Rather than extravagant employee perks or outrageous office antics, the most common cultural blind spots are related to your everyday behaviors as a team.

Years ago a leadership mentor taught me a simple yet profoundly effective tool to keep an organization aligned with its plan. It's a matrix that looks at each opportunity or idea and asks two basic questions.

I've started churches, served more established congregations, and been the vice president of a half-billion-dollar company. Now, I am privileged to lead the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. In my roles, I have seen leaders who overwhelmingly succeed and those who phenomenally fail. One of the key differentiators of success for leaders that I have observed is their ability to create, protect, shape, and embody an appropriate culture that matches the goals and purposes of their organization. In the discussion about culture, it is easy to make broad, sweeping statements about the need to shape culture. But good leaders [...]

It's easy to miss what's in front of us when we are hurried, stressed or thinking only of ourselves.