Can you find yourself in these tales of heroic leadership?

“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

Leading Through Division

Could Trump Kaepernick and the NFL teach us all something about leading in our own individual, collective and sometimes divisive lives? I think so. If you haven’t been following the National Football League, a controversy began over a year ago when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to sit during the national anthem. (If you … Continued

How to Lead a Subordinate to Become a Partner – Part 3

In a continuing series on the power of creating partnerships – including with those who are “below” us. Recap:  For the past two weeks I have been writing about how it’s possible to turn (nearly every) top-down relationship into a partnership, and that doing so generates greater substantive and relational results for both people. I … Continued

How Everyday Leadership Turns Magnificent

(I am interpreting, fairly I hope, an incident that happened this past Thursday night. For insight from one of the principals, you can watch a Detroit Free Press interview here.) It usually starts bad. Often, really bad. Like this past Thursday: Two guys come up behind my friend as he’s walking towards his door.  We’re … Continued

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