Hello, and welcome to LeaderNation’s official blog. We are very excited to be launching this section of our site. Here, we hope to create an active conversation with other people interested in leadership development and are excited about joining the already bustling community of bloggers who engage with this topic. As a rule, this blog will aim to be informative on two levels. First, the content of the blog will be thought provoking and innovative. The second level will be about process. Not only do we want to talk about what to do, we hope to set an example of how to do things. In this, our first blog entry, the content will state our aspirations and reasons for starting this blog, while the process will demonstrate what to do when launching a new project, or hoping to reinvigorate an old one: set and communicate a mission, vision, and strategy.

First, and most obviously, we view this blog as a place where we can have an active discussion about leadership development and all issues pertaining to leadership. We hope to learn through the process of writing our thoughts down, but more importantly by hearing what others have to say about similar issues. Therefore one goal is to become active members of a community of bloggers who reflect on the topic of leadership.

Second, and most developmentally, we believe reflection and feedback are the most important parts of leadership development. Therefore, having a place to share our thoughts and get feedback from others will help us become better leaders. We intend our process to be a positive example of introspection and reflection in pursuit of greater self-awareness. Therefore the second goal is to get feedback and grow through the exchange of thoughts, and to practice what we preach: a reflective leader who asks for feedback is a leader who grows.

Third, and most practically, we view this blog as a way to put our ideas out into the world thereby encouraging people to engage with our site. While the content of our blog will not address marketing, we hope our process will be informative. In launching a web-based company we have had to learn a lot about internet marketing in a short period of time. The most important lesson I have learned so far is that consistently creating top notch content is the best way to market your product. The best way we could meet that goal was to create a blog. Hopefully you will agree that the content we offer here is thought-provoking, informative, and entertaining. The third goal for this blog then is to consistently produce high quality posts that inspire our readers to come back and to engage in thoughtful dialogue.

Finally, and most inclusively, we believe that there are a lot of really smart people out there with intelligent things to say who don’t have a platform to say it from. LeaderNation has an incredible network of talented people who work closely with us. Organization development as a field is not values neutral. One value the field reveres is that of participation. In order to reflect that value in our process, from time to time we will be opening this space up to our community by inviting people to post their thoughts as guest bloggers. We feel this will be a great opportunity to get new voices into the mix, to insert fresh ideas into the dialogue, and to create a feeling of community. That said we hope this blog will create community, introduce our readers to each other, and create a supportive network of leadership development professionals. We hope you will participate.