Blog

A Message from the Leadership South Dakota Directors As we reflect on 2016, the need for a program like Leadership South Dakota has never been more evident. In his book, The Vanishing Neighbor, author Marc Dunkelman illustrated the fact that we all have three rings of relationships. The inner ring consists of our intimate contacts […]

By Rick Melmer – Leadership Coach Our daughter Tara asked if I could watch her two daughters (our granddaughters) for one day – she was obviously desperate so she decided to entrust her two children to me! At the time, Kya was 4 and Ivy was 1 so I had them outmatched in the age department. Despite […]

By Rick Melmer – Leadership Coach As one of the directors of the Leadership South Dakota program, I get a chance to meet 40 dynamic people each year. We travel the state, learn about South Dakota and about each other. One activity that we conduct is to ask each class member to share about “a time when my […]

Networking Emerges As Key To Leadership SD When the Leadership South Dakota program was launched, we held tightly to three guiding principles for the program. Basically, we wanted our class members to: See places that most people don’t see Meet people that most people don’t meet Learn leadership principles that will help them lead in […]

By Rick Melmer – Leadership Coach How often have you heard about the importance of attitude in the workplace? While it may be a term that is used too often when we discuss our approach to our roles as leaders, few of us will argue that how we think about our leadership roles has a […]

By Rick Melmer – Leadership Coach Our Leadership South Dakota group had the pleasure of hearing Chief Justice David Gilbertson speak. He is a humble leader who delivered an interesting session on the inner-workings of the South Dakota Supreme Court. As you can imagine, many in the class, including me, did not have a good understanding of […]

By Rick Melmer – Leadership Coach What if I asked you which is more important, 5 to 8 or 8 to 5? You would likely give me a quizzical look and ask for more information. So what if I asked it this way, “What is more eternal, the daily events that occur from 8:00 am to 5:00 […]

Rick Melmer We’ve all heard the saying, “actions speak louder than words”. Most of us would agree that this statement is certainly true. What we DO says more about our priorities than what we SAY. Our actions represent our values. However, it is common for leaders to say one thing and do another. We may believe that if we say it enough […]

By Rick Melmer – Leadership Coach All of us could use some inspiration from time to time. I recently read the book On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life. The author is John O’ Leary and he tells the story of a fire that burned him from head to toe. At the […]