” causes us to focus on the wrong things. 

Being “busy” minimizes productivity. 

Being “busy” can actually cost you time, money and progress towards your goals.

As a principal, and now business owner, I am extremely active when it comes to work. 

I look busy. I act busy. People definitely think I am busy because that’s typically how they acknowledge me when they call or see me, “I know you’re busy so thanks for taking my call.” 

But what has been brought to my awareness recently is that being busy creates empathy. 

Other people empathize with being busy, because we have all been there. 

When you communicate busy - people affirm your busyness. Most of the time when you ask someone “how are you?” 

They answer what they are, not how they are. “WOW - been so busy! 

As an effect of being busy, your team, your people or your family members ...

At 9:22 a.m. on December 21, 2019, I was lounging on the couch as it was the first day of the holiday break. Dorsey, the family dog, was giving the look. If you have a dog, you know the look. 

On went my shoes, grabbed my ear buds and tuuk as I hit the garage door opener. Dorsey took a sprint out the door and into the driveway. Yelling for her to come back I noticed something looked different. 

The driveway had tons of space. I walked out thinking I parked the car on the street for some reason. 

Nope. 

At 9:34 am I dialed 9-1-1 with one phone, and Googled “What to do when your car is stolen” with another. 

You might be asking, how could your car be stolen...from your driveway!!!

If you do not prepare on the front end, you will be repairing on the back end. 

For the next 60 hours, from the car being stolen until it was found, here is what I learned: 

For things to change, you need to change: Don’t leave your car unlocked, especially when you have a habit of leaving your wallet a...

This is one of those topics that I could write about all day every day.  Goal setting, goal achieving, goals goals goals!

We all have goals.  Each and every one of us.

Some of us think we gave up a long time ago and don’t have any but we do.  Every day we wake up with the goal to live another day.  Ok, maybe that is a stretch but don’t we all have goals to some extent?  And why is it so important to have goals? 

The most successful people on this planet didn’t wake up one day with an idea and a few minutes later after they got dressed became successful… No way.  They had an idea and they developed a plan.  Within that plan there were goals – some big, some little – some attainable, some way out there. 

And each day, they worked at it – chipping away, having triumphs and failures along the way but tweaking and re-evaluating and working toward goals. Goals!

We have had goals from the day we were born.  Sit up. Crawl. Walk. Talk. Feed ourselves. Dress ourselves. Express ourselves. Ma...

Hey leaders, Dr. Tom Miller here and I want to share with you something I believe is critically important to your short and long term success.

Time has a wonderful way of demonstrating to us what matters.

Best selling author John Maxwell teaches a "Year in Review" process that I have  been implementing over the past four years to double my income but work less days. Travel to different parts of the world, reduce personal debt so I could increase retirement contributions, and improve my personal health (40 lbs. weight loss) as well as lowered cholesterol.  

You see, John believes that it is not experience that will determine your growth and success, it’s evaluative experience.

Without evaluative experience I am basically doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result. That’s the definition of insanity. 

As the days on the calendar end for 2019, it’s critical to look over the last year and determine:

What made this year unforgettable? What did I enjoy? How c...

Hey School Leaders, 

I know you are swamped with work and holiday planning, but I’ve got an idea I want to share with you today: 

Possibility thinking increases your possibilities, draws opportunities and people to you, and allows you to dream big dreams. 

Possibility thinking is changing the question from Can I? to How Can I?

Some time ago, a charter school was in a challenging financial crunch. During the board meeting, the principal announced that the school needed to find money to invest in a game-changing curriculum and program that would improve their academic programs and really help their teachers save time and energy. 

The principal explained to the board that the teachers were creating most of the lessons and materials and spending lots of time and energy searching for content rather than focusing their time on connecting with students, analyzing data, and mastering their craft.

The budget was too tight to buy ALL of the resources.

A board member asked, “Can’t we write...