In a recent speech for about sixty undergrad management students, I posed the question: “How many of you either already occupy, or aspire to a professional role as a leader?”…
Category: Leadership
Leadership: Principle vs Popularity
The long life of an old family friend came to an end last week. More than a generation ago, this fellow was a high-profile public official in my hometown (appointed,…
Brexit and Feet Voting: Are Your Employees Next?
Since the June 23 referendum in which voters in the United Kingdom opted out of the European Union, there has been no small volume of ink and electrons applied to discussing the…
Take a Stand - A Leadership Lesson From Muhammad Ali
As a sports-minded teen growing up in West Virginia in the mid 60’s, I was an impressionable witness to the metamorphosis of a brash young boxer named Cassius Clay into…
I'm Sorry...Hold the If's, And's, and But's
The song, “If I Could Turn Back Time” written by Diane Warren and performed by recording artist, Cher, laments our inability to completely erase and undo harm caused to another: “If I…
One Reason U.S. Productivity Growth Has Slowed, and What to Do About It
Economists have struggled over the last decade to attribute and explain the dramatic slowing of U.S. productivity growth. Since 2005, U.S. labor productivity growth (growth of measured output minus the…
Stupid Manager Tricks
For better than two decades, late night talk show host, David Letterman ran hilarious periodic segments, Stupid Pet Tricks, highlighting silly tricks that people had taught their pets to perform. In…
Three Things that will Improve Employee Engagement
Recently I read a piece in the e-version of a major business publication which, by title and implication suggested that seventy percent of Americans hate their work. The piece used…
Have You Ever Been Attacked by a Shark?
Guest post by Jonathan Cardwell Mick Fanning has been. Last month while surfing a competition off the Eastern Cape of South Africa, Mick was attacked by a shark. He bravely…
Should We Stop Doing Performance Reviews?
For the past few years there has been a hue and a cry, joined of late by large numbers of HR professionals, suggesting that companies need to stop doing traditional…