To Lead Well
I’ll start within, Cultivating quality character, Acting with integrity, Listening with my heart, Composed amid chaos, A soul flooding forth with love. I’ll reach out, Caring and connecting, Serving, Engendering trust, Building relationships, Unleashing others who soar. I’ll step up, Saying “Yes,” Choosing wisely, Embracing change, Striving for what’s right, Pursuing our dreams. I’ll leave a legacy, A team of partners, Companions with courage and character, Leading and following, Creators of worthy deeds, Together undaunted. I wrote this poem at the urging of son, Gregg, who thought it would be a fitting close for my latest book, Leadership Wisdom: Lessons
Does Your Business Need an Advisory Board?
“I was not sure where I was going … But you saw further and clearer than I, … to a place I had never dreamed of …” -Thomas Merton The sad reality is that most businesses fail. The quoted failure rates vary, but they are all dismal. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says, “About half of all new establishments survive five years or more and about one-third survive 10 years or more.” Many other businesses underperform pitiably. The primary reasons most businesses fail have been summarized this way: Poor leadership, management, planning, location, financial or asset management, partners, or
10 Keys to Self-Leadership
We face a barrage of challenges these days: astonishing technological change, intense competition, a barrage of demands on our attention, tension between work and home, and more. There is one meta-skill that shapes how we respond to all these challenges: self-leadership. Without it, we cannot sustain ourselves for long. Leading self may be obvious, but it is far from easy. We neglect it at our peril. Ten Keys to Self-Leadership The task of leading self is the task of a lifetime. Here are ten keys to self-leadership: 1. Healthy Habits. Leadership is hard work: psychologically, emotionally, and even
The Trust Imperative
Building trust is an imperative to creating a better world. Through my work advocating ethical and values-based leadership, I sometimes see eyes glaze over. “Whose values?” people wonder. “How do you define what’s ethical?” “Can we really act morally in this rough-and-tumble world?” Fair questions from people trying to survive in a tough, competitive environment. While many of us struggle with what ethics and values mean, almost everyone understands trust. Why? Because we experience it daily in good or bad forms at home and work. We trust our spouse, our children, our colleagues; or we don’t. We have seen and
The Keys to Success
What are the keys to success? I pondered this question when asked to speak at the recent conference. My task was to define the X factor that, combined with IQ (intelligence quotient) and EQ (emotional intelligence), would lead to success, happiness, fulfillment, and achieving one’s best self. A tall order. IQ is traditionally one’s inherent intelligence level, but Gregg and I went further in our book, Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations, citing the “head” qualities that we discovered in our research, including interviews with leaders in 61 organizations in 11 countries. The “head” qualities are raw
Leadership Wisdom: Book Release
Bob’s newest book, Leadership Wisdom: Lessons from Poetry, Prose, and Curious Verse, will be released by Motivational Press soon. The book is a compendium of timeless, inspiring wisdom on leadership from the sages of literature and outstanding leaders written over the centuries right up to the present day. Bob has selected over 70 poems, prose, or speech passages, each with an insightful leadership message. He combines these pearls with engaging commentary from his own vast leadership experience and closes each entry with practical applications that each reader can use immediately. You will hear from an astonishing array of poets, presidents,
A Leadership Lightning Bolt
Early in my leadership quest to “find a better way to lead,” I had the wonderful pleasure to work for Jan and Olga Erteszak, Polish immigrants who had fled the Nazis in Europe and then founded a ladies’ lingerie company in Los Angeles. The Olga Company was the creative leader in this industry, designing and producing fashionable lingerie, sleepwear, and loungewear. I learned so much about creativity from Jan and Olga because we literally practiced creativity in meetings. What fun as we stretched our imaginations. One memorable day, Jan, with a wink and that crooked smile of his, gave me
Why Do You Want to Lead?
I was flying from Cleveland to Chicago to meet my wife, June, and two young sons. They were flying from Los Angeles to meet me for a brief Christmas holiday. I had been “too busy” to fly back to help her cope with our toddler and the baby. (It is really so embarrassing to relate this story now.) I was 29 years old and working nightmare hours for a high-flying firm that was rapidly acquiring companies. My job was to fly out and spend all week, every week, “integrating” the acquired firms. “Integrating” meant consolidating their plants, cutting duplicate costs,
The Problem with Tired Leaders
Are you tired? Stressed? Busy? Just par for the course for today’s leader, right? Wrong. These days, it seems that “busy is the new black.” Busy is in. People boast about how busy they are. When answering a schedule request, they regale you with all the things in their calendar that prevent them from meeting you at the requested time. It’s a game, with busyness an assumed proxy for importance. The Glorification of Busy Anne-Marie Slaughter has described modern workers as “time macho,” with “relentless competition to work harder, stay later,” and travel more. Thus the recent viral meme:
Learning and Development Impacting Your Bottom Line
(guest post by Rachel Kay) One of the biggest challenges you face as a leader when attempting to implement a learning and development (L&D) initiative within your company is convincing the decision-makers that it will benefit the company as a whole. When they can’t see a clear projected return on their investment, they may balk at backing you, so it’s your job to assure them that it’s not going to be a waste of time, money, and resources; in other words, you must have their trust. According to the Thales Learning & Development guide that focuses on this subject, L&D
Set No More Than Six Personal Values
“Values tell you what to do when you don’t know what to do.” -Tom McCoy, executive vice president, CH2M HILL Your personal values are essential. They set your moral compass. They guide your behavior when you are under the stresses of life. Most people have not clearly articulated their personal values, and we strongly encourage you to do so. Recently, someone contacted us with questions about developing her personal values. She had difficulty selecting three to six values, as we recommend, and further wondered if it is advisable to have separate personal values versus work values. Yes, most people have
New to the Boardroom? How to Succeed
Congratulations. You’ve just been invited to join your first public company board. Great. Now, what can you expect? It’s not just approving the CEO’s strategy or officer compensation recommendations after asking a few questions. It’s more than risk assessments, financial statement reviews, and meeting with the outside auditors periodically. It’s much deeper and more complex, especially if you want to bring a new brand of leadership to the boardroom. You will be confronted with difficult challenges you are not likely to have faced before. What do you do? When do you lead assertively? When do you lead softly? When do
The Ethical Challenges Faced by Leaders
“Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.” -James MacGregor Burns We all face ethical challenges and dilemmas, and all the more so if we lead. Think how you would act in the following scenarios: You give the cashier a $10 bill, and she gives you change for a $20. You realize it in the parking lot. Do you trudge back and give her the money? You incur some personal charges on a business trip. Do you fudge some expenses to help cover these costs? Do you overestimate your charitable contributions on your tax form
Double Your Productivity in 15 Minutes
guest blog by Dan Forbes, Founder of the Lead With Giants™ Community In the early 1900s Charles Schwab was president of Bethlehem Steel, a small, struggling company. He was looking for ways to increase productivity and profits. In walked Ivy Lee. He was a business consultant and promised Schwab that in just fifteen minutes he could share a secret with the company’s managers that would double productivity. The skeptical Schwab asked Lee what he was selling and at what price? Lee told him to just try it for six months and then, “You can pay me what you think it’s worth.”
The Dangers of Toxic Micro-Cultures
Does your organization have some toxic micro-cultures? If so, you ignore them at your peril. Much is written these days about the importance of culture in boosting an organization’s success. Strategy is important, as are talent, business models, innovation, and more. But culture, “how we do things here,” as we like to define it, can be the trump card, because it permeates everything in an organization. Culture is what people do when the boss is not around. Wise leaders craft the culture purposefully and make the desired behaviors explicit and clear. Culture can have a big impact on whether people
