Friends, Almost every leader’s biggest challenge is unleashing initiative. If it’s not getting people to initiate and generate, then it’s getting people to initiate work with others. Parents, bosses, presidents, principals? They’re all trying to light fires and increase people’s capacity to work together and work out problems. What’s THE biggest obstacle to people … Continued
Ivana, a former law student of mine, gave me this week’s “Reading for Leading story,” while we were having a drink to celebrate numerous goals that she had recently completed. She told me how another student approached her and asked why she always has a smile on her face. She told him, “I believe Happiness … Continued
I originally published this column in 2008 and got almost 80 reader responses. Thought it worth sharing with some minor revisions… Do you make anything of this? Last Monday I wrote about “managing up.” I got only 4 blog comments, three of which were random attacks on the Governor that were unrelated to my column. … Continued
I led a workshop last week in San Francisco for the Institute for Management Studies, and I was reminded again about how bosses can make their people miserable. This is about how not to do that! Among the 40 or so participants there were about six ghosts, managers the participants had left behind at their workplaces, … Continued
If you think about your own leadership — the passion you have for something important — I wonder if you might find this line from author and minister Michael Beckwith rings true: “Pain pushes until vision pulls.” I know from my own life that my pains, discomforts and losses became fuel — knowingly and sometimes … Continued
I find myself thinking back to high school. It’s “back, back, back,” as ESPN’s Chris Berman would describe an outfielder’s movement before everyone realizes it’s “long gone.”* I went to University of Detroit High School on 7 Mile Road in Detroit from 1972-1976. The teachers made you feel like they were teaching in an unbroken … Continued
Tis the season to . . . Collect from slow-paying clients. Cram for exams. Grade those exams! Shop. Wish you didn’t have to shop. Decorate. Pray for snow. Pray for sun (December 21 can’t get here fast enough!) Prepare for family – Yay! Boo! Yay! We never lead outside context. There is rhythm to life, … Continued
Over the 20 or so years I have been explicitly reading, writing and thinking about leadership, I have tried to see it in simpler and simpler ways. Originally, I was captivated by vision. Whether you lead from “above,” or, from below-where-the-action-is, you can generate power by helping people to focus on just what we are trying … Continued
When a scene is well written, directed and acted, we can feel targeted or triggered. We are treated or entreated — we are drawn to something that evokes what’s best in us. These dramatic figures are like a gift to us, and they hit each of us in our own way, in our own spot. … Continued
At Berkeley, as on so many campuses, and in offices, in the NFL, in churches, we’ve been struggling with disturbing cases of sexual harassment. As with the Black Lives Matter case, we’re confronted with damning evidence that just had not been fully seen, accepted and acted upon. My public policy grad students were assessing this … Continued