I had some interesting responses from my leadership as a suit analogy (posting on 30 July 2015). I thought the feedback would be beneficial to share because the comments are representative of those informal leadership discussions we have all shared a thousand times at lunch, in a classroom, or sitting in a bar. These exchanges are…
<tap> <tap> CEOs <tap> <tap> Are you out there? Anybody? <tap> <tap> COOs? CFOs? <tap> <tap> Is this thing on? I really want to be that motivator guy. You know, the guy that runs around and pumps everyone up. I want to throw those pithy motivational quotes that seem deep and meaningful, but also contradict…
It costs you nothing to be a good boss. If you can earn one dollar extra by being a good boss, the return on that investment (ROI) is infinite.
(Or The Fallacy of Leadership Style) There are a lot of articles and posts written on the subject of leadership style. Most of it is based on a faulty premise: you are your leadership style and your leadership style is you. In other words, people are led to believe that they are defined by their leadership style…
I had a podcast interview with Jonathan Pritchard over at A Life Well Designed. Jonathan uses design principles to analyze challenges in life and business, then applies design techniques to find elegant, effective solutions. (For some reason I had a tough time enunciating, but I hope the messages were clear.) I enjoyed the interview immensely,…
When you are in a position of authority, what is the best use of your time? How do you get more leadership bang for the buck? One of my leadership principles is to create a healthy organizational culture. I think the best way to convey the message is to cultivate cooperation from people instead of…
What is the point of all of it? Millions of dollars are spent each year on personality assessment tests. But, nobody can express a clear reason why. “Two and a half million Americans a year take the Myers-Briggs. Eighty-nine companies out of the US Fortune 100 make use of it, for recruitment and selection or…
“But they are like family to me!” You hear this phrase or something like it when people speak about their work relationships. Hell, I’ve been guilty of saying it in one form or another. It is sorta sad to think about it, but we often spend more time in the company of our colleagues than…
Why do we fear the NSA? Why do we fear sharks? Why do we fear anything? Here’s some context: Shark attacks in 2014: 72 unprovoked attacks with 3 fatalities.[1] A 2006 Time article stated that more than 600 people die annually in the US alone by falling out of bed.[2] Which should you fear more,…
I recently caught a glimpse of a message in one of my professional newsfeeds that posed the question “When do you stop being a leader?” It is hard to consider it when you are the leader, so my default process has always been to remember my thoughts and feelings when I can observe as a…