Any good gardner knows that the right mixture of fertile soil, clean water, fertilizer and sunlight will produce healthy and fast-growing plants. The same can be said for growing innovative leaders, but in this case it is necessary to cultivate the right mixture of organizational factors, leadership skills and learning opportunities. In the November issue of Harvard Business Review, Jeffrey Cohn, Jon Katzenbach and Gus Vlak write about the unique conditions that help great companies to find...
Leaderless Organizations
What can leaderless organizations tell us about leadership in the future? There is a growing phenomenon of leaderless organizations that is chronicled by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom in their recent book The Starfish and the Spider. The title refers to the contrast between two animals that, at first glance, appear to be quite similar but… If you cut off a spider’s head, it dies; but if you cut off a starfish’s leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. ...
The Wisdom of Buffet
The Snowball is an excellent new biography of Warren Buffet by Alice Schroder published in September 2008. It is packed full of wonderful anecdotes and stories from Warren’s life. At 838 pages one might think it is a bit long, except for the fact that Buffet’s life and business experience span such a long period, the book needs every page and probably more to give the full story justice. I have a listed a few of Buffet’s life lessons here that relate directly to the topic of leadership:...