Dr. Geoff Smart

Geoff Smart is the #1 thought leader on the #1 topic in business. He is the Chairman & Founder of ghSMART, a leadership consulting firm, and his purpose is to help leaders amplify their positive impact on the world.

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Do You Have a “Ninja” Executive Assistant?

You should want to have a ninja executive assistant (EA). Let’s talk about how.

Two things determine if you have a ninja executive assistant: who you hire, and how you work together.

This article reveals a non-scientific set of tips based on a quarter-century of observations of what it takes to have a ninja EA. Since I founded ghSMART 24 years ago, I have had the privilege of working with dozens of ninja EAs at our firm. And we have interacted with hundreds of great and not-so-great EAs across our client companies.
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Great CEOs Give Their Teams Freedom to Choose

Something surprised me the other day. It was the reason a colleague, who had left to work for a big company (sniff!), returned to ghSMART. She had left a couple of years ago to become a senior executive at a top-tier fashion brand. Sounded like a dream job at the time. But within 2 years, she returned to our firm. I was happy she came back; but what was a mystery to me was why she decided to come back. She sat down next to me at our firm’s annual Summit. [Continue »]

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Hold People Accountable with this Simple Leadership Hack

Leaders struggle to hold people accountable. According to our research for Power Score, we discovered that only 8% of leaders are good at holding people accountable.

Why do so many leaders struggle to hold people accountable?

Because when you do it wrong, it stinks for everyone. Tension, stress, and hurt feelings, bad results, and a culture of defensiveness rather than a culture of performance and personal growth. [Continue »]