Rest is a critical skill that many leaders set aside as an optional luxury that is rarely experienced. Our culture celebrates hustle and exalts being busy as a badge of honor. However, rest is not optional in the life of a successful leader; it is a strategic necessity.
“If you want newness, you have to have strangeness.”
“If you don’t have wild ideas, you’re not going to find creative ideas.”
“A wish is the first step to a question.”
“Creativity is the raw material for innovation.”
If you think back over the last 20 or 30 years, we’ve seen innovative products introduced that make our lives easier or more convenient. Personal computers, smart phones, robot vacuum cleaners and many more products have become a part of our lives. But before they became indispensable to us, these products were ideas in someone’s head.
On April 3, 2025, Governor Bill Lee signed Public Chapter No. 140 into law. This Act amended Titles 5, 6 and 7 of the Tennessee Code by imposing new requirements related to development related fees assessed by local governments. The purpose of this new law is to ensure transparency, accountability and consistency in how Tennessee’s counties, cities and metropolitan governments assess and document development-related fees.
A few weeks ago, I attended my uncle Victor Allsup’s funeral. He was a lifelong farmer and one of Mississippi's leading dairy farmers for many years.
Leadership principles aren’t just theoretical; they have a practical impact. This impact can be either positive or negative to those we lead and the organization that we are a part of. That’s why I believe that leading with principles is a good leadership practice that many effective leaders should consider. This form of leadership is often referred to as principle-based leadership, but some may call it values-based leadership. While this leadership style has been around for many years, it is not often referenced in texts discussing leadership styles.
As a photographer, I spend a lot of time thinking about lenses. I have go-to lenses that I love and a very expensive wish list on my favorite gear websites.
In the photography world, there are many different lenses. In fact, there’s a lens for every situation. That’s why we have telephoto, macro, prime, fisheye—yes, even pancake lenses—to name a few.
Over the past several years, our nation has seen much change. Multiple spheres of our society have witnessed and experienced rapid increases in the speed of change. Most recently, the federal government and service organizations nationwide saw shutdowns, funding delays and stoppages, as well as some temporary and some permanent closures.
My friend Tom Beaty loved to tell stories.
One story was set in a small European farming village. Before gas-powered transportation came along, farmers would drive their hogs to the market on foot each fall. This was quite a time-consuming task. The farmer would try to guide the hog(s) by tapping them on their sides with a staff. Sometimes they would use herding dogs to help along the way. This would often take a full day, leaving before daylight and returning after dark.
For one of our Leadership Academy sessions, we were asked to read a 2000 Harvard Business Review article titled Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? The article itself was thought-provoking, but it is the question in the title that has stayed with me. It is one of those deceptively simple questions, like “What are you really afraid of?”, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”, or “What kind of person do you want to be?”, that people can spend a lifetime trying to answer.
Most of us grew up hearing some form of the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Yet often—especially in leadership—most of us, myself included, default to a weaker version: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you.”
The difference between these two approaches is subtle but powerful. The first is proactive; the second is reactive.