Mary Marshall “The Ideal Factor” – a shared intent by everyone in the business to improve people’s lives – keeps renewing and strengthening great businesses through good times and bad. – Jim Stengel, Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies, 2011 Do you have an … Read more
What is “Leadership Character?” According to Fred Kiel’s recent book, Return on Character, the following are the top 8 character traits of great leadership: Displayed and demanded high moral principles. Embraced a worldview of positive beliefs. Developed a higher level of mental complexity. Sought out … Read more
How many times have you promoted your best performers only to see them struggle as a manager or leader? A client recently promoted his top sales person to lead the team and the entire team’s performance went down double digits. Why does this happen and … Read more
A great piece in the New York Times last week by Daniel Goleman was an excellent reminder about what good leadership is and isn’t, and it definitely includes developed emotional intelligence. Although emotional intelligence, (or EQI as it is commonly referred to), has many components, … Read more
Duff McDonald wrote a great piece in the New York Times today debating whether or not one can be taught to lead. As he says, all of the big business schools say it in their mission statements and taglines – “developing leaders who make a … Read more
A recent series in the Puget Sound Business Journal told the stories of several tech startup CEOs and their bouts with depression. It discussed the extreme focus on the business, to the exclusion of all else, that led to the depression and the consequences. Anyone … Read more
To quote Warren Bennis, “Managers do things right and leaders do the right thing.” The reason I bring this up was a recent conversation I had with a manager. He was telling me about all the work he had done and was frustrated because there … Read more
I was having coffee with a friend and colleague of mine today, Dr. Julie Miller, and she was talking about her new venture. She’s had a very successful career and found that she wanted to do more. Last year she created a program that really … Read more
An excellent article was just reposted in Forbes: “Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid,” by Amy Morin. Talk about a great list for all of us to remind ourselves about, but especially true for entrepreneurs! These are the things mentally strong leaders don’t … Read more
Last week I discussed why employees are more productive with praise vs. punishment. When people “feel” better they perform better. This week I saw an op-ed piece from the NY Times, “Why You Hate Work,” which seemed like a great follow-up to last week’s blog. … Read more