Years ago, Robert Schuller stood in front of a room full of Iowa corn farmers who had just lived through their worst crop in memory. He wasn’t there to talk about weather patterns or commodity prices. He was there because those farmers needed something to hold onto, and he knew it. In his big voice, […]
Category: Leadership
Steve Black on leadership, coaching and building strong store teams, drawn from nearly five decades in retail grocery.
Posted inFeatured News, Guest Contributors, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: A Call For Civility In Business And Life
Columnist Steve Black explores the keys that are critical to building stronger workplace cultures and improving communication.
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: 3 Words More Important Than ‘I Love You’ …
The core leadership lesson here is that three simple words – “I appreciate you” – are more powerful and transformative than “I love you” when it comes to building trust, safety and performance in relationships and teams. In a 2026 grocery world shaped by tight margins, omnichannel shopping, AI tools and value‑seeking customers, making “I […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Featured News, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: Be The Leader People Want To Work For
People do not follow titles for long. They follow credibility. They follow consistency. They follow leaders whose behavior makes trust possible. In an age when culture is tested daily, the enduring leadership principle is surprisingly simple: do your job, live your values, and give people something worth following. There is a leadership lesson that never […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Finance News, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: Prime Time Defined
Leaders who consistently win understand one simple truth: performance is never evenly distributed across the day, week or year. Some moments matter more than others, and what a team does in those windows separates average operations from extraordinary ones. What is ‘prime time’ in leadership? In operations-heavy environments, prime time is the predictable window when […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: Coach To Behaviors And Numbers Will Follow
In nearly every leadership conversation today, the focus always drifts to numbers – sales numbers, productivity and labor numbers, engagement scores, turnover rates and market share. Numbers matter, but they are not where great leadership begins. When leaders obsess over numbers, they miss the deeper truth – numbers are outcomes, not causes. The most effective […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: ‘The 5 Rules’ For Winning The Holidays
For all of us that are grocery retailers, November and December aren’t just regular months. They’re the two biggest sales months of the year – not by a little, by a lot. And it can be overwhelming for our teams and customers. Remember one of my top leadership lessons for success: We take care of […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: Disruptive Kindness
It’s been an interesting journey since publishing my book on “The 5 Rules” in January of 2024 and speaking and coaching on these rules across many organizations since then. There has been one question that comes up on many occasions that I’d like to expand on for this month’s leadership teaching. But first, just as […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: If You’re Going To Be A Bear, Be A Grizzly
“If you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly.” This saying is one of my earliest learnings on how to be successful. It was during my early years at United Supermarkets of Oklahoma, where I spent the first 27 years of my career. I went from being a produce manager to assistant manager and […]
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Leadership: Learning To Lead Like A National Park Guide
We recently went on a graduation celebration trip with our oldest grandson, Dax Graham Black, to Mesa Verde National Park. We had two different guides take us through a couple of the main attractions there – the Cliff House and the Balcony House. I had this thought as they inspired and educated us on how […]
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Leadership: Please, Please Don’t Ignore Me
Below are two monumental pieces of information for those of us in the grocery business to consider in 2025 and beyond: In 2023, the grocery store industry in the United States spent $2.04 billion on advertising, up from $1.94 million a year earlier. That represents an annual increase of about 5 percent. Grocery shopping in […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, News, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: Grateful To Mom For Strong Work Ethic
In the days of old when most children worked alongside their parents, taking care of the house or farm chores or in other businesses, there were multiple moments in every single day that a good work ethic was learned, taught and lived. I would guess that anyone over age 50 could tell story after story […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: Be A River – Not A Reservoir
Out-of-date leadership is associated with authority, decision-making and control. However, the most effective and true leaders understand that their role is not to accumulate power for themselves but to channel it outward by empowering, inspiring and serving others. This principle is best captured in the metaphor, be a river – not a reservoir. A river […]
Posted inGuest Contributors, Leadership, National, The Grocer's Playbook
Leadership: Continual Learnings From Cutting Firewood
by Steve Black It was about 25 years ago that I had an awesome idea. We lived in Oklahoma at the time and had always bought our firewood. Mesquite trees were an abundant nuisance to farmers that needed the land cleared to grow crops. Our boys were teenagers, and it made sense to me that […]