[February 13, 2017] Whenever I think about the foremost problems we recently faced in combat, I’m reminded of a sign I saw somewhere in Baghdad. It read, “Complacency kills.” I was told my first day on the job to “stay focused and keep an eye out for anything that could be a threat.” The biggest threat to success… Read More »
[February 12, 2017] As an Army ROTC cadet, I once attended a special exercise that involved team building. One of the Leadership Development Exercise events involved cadet teams, four to each, working to cross a concrete gap with planks of wood. They key to completing the task was that everyone had to work together. My team had a… Read More »
[February 11, 2017] It has often been said– and I want to reinforce it here – that successful leadership means possessing a strong ability to bring people together to achieve a common goal. Implied here is that the leader helps shape consensus in others. We see leaders do this through their good words and deeds. “A genuine leader… Read More »
[February 10, 2017] There’s an old saying that a bad attitude is like a flat tire, you’ll never go anywhere without changing it. In my experience, that’s very true. We’ve all had both good and bad days in our personal lives and our attitudes have reflected it. But it is the bad attitude of a leader that makes… Read More »
[February 9, 2017] Leadership means many things to many different people. But one thing we do know for sure is that leadership is getting people to do what they would not normally do in order to achieve what they want (or not want) to achieve. Persuasion, then, is a must-have skill for anyone who desires to be successful… Read More »
[February 8, 2017] This past Sunday, prior to watching the Super Bowl, my wife recommended a movie starring Anthony Hopkins (as an English butler) that I’d neither seen or heard of. The movie we saw is called The Remains of the Day (1993). It remained me of David Halberstam’s theme in his 1972 book, The Best and The… Read More »
[February 6, 2017] … to be a great leader. One of the ways many leaders excel in their profession is by simply outworking others. Longer days, more intense effort, and generally more time and dedication to their line of work are how they got ahead of their competition. But it takes more than hard work for a person… Read More »
[February 3, 2017] Being recently retired from the Army has offered me a number of advantages; most useful among them is the strength of mind – developed over four decades – to navigate most bureaucracies without great aggravation. Bureaucracies serve a useful function in their intended role to efficiently administer rules, regulations, and policies … and they have… Read More »
[January 28, 2017] I’ve been a baseball fan since I was 6 years old … being mature enough to appreciate the game. There were many professional ball players I liked as a child but my favorite player today is Cal Ripken, Jr. He’s my favorite because he was a great player (now retired) and understood that despite the… Read More »
[January 27, 2017] Many of us measure leadership by the level of popularity of the person. You hear this often about politicians; that those most popular are the greatest (they do need it to be elected). In part that explains the continuous measure of the popularity of politicians, Hollywood actors, and fashion models. In reality, however, popularity is… Read More »