I received a great gift last week.

My former intern Cameron Brown had a bound copy of his dissertation on leader approachability delivered to my office. I am proudly displaying it on my shelf next to a couple of other authors I admire (my Dad and another guy named Wilson 🙂

His dissertation is titled: Leader Approachability: What Is It? What Is It Good For? And Who Needs It? Cameron did an amazing job of answering all three questions. You’ll hear more about it this year, but it reinforces a lot of what we’ve been teaching about the importance of leader approachability over the last few years.

To me, the best part about being a leader is watching your folks learn and grow. Here are two great actions you can take today to reconnect with this key leadership behavior:

1. Reach out to someone you helped learn and grow and just see how they are doing. Let them know you are thinking about them and that you are proud of what they’ve accomplished.
2. Reach out to someone who helped you learn and grow. Let them know how much they meant to you and the progress you’ve made in your life.

I know it’s early in January, but do these two things and this will be your best day of the new year so far.