The 2025 Raise The Bar Retreat: Why We Step Away to Level Up as Leaders

The end of the year can test even the strongest teams. Goals are looming, energy is dipping, and burnout can creep in fast. Here’s what we do at Raise The Bar to keep our team aligned, engaged, and motivated through the final stretch of the year and ready to transit

Raise The Bar’s Creative Learning Culture eBook shows you how to spark curiosity, foster innovation, and empower your team to learn, grow, and thrive together.

Raise The Bar’s High-Performance Meeting Toolkit is your go-to guide for running meetings that truly move work forward.

What if someone on your team has the solution to your biggest problem—but doesn’t feel safe enough to say it out loud?

Raise The Bar’s Difficult Conversations Guide helps leaders navigate challenging discussions with clarity, empathy, and purpose—turning discomfort into progress and connection.

Imagine a workplace where people hesitate to speak up. Questions go unasked, mistakes get buried, and ideas never see the light of day—all because employees fear embarrassment or repercussion.

The most effective teams share more than just goals—they share a set of agreements on how they’ll work together. Without them, teams can drift into confusion, frustration, and misalignment.

For most managers, the thought of a "performance review" conjures up feelings of dreaded conversations and piles of paperwork. But what if your annual review could be your most powerful tool for unlocking potential, fostering trust, and driving real growth for your team

When you create clarity, coach through challenges, and empower your team to make decisions, you unlock their full potential—and yours. You’ll likely find the work gets done just fine. And even better? You free up space for better leadership.

Most leaders don’t set out to micromanage. But what starts as “being helpful” can turn into sending a message that your team can’t be trusted. The real result? It builds a broken work culture that damages your team and your progress.

Many leaders are drowning in interruptions. Whether it’s a Slack ping, a “got a minute?” hallway convo, or back-to-back meetings, most leaders operate in a state of constant task switching—which is costing them a lot. 

Imposter syndrome is the internal belief that you’re not qualified for the success you’ve earned. And the worst part? You fear it’s only a matter of time before someone finds out.

The decision is made—your organization has announced a reduction in force, and people in the teams you care about are going to lose their jobs. You want to handle this well, but what does “well” even look like in a moment like this?

When people feel undervalued, they don’t always leave right away. But they eventually disengage. They stop caring. And eventually, they start looking for what they need elsewhere.

Giving feedback like a leader isn't just about saying the right thing. It's about how, when, and why you say it

If you've ever ended a day feeling like you were busy but not productive, there's a chance you have a HUGE to-do list, with no system for prioritizing important and urgent tasks from those that destroy your productivity.

At Raise The Bar, we don't just help leaders learn new skills - we help them build habits that create lasting impact. Bad habits don't break overnight but small, intentional changes can transform the way you lead by building better leadership behaviors that st

Real change doesn’t happen overnight— turning knowledge into lasting behaviors takes time, deliberate practice, and reflection.

While you’re mapping out year-end projects, don’t overlook the importance of letting your team fully unplug. It’s tempting to keep the wheels turning, but a rested team is a productive team.

GoNanas came to Raise The Bar to strengthen their partnership, clarify how they worked together, and build the leadership habits needed to support their next stage of growth.

Don't put off those critical converations.

We all have blind spots—those sneaky habits that both help and hinder us. They’re our go-to patterns, often unnoticed, that shape how we interact. Especially when listening. Recognizing them is the first step to mastering them.

Why wait until someone’s leaving to find out what’s going wrong? Flip the script with stay interviews to understand what makes your employees tick and what will keep them around.

Long-term motivation doesn't come from pep talks or trendy office perks. It’s much simpler: understand who your people are and what they care about.

Giving your leaders clarity on the role they play in the success of the business, and inviting them into the process of planning for the future, provides them the autonomy to take ownership and run without needing your executive support at every step. Instead of waiting

When individuals see how their work fits into the bigger picture, they can more confidently map out how to execute their portion of the larger strategy. Not only does this build an individual's autonomy, but it can also help enhance their sense of competency in their da

Getting your team moving in the same direction toward your desired future requires more than just effort and ruthless determination; it requires planning, structure and masterful communication.

As a manager or team member, how do you hold someone accountable in a way that creates positive behavior change versus resentment and negativity?

Raise The Bar's Creating Goals that Drive Accountability Toolkit helps you create a performance culture where team members own their goals.

How is "failure" handled in your organization? Is it seen as an opportunity for learning and growth or handled with shame and blame?

Whether you’re competing for top talent or have your choice of highly qualified candidates, creating a human-first culture that invites people to join in on the company’s mission not only gives you a competitive edge in the marketplace, it also results in long-term buy-

If you want to create an environment where your people are excited to sign in to work, want to be an integral part of the team, look forward to growing and evolving over the course of years, not months, within their organization, then you should start empowering and ena

In this fast-paced world, an organization that stands still loses. There are a few things that are integral to maintaining and growing your market advantage and staying relevant: the market environment, innovative ideas, learning from past mistakes and constantly assess

How do leaders successfully drive organizational change inside an organization?

When a company has a culture built on effective leaders, ones who inspire and coach each other, it has a team that works together to reach its full potential.

People don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Bad managers not only play a huge role in turnover at an organization, they also hold back people and teams from being agile, innovative and ultimately productive.

Crises are inevitable. It’s not how to avoid them; rather, it’s about how you show up and the choices you make when faced with tough decisions

How do you know when something an employee did requires more than just sharing what didn’t work and actually requires a deeper dive with…

Whenever you have a team of people working together, there will, inevitably, be challenges. Team agreements set the ground rules for working with each other, what’s okay and not okay to say or do and how you can best communicate together.

People leave their managers, not their jobs.

To operate in this new world as an effective business leader, you will need to be ready to lead remotely.

As your business scales, moving the team forward is harder and more overwhelming than it’s ever been. Why is this happening?

Scheduling your leadership drives consistency in the way you lead, what you accomplish and what others can expect of you as a leader. You can also gain more clarity and focus on yourself and your employees.

Holding a stay interview can have an immediate impact on your team. It will help you learn more about your people while also letting them know you care about their growth and development.

The key to listening is to listen without an agenda, without a place to go and without a determination to make. It’s listening to hear the other person.

Listening with intention and attention affords you and your team a tremendous opportunity to lead on a whole new level -- to truly hear. If you can show people you care and make them feel heard, you’ll endear them to you, engage them with their work and motivate them.

As more diversity is encouraged in the startup world, it can only serve to benefit our society, increasing innovation and opportunity for all involved.

Top performers are promoted because of their ability to do work well, not because of their ability to lead.

Attracting talent is something companies must focus their energy and resources on. Yet, in meeting with 300+ businesses in the last 18 months, I’ve noticed a trend – more a trap – most of these companies fall into.

Radical transparency is a key factor in developing a high-performing team, and it starts with you, the leader. It's about identifying your expectations and how you want the team to work together.

Creating a radically transparent team is within your control as a leader.

Most managers suck, and it’s not their fault.

Most managers suck, and it’s not their fault. When a business leader needs to fill a management role, the natural thought is to look at top performers.

Most leadership training programs are designed for ease of operational delivery within an organization, not for habit formation.

When done well, the performance review process will engage your employee, create more clarity and make your role as a leader easier in the long run.

Asking powerful questions is a key leadership habit that provides leaders with a means to mitigate their confirmation biases and dive deep into the evaluation of a situation, a person or their team as a whole.

One of the most common leadership mistakes is the failure to give critical feedback.

In my work with over five thousand leaders I've found there are four traits all powerful leaders have in common.

Here’s a list of the three discussions managers should have with their employees in order to help you take a strategic, long-term view on leading your people.

When people ask me, “Are millennials really that different?” I say yes, we are.

Stay interviews show your employees that you care and become a powerful reason for them to engage in their work.

How letting go of 15% of our team brought our team together

The myth that the millennial population is "lazy, entitled and wants everything right now” is false.

Welcome to the first installment of our newsletter- the purpose is to keep in touch and share the most relevant articles, podcasts and studies I find in my research on millennials, employee engagement, and leadership development.

Ultimately, successful organizations must acknowledge how the millennial generation IS different.

By aligning your actions and how you spend your 'People' dollars, you motivate your employees to be an integral part of the journey, not merely passengers on the train.

To attract and retain Millennials, companies will need to start thinking radically different about how they listen to, communicate with and develop their top talent.