My vocal teacher has story after story – starting with her own – of how critics can be to a singer’s esteem, what termites are to a wooden home. A single criticism can devour the mind of self-confidence and easy expression. Singers or not, everyone I know has a story of criticisms planted in their … Continued
I first met Barbara Lee ten years ago. My wife had been talking about this amazing woman who was relentlessly dedicated to identifying, recruiting, supporting, and coaching great women to run for elective office. Jennifer doesn’t think she’d have gotten elected without Barbara’s encouragement and energy. Jennifer was far from Barbara’s only beneficiary. Barbara Lee … Continued
Are you, as I am in middle age, drawn to enchanted memories of early years? I can see, even smell certain places I haven’t been in 40 years. So my brother Pat repeatedly says to me, “Danny, we’ve got to go back and play Birmingham [Country Club].” He and I caddied there. We spent hundreds … Continued
I was speaking to a delegation of manufacturers from China about old and new leadership approaches in America. After every four or five sentences, I would stop. The interpreter would then reel off sentences in Mandarin. I’d catch when he said a word, like “Google” or “Obama,” but otherwise I understood absolutely nothing. As he … Continued
RFL Two weeks ago: really examine yourself before you start correcting someone else. RFL Last week: there is no reality, so “get” their reality. Their reality – their perceptions, recollections, evaluations — are completely independent of yours. Their view need not threaten you. Just GET IT and then many problems will go away. Now: You … Continued
Last week I suggested that the best way to renew a strained partnership is to work on yourself. I suggested I must lead with my best self to begin with the assumption that I have done something to contribute to stress or a breakdown. It takes my best, because the lawyer in me habitually turns all … Continued
Friends, Oh, did I screw up last week! I’ll tell you what I did, how I made it worse, and what I’m still learning about it. I turned in my grades for my awesome undergrad leadership students. A frustrated email quickly arrived from a student, saying there must have been a mistake. Then a second … Continued
Friends, We got to Jack’s piano recital early last night. Scott was putting the programs on the chairs. Just an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet folded in half, with a frilly cut on the right side of the cover. Inside: Twenty three students were listed on the left with the title of their selection on the … Continued
Friends, I returned Sunday from the Oregon coast (which by the way struck me as though it was a marvelous cousin to the lands of the Lake Michigan dunes). I was on a retreat with 11 other men looking to renew “meaning in the middle of life.” Ann Ladd and Tim Barraud* who facilitated the … Continued
Friends, Sometimes I wonder: Have I gotten too soft, when so many of my Reading for Leading blogs are about relationship? But then I figure: how else can you lead or be led, except in relationship? And this past week offered three ripe examples, one from hoops, and two in the semester’s end. I was … Continued