Get Beyond Your Natural Leadership Style: Learn to Flex

Though you have a natural leadership style, to be effective and masterful you need to learn to get beyond it. Now, that may sound difficult. After all, people have their natural personalities. People enter leadership roles with a disposition that drives them to be either commanding or collaborative, introverted or extroverted, cautious or decisive, relationship-oriented … Read more

How Ego and Pride Derail Leaders

How Ego and Pride Derail Leaders by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary: If you think you don’t have a problem with your ego, watch out. That’s when leaders are at the greatest risk of losing their bearings and credibility.  +++ Aristotle defined the “golden mean” as the desirable middle between the two extremes of excess and deficiency. For leaders, there’s an essential golden mean to … Read more

Getting Results with Steel or Velvet—A Critical Leadership Practice

Getting Results with Steel or Velvet— A Critical Leadership Practice

Triple crown leaders—those seeking to build organizations that are excellent, ethical, and enduring—go beyond their natural leadership style, flexing between the hard edge of steel and the soft edge of velvet, depending on the situation and the people involved. (See our related article, “Steel and Velvet Leadership.”) They acknowledge their varying approaches referencing the organization’s … Read more

Leading People with Steel or Velvet–A Critical Leadership Practice

Leading People with Steel or Velvet— A Critical Leadership Practice

Triple crown leaders—those who aspire to build excellent, ethical, and enduring organizations—have learned to go beyond their natural leadership style, flexing between what we call “steel and velvet,” the hard and soft edges of leadership, depending on the situation and the people involved. Steel leadership demands excellent results, insists on ethical practices, and resists the … Read more

Steel and Velvet Leadership

steel and velvet

In our book, Triple Crown Leadership, based on extensive research and interviews with leaders in 61 outstanding organizations in 11 countries, we identified five advanced leadership practices for building an organization or team that’s excellent, ethical, and enduring. One of these practices has most intrigued the leaders we work with. Here we elaborate on how … Read more