[Approximately twice a month I will be focusing Read2Lead on the specific context of LeadingX2.] Every manager has the capacity with every direct report to build a relationship in which the two: “lead by two.” The advantages of turning a direct report into a peer are enormous: the “lower” person is set free to invent, … Continued
Soul Searching: Do You Lead – Are You a Leader? I’d like to explore the distinction, as a way of getting you to think about your fundamental attitudes at work, in community, and at home. I am 99% sure that everyone who reads this blog leads, and I wonder if it would help if they-you … Continued
It’s pretty inescapable that individuals as leaders, and organizations as leaders . . . stretch. A couple examples. Amazon the ultimate elastic company just keeps stretching with almost daily experimentation – from incorporating Whole Foods to continually new advertising on its boxes to Prime Day (I was a victim of this modern day variant of … Continued
Dang it was a hard week. On the last day of the prior week, at the end of a wonderful time at Lake Michigan, I threw out my back (doing yoga, of all things). Crooked, bent and thus more than a little irritable, I returned to Berkeley to welcome and teach forty-two 30-and-40 year old … Continued
You are surely and sorely needed at this time. Needed to think – and perhaps act – globally, and surely to think and act locally. They have never been more connected. Globally, there are 25 million documented refugees, with another 40 million displaced within their countries.* Over half are under eighteen. The vast majority seek … Continued
Authors create characters. Back in 1982, when I was entirely smitten with the work of novelist Walker Percy, I wrote him a letter to tell him that his writing was so good that I felt his characters were more real than people I met in my life. (If you enjoy character novels, try Percy’s Love in … Continued
Leaders are supposed to be STRONG, right? Look up strong on Google and click on “images.” Here’s the first of many similar images: One thing is obvious, right? The figure to the left is a GUY! There are other images on the Google search. More bulging boy biceps. You’ll also see near the top, the … Continued
“Assume more power when situations are stagnant…” Nate Medina, UC Berkeley, ’18 I am submerged in final papers. Berkeley juniors and seniors pull together their thoughts after a semester’s course on leadership. The papers marry their personal experience leading with the theoretical concepts they have gathered from lectures and readings. Their reflections are universally … Continued
“Leaders go first.” A tautology? In a sense yes, because it’s definitional that leaders stand apart. But my friends Kouzes and Posner in The Leadership Challenge stand this “going first” on its head. They don’t mean “goes first” because he or she is brimming with confidence, bravely blazing a trail that no one else can … Continued
While preparing for an upcoming series of classes and speeches, I pulled up my “Definitions” of leadership file. Here are two: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” … Continued