Method Leadership

You lead people. You manage situations.

You lead people, yourself included. You manage situations. Nobody worth their salt likes to be “managed”.  Trying to manage people, that is; using threats of punishment, promises of reward, passive aggressive comments, subtle (or not so subtle) hints, and sundry other insincere “techniques” designed to elicit a change in behavior, borders on sociopathic.  It’s disrespectful and condescending. It…

Why independence doesn’t mean being a lone wolf.

Main Squeeze sent me this a few days ago; said it reminded her of me.  You see I don’t enjoy organizational politics at all (who does?) and I’ve never been much good at kow-towing. I shared it with my friend and business partner, who wondered if “wolves”, being great at “lone”, might then not be good at playing on a team.  At the time I thought that’s maybe where the analogy breaks down, but in…

Boss versus Leader – not so clear cut.

No attribution. No copyright infringement intended. Let me know if it’s your work.

  Intuitively, the picture resonates.  We’ve all had the petty-tyrant boss; the person who loves the sound of their own voice and is oblivious to the resentment and de-motivation they’re engendering.

And most of us can relate to the manager who loves to roll up his sleeves and jump in on the line.

But don’t be…

Self Control. The Holy Grail of Success and Happiness?

Research over the last decade is supporting what should be intuitive:  the ability to control your self is causally linked to success in most aspects of life – academic achievement, career success, good relationships, happiness.

Think of it this way:  if you always did what you should, when you should, and if you could always delay gratification when the short term trade-off would lead to a…

“Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to the totalitarian state”

~ Noam Chomsky

I’m no fan of Noam Chomsky, but he got that right.

I suspect that a good deal of what we see, hear, and read in the public domain is manipulated.  I posted on one aspect of that, the kowtowing of media companies to the wishes of advertisers and sponsors, here: When Truth Doesn’t matter. (Come back to it…

So you think you can write a professional letter?

The art of letter writing is not forgotten, at least not by Nicolas Di Tempora over at Copywriting in Action.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all the emails you receive at work were written like this?  Clear, to the point, objective.

Give the people you communicate with a break – see below to learn how to write compelling, clear, concise, and objective letters and emails.

And go see Nicolas’ website if…

When I get time to read again, one of the first books on my list is “Delivering Happiness”, by Zappos founder, Tony Hsieh.  Also on that list will be several of the books in the presentation below.

Maybe there’s a few here here for you too.  I’ve only read some of these, so can’t vouch for them all, but anyone who is as obsessed with team and customer happiness as Tony seems to be, must be at…

Never wear your beliefs as a badge of honor.

Calling yourself a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or Zoroastrian does not define you.

Your words and your behavior and your deeds; they define you.

Nobody needs to know what you believe in or don’t.

All we care about is interacting with you justly.  That means courtesy, honesty, and the trading of value for value, whether spiritual or material.

If I…

When truth doesn’t matter.

I was under the impression that the “mainstream media” – the big TV news channels, metropolitan daily newspapers, national magazines, and their respective online presences – were essentially mouthpieces of the government because they’re mostly owned by the same small clique of vested-interest cronies.

While that may be at least partially true, I always questioned what that meant in terms of…

How To Speak So That People Want To Listen

Successful communication is an essential leadership and life skill.  Engaging well with others depends on it.

Here’s Julian Treasure with a 10-minute TedX talk on “How to speak so that people want to listen” that’s very worthwhile, with one caveat about his take on “judging” (more on that in a bit).

In summary:

If you want people to listen and take notice when you speak, you may want to audit…

Who are Generation Z?

From the good people at Sparks & Honey (@sparksandhoney), comes this look at Generation Z (born 1995 to now).  Whether you’re trying to market to them or not, knowing a little about what makes them tick can’t be a bad thing.

May you live in interesting times – The Joker versus The Thief

Interesting times indeed.

Watching the dual between Putin and Obama would be instructive (and amusing) if the consequences of the battle were not so dire.  Both are amoral, both are ideologically wrong, and both are tragic second-handers whose self-image is based on what others think.  It’s a fight that can only end in tears all around.

No matter who wins, we don’t.

In one corner you have Obama,…

Organizational leadership takes place in one of two contexts.

Either…

The organization is heading to new heights – it’s a start-up, or an existing organization that’s reached a plateau.  It needs a Visionary to take it to new and uncharted territory.

Or…

Something light, but important.

How we speak determines how well we communicate, and reflects how well we think – because language, and our command of it, is the tool of thought.

Here’s poet Taylor Mali on… like, you know…

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I’m hoping to get back to regular writing and posting soon.  In the meantime, you might like to check out the links in the sidebar at right – there’s plenty to read that I hope you’ll enjoy and benefit from.

I’m staying active on Twitter, so please feel…