[January 04, 2014] All great leaders study leadership. They make it part of their routine to ensure that they understand and seek to improve their leadership skills and knowledge. When the seasoned executive leader’s mind is adequately mature and has obtained sufficient awareness to understand, only then does the leader have the true capacity of senior leadership. Otherwise,… Read More »
[January 03, 2014] Early last year I had the opportunity in a group of senior executives to meet with the Secretary of Defense (aka SecDef) at the Pentagon. There was a lively discussion about what was important for the United States (a guns versus butter talk) where the SecDef listed the President’s top priorities. Most of the discussion… Read More »
[January 02, 2014] My goal was to provide at least 10 “senior executive leadership” – non-commercial websites – those that are dedicated exclusively to senior leaders and worth reading. Finding basic leadership sites was easy but finding them dedicated to “senior leadership” was another matter. Unfortunately, there are simply very few free and open senior leader websites –… Read More »
[January 02, 2014] There has been a long-standing debate whether there is a link between employee happiness, their pay at work, and workplace productivity. While few would deny that these are related, the key argument is whether better worker pay leads directly to improved performance. A recent article in Inc Magazine by Scott Leibs1, entitled You Can Buy… Read More »
[January 01, 2014] Reading is a habit that all the best leaders have developed over their lifetimes and like any habit, it can be changed for better or worse. What I wanted to do here is add a few thoughts on my year of reading in 2013. Many of my favorite books on history, were not include in… Read More »
[January 01, 2014] Most New Year’s Resolutions fail – up to 90% don’t make it. There are naysayers who declare that it is best to ignore the tradition and do not make a resolution because “it will fail anyway.” For leaders, however, this is quite different. Leaders should make resolutions … promises to themselves to improve their leader… Read More »
[December 30, 2013] In an earlier blog entitled A Leadership Philosophy, it was proposed that the main purpose of this philosophy was to “help guide and focus the work” of employees. Placing the philosophy in writing and where everyone can see it, helps keep employees and the leader “on track and headed toward achieving [organizational] goals, missions, and… Read More »
[December 29, 2013] We have all had a bad boss at one time and we’ve all seen bad decisions from good leaders at one time or another. A perceptive leader learns from the mistakes of a bad boss and from a good leader who fails. There are many things we can learn from a bad boss or from… Read More »
[December 28, 2013] Teaching, coaching, and mentoring are some of the fundamental traits of a leader. It is commonplace to find articles on the subject and organizational programs demanding it. Yet, there is some confusion over the concepts. The confusion stems from the fact that the concepts are overlapping and are used differently according to organizational culture. In… Read More »
[December 27, 2013] Phobias are unusual for a leadership topic. Yet, people do have fears (e.g., speaking in public, heights, falling) and it can in some cases affect job performance and threaten organizational missions. Hidden phobias can be especially difficult to uncover and resolve. On several occasions I ran across Soldiers who had a phobia that caused problems… Read More »