The Ermi Group

08/04/2025

When leadership, ethics, and social media collide, the consequences can be swift and seismic. The Coldplaygate controversy—sparked by a viral moment on the jumbotron—has become more than just office gossip; it’s a real-time case study in leadership accountability and organizational culture.
This is a wake-up call for leaders everywhere. LRI's Lori Evans Ermi shared her perspective on the key leadership lessons—and why character, not just competence, must define today’s leadership.

This article is written by Lori Evans Ermi, PCC, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, a Principal at the Leadership Research Institute. She has 30+ years of corporate, executive leadership and senior consulting experience.

05/15/2025

05/12/2025

The Leadership Research Institute is passionate about supporting leaders in times of abundance as well as times of ambiguity. Check out this article.

In our latest article, our own Lori Evans Ermi discusses evidence-based strategies for leaders and organizations to focus on wellbeing and reinvention in times of ambiguity and change, while asking: What can you reinvent for yourself in the remainder of 2025? ...

08/13/2024

🎶🎤Tremendous shout out to Mr. Andrew Baughman & Mrs. Melissa Baughman for an outstanding opportunity for Kate and troupe to perform at Disney through the Virtual Academy Summer Program. Memorable on many levels. Incredible talent, performances were fantastic, and new friends were made!

📍 I asked Kate and Melissa to pick out Disney pins, something special about the trip they want me to remember, to go on my new backpack Daniela found while meandering with our new friend Evie Beall.

💧🍷 Neighbor Sue Friedhoff Zaeh gets a call out for being there to support Kate and making memories together.

💚🎤Melissa picked out Tiana in remembrance of Kate’s rendition of “Almost There,” and the fabulous new Tiana’s Bayou Adventure that was simply delightful. Thank you Sister-friend for all your help, the therapy sessions, and our decades of Disney fun together.

🏰Kate picked “out of order” from Tower of Terror to commemorate being in the drop zone stopped for an unknown malady for nearly 30 minutes. While it presented itself a briefly entertaining op to bond with our fellow elevator mates from Pennsylvania and Utah, it was starting not to be fun. But all is well and we’ll remember that ride and day forevermore. 🖤

🍊I picked out Soarin’ because it dazzles my senses and makes my soul smile.

✅The bonus pin for all the parks is self-explanatory.

💜And Kate gifted me the top one from her collection of pins. They are my first pins since visiting Disney Parks Coast to Coast my entire life. A blessing. I was nourishing my inner child and my sentimental heart and it was an infusion of delightful dopamine.

🙏🏼And I had two very promising biz dev calls out of nowhere while in the parks! And over 60,000 steps for 3 days! My bones were feeling it! But a good pain! 🤣

What a summer! God is good. My soul is full. Pinch me!

05/02/2024

Had to share the actual reveal now that learned how to edit.🤷🏻‍♀️ Enormous thanks to Lexie Howe my talented managing editor, and foremost my daughter for decades. You know you got us over the finish line and how grateful I am. And Kate Ermi my soul mate Adoption mate, artist and the bonus track in the book!

01/02/2024

Practice 6 of my 10 part series of The Inner Edge: 10 Practices of Personal Leadership discusses Maximize Your Time ⏲ . I've also included a short recap of the first 5 inner edge practices, and if you are following along, it is a great opportunity to reflect on how you want to Get Clarity in 2024.

10/03/2023

NEW SERIES: Continue to follow me on a 10-month journey of Joelle Jay's The Inner Edge: 10 Practices of Personal Leadership.

This month - Practice Four – Tap into Your Brilliance: What’s Unique About You?

It’s hard to believe that it is October and the beginning of the last quarter of the calendar year. We continue to explore Dr. Joelle Jay’s The Inner Edge: 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. Now that I am feeling confident that my vision, focus areas, and catalyst are secure, let’s look at the next inner edge practice of Tap into Your Brilliance. The Leadership Circles Program has been encouraging using Clifton Strengths as a benchmark to determine qualities that are unique to you. I have been a practitioner of the Gallup program for nearly 20 years, and have found it is insightful, and flexible to the stages you are in for life and career.

Practice Four: Tap into Your Brilliance – What’s Unique About You?

Let’s recap our progress to date:

Practice One: Get Clarity – “Get Grounded”

Practice Two: Find Focus – Integrate into my house; ; Say Yes to work that brings me joy.

Practice 3: Take Action- the most important thing/catalyst= Make my house a home.

Tap into Your Brilliance subscribes to a strengths-based approach. If we lean into our areas of strengths verses struggling to become mediocre in areas of weakness, that is a much better use of our energy and development focus.

If you haven’t taken Clifton Strengths I highly recommend you do. I prefer the full 34 report, I find that my top 10-12 strengths are what I typically lean into in my professional activities. Depending on the skill needed and role, my top 5 shift somewhat. However, Strategic, Individualization and Positivity are always in my top 5 five as depicted here, and have been for the last 20 years.

When Marcus Buckingham popularized the assessment in his book, Now Discover Your Strengths in 2001, I attended a SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management) National Conference and he was a speaker.

He introduced us to a concept that was a real game changer for me and how I thought about performance management. As an HR Exec at the time, we were forever managing the annual performance review process, and it was not only painful for the managers, but for my team as well. Providing developmental feedback to your employees is not an easy or enviable task. He drew the numbers 1-10 on a flip chart and told the story we were all familiar with. During performance review time, most people want to jump where can I improve (we now know with neuroscience that our brain does instinctively focus on what is wrong.). And up until now, we would pour all of our development dollars into a skill that is a 1-2, spend all this time and effort to maybe make it a 4, and that is still mediocre.


Instead, why don’t we shift our thinking and focus on a talent that is a 7 and invest to make it a 9! That can be a superpower!


That resonated with me so much that I went back to my team, and we instituted a strengths-based approach to our performance management strategy.

Let’s tap into our brilliance instead of struggling to be mediocre.

Another concept Joelle talks to us about in The Inner Edge is the DNA (Distinct Natural Attributes) Equalizer. That is paying attention to whether we are under or over-rotating on a strength, and an overused strength can become a liability. I have a tendency to overuse my Positivity strength. I’ve been called a “cheerleader” when it comes to my clients, and I often use encouraging language to celebrate others when I could simply hold a safe space to contemplate. It’s something I am aware of, and can modify.

Now the question for you to discover is what is unique about you? What is your superpower(s)? What do you bring to your work, team, colleagues that no one else can in exactly the way that you do? Do you have an under-utilized strength to rely on to make your life easier? It’s hard to keep pushing a boulder uphill if you do not have the tools to make it easy on yourself.

What strengths do you claim? How can you make your life and work better by using your strengths?

Next month we’ll review Practice 5: Feel Fulfillment- What Motivates You and Makes You Happy?

LRI would be happy to run a strengths-based workshop for your team so you can see the power of your strengths first-hand.

Best Regards,

Lori Evans Ermi PCC, SPHR, Behavioralist, Executive Coach, Group and Team Coaching, Leadership and Vertical Development, Facilitator, Certified e-Virtual Presenter



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