I was delighted when I was sent a free copy of Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign to review. Not just because I voted for him, but because this is a book about how to sell change, major change, to strangers and in doing so turn them into a community of supporters. That̵...

In a comment Monday Denis asked, “What do the people you hire tell about your leadership style?” The short answer has been around a long time in one form or another. Good leaders (managers) hire people smarter than themselves and don’t feel threatened by people who are better at gi...

Can you imagine telling your boss that you deserve a raise because you come to work on time every day? Or that she shouldn’t fire you for poor performance because you tried really, really hard? Last week on Leadership’s Future a young man named Andrew started a conversation. During it he...

It seems that more and more people these days confuse accountability and consequences with ultimatums and punishment. I thought it would be a good idea to sort this out, since the former is a part of a strong, healthy culture, while the latter is a major factor in an abusive one. Accountability stem...

I am revolted by the lack of respect shown by so many of our Congressional (so-called) leaders. Warning: If you don’t like rants feel free to navigate to a different (brilliant) post on this blog, because what follows is definitely a rant—in spite of the lack of excessive profanity and perso...

Did you read the links from yesterday? I hope so, because some of these quotes play off those articles. “I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.R...

“Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.” Last year I wrote about the global glass ceiling; today I have seven fascinating articles on corporate women. More of the same—or are things changing? Kids don’t think so; in fact they’re more pessimistic. “T...

I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that as important as hard work, good planning, etc., are, there was something else at work in my life. Something outside of my control and I wanted to know what it was. I finally decided it was luck—definitely outside my control. I wrote recently abut how...

As you probably know there are hundreds of ways to mess up a culture and a lack of authenticity is one of the big ones. There’s a lot about written about authenticity, but are you aware that one of the quickest ways to announce your lack of authenticity is to issue ultimatums? Thousands of tim...

Do words really make a difference? Can just one word change people’s perception of a person or event? I’ve read several items lately on the importance of influence in leadership. Several even make the point that it’s the ability to influence that marks a person as a leader. Persona...