Looking back on another year of Learning about Leadership

The old adage about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks is not something I believe in. I am lucky enough to be an owner (co-founder) of a thriving 13 year old digital content company and I learn so much every year I can barely keep up.

One consistent occurrence over the past 13 years is my year-end review of what our business looked like 12 months ago and what has changed to present day. ConsumerTrack is in an incredibly fast evolving and dynamic industry, and we keep our Company moving just as quickly to stay innovative and relevant. I don't want to list all the things that we accomplished this year, but more share my reflection of looking back at my own leadership and perspective as compared to 1 year ago. I like to do the same year-end review of my own performance.

Through this process, I learn the most about how to continue to build our Team and enrich our culture, which both drive our success. If I look back 10 years, I didn't even really know what company culture was or why it was important. I thought I was a leader, but I didn't know how to lead a real team. If I look back 5 years, I learned what culture was, but didn't know how to harness it and weave it throughout our leaders, best performers, new hires and overall business model. I was becoming a better leader, but I needed to learn so much more, especially how to lead individuals and teams, and develop multiple styles of leadership to connect and align with our growing, diverse Team. 

When I look back last year, I see that our company culture defines ConsumerTrack and has been the catalyst for our accelerated success over the past several years. It has also helped define my leadership skills and abilities by not just being a cheerleader for our culture and core values, but by teaching the application of them, and maturing to better apply them to my own daily interactions and longer-term vision of our Team and our Company.

Our Core Values: The Four Agreements

ConsumerTrack will break through 100 employees in 2017. We are large enough now and provide a wide array of digital services that we should probably be close to double that already. What has allowed us to stay "lean and mean" is the greatness of our Team, in how hard we work, how efficient we collaborate and how aligned we are in short term and long term goals.

Learning, improving and maturing are all part of our culture and core values. They are a daily reminder to us all that we can do better, work smarter and communicate more effectively as a Team. Our Team can still improve and grow in countless ways, and there is no one more confident than me that we will, day by day, month by month, and I hold myself to the same standards as a leader.

I tell our Team that no one will make more mistakes than I have at ConsumerTrack. I continue to make them (hopefully less often and not the same mistakes), but I learn from them and work to improve myself. I want to turn my weaknesses into strengths for myself and our Team.

Reflection at the end of the year is nothing new or revolutionary, but for me, it helps guide my personal goals of where to improve my own actions and my own leadership.

I am committed to our Team to support them all as individuals to continue to grow in ConsumerTrack, or in any other direction if that is where their passions take them.

2016 was my best year as a leader of our Company because of the lessons learned from my mistakes this year and the learning from our successes over the past 12 months. I can't wait to look back at the end of next year to see where I improved myself and can say the same thing about my growth in 2017. That personal development for myself, my family and my Company is what motivates me to do my best.