[April 27, 2014] As a young Army officer, I learned quickly that there is a direct relationship between keeping Army standards, success, and discipline. This lesson has carried me throughout my career and has been a simple guidepost to what I do in leading my units to accomplish whatever mission we have. I learned that one criteria of… Read More »
[April 26, 2014] There are early reports of a scandal developing in the Veterans Administration, at one facility, alleging improper maintenance of veteran treatment records. It is suspected that VA managers kept two sets of books to make it appear that vets were being treated in a timely manner on the one hand, while not treating some in… Read More »
[April 26, 2014] The lady behind me threw-up in her hat and another said she was happy that she had taken Dramamine1. Otherwise it was an uneventful, slightly turbulent flight. It’s no secret that I travel frequently and therefore experience the tribulations and rewards of doing so. I recently flew for the first time on a small airline… Read More »
[April 25, 2014] Everyone knows that I live in New York City. Great place to be for many reasons. I am certainly no “city slicker” due to my military career, but with that bias I found the recent visit to NYC by Texas Governor Rick Perry to be an interesting contrast of two different subcultures and senior leadership… Read More »
[April 24, 2014] Racial discrimination is legal and officially sanctioned at the highest levels of leadership in the United States government (discrimination in universities anyway). While this could be a shock to many, it should be surprising that there is also strong resistance to eliminating those legal racial barriers. Does this sound like the 1960s, pre-Civil Rights era?… Read More »
[April 23, 2014] This story of leadership was simply too funny to pass up. Leadership means being able to predict and consider the impacts of your decisions and actions. Recently a Twitter account for the New York Police Department was created – #MyNYPD. The intent in creating the Twitter hashtag1 was to “commensurate our love for New York’s… Read More »
[April 23, 2014] It should be clear by now that great leaders (truly all leaders) provide an extraordinary level of motivation. When we look to history for examples of motivation, one of the most famous is the Islamic Commander Tariq. What he said to his men is something I learned in grade school history class (and probably all… Read More »
[April 22, 2014] Whoa, you say! How do families connect to leadership? Well, on the surface, its connection may only appear tenuous but there is a direct relationship between successful leaders and strong family life. First, an observation … strong leaders come from strong families. Likewise, strong families produce resilient, productive citizens and capable leaders. This is derived… Read More »
[April 22, 2014] In the previous two parts of this series (Part 1 andPart 2), I proposed the idea that people who experience frequent stressors in their lives, have greater mental resilience. Today, I’m proposing that many of these bureaucratic programs designed to reduce stressors will ultimately fail in achieving their goals. One thing we know but rarely… Read More »
[April 21, 2014] Senior executive leaders are always willing to learn new things to improve on the way they work. One technique I learned to ensure the success of a good idea was to get buy-in as early as possible. The point is to “socialize” it with the major stakeholders – get them used to the idea without… Read More »