How to be Humble
Early in his life, Benjamin Franklin fell into conversation with a friend of his. As Franklin retells the story in his autobiography, “a Quaker Friend…kindly inform’d me that I was generally thought proud.” The Friend went on to describe Franklin’s behavior as insolent and overbearing. And he said that in conversation, being merely being right about […]
How to Keep Your Leadership in Style: Do the Hustle!
Dance class is over, and looking back I realize that our instructor did not do as advertised. When we signed up and paid our fee, it was to learn the basics of the Swing, Cha-cha, Tango, and Foxtrot. These he did in good style. And in the process, he managed to give us a good […]
Book Notes: Start With Why
How is it that that Toyota and Honda were able to expand into the luxury car market successfully, but Volkswagen was not? Why is Apple able to remain so innovative in so many different areas of the market for so long? We can answer these questions and many like them with a one-word question of […]
9 Leadership Lessons I Learned from my Dance Instructor
I guess you can learn about leadership just about anywhere if you happen to be looking for it. Last Thursday evening, I wasn’t even looking and it hit me square in the face. My wife and I had signed up for dance lessons (think basic ballroom stuff – definitely not Dancing with the Stars!). But as […]
How Serving Can Make You a Better Leader
The popular ideal of a leader who stands alone in the face of adversity barking orders that are instantly obeyed makes for good cinema. But in the real world, that’s not the way the most effective leaders get the job done. Instead, they practice something called Servant-Leadership, a much more powerful and sustainable approach to […]
Know This One Thing Before You Try to Lead – 2 Minute Tip
Leading a team includes accomplishing the mission while also taking care of people. If your people’s needs aren’t being met, chances are that the mission is going to suffer. Here’s a simple framework you can keep in mind when working with your people to ensure you are meeting their needs.
Book Notes: Lean In
One of the more recent and popular entries to the long list of good leadership books was Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Authored by Sheryl Sandberg, formerly a vice president at Google and now Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, I found it to be an interesting, edifying, and very worthwhile read. […]
Book Notes: The Ice Master
What happens when the leader abandons the people he’s supposed to be leading? With The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk, I thought I was just reading another tale of epic survival in the arctic. But as this true account developed, it was soon clear that the underlying story line was about […]
Adaptive Leadership: How to Match your Style to the Circumstances
OK, so you have a sense of where your power to influence others comes from. But how do you use this power to get others to do things? Different leadership approaches use these powers in different ways. A quick search of the internet reveals a wide range of opinions on the number of leadership styles […]
Book Notes: Leaders Eat Last
The book title caught my eye because it’s something the Army has been doing for a long time. One evening, while observing Marines eating dinner in the field, author Simon Sinek noticed that as a matter of routine, the most junior Marines ate first. The highest ranking ones, the leaders, ate last. Through this simple […]
Book Notes: The Killer Angels
The first and best historical fiction book I have ever read, and an excellent look into the challenges of leadership, The Killer Angels reads like a novel. But author Michael Shaara combines historical accuracy with a captivating story-telling ability to make this a hard-to-put-down read about the battle of Gettysburg, and for me, a great […]
Book Notes: The Journals of Lewis and Clark
It’s 1803, and President Thomas Jefferson has just completed the Louisiana Purchase. Now he needs to learn about this new land and open up trade routes to the west. The story of how Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crossed the continent is generally well known, but what many forget is that they didn’t do it […]