TagLeadership

John Wooden on Success

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As a young high school English teacher in South Bend, Indiana in the 1930s, John Wooden, the legendary former coach of the UCLA men’s basketball team, was not satisfied with the prevailing definition of success.   The conventional wisdom was (and still is) that success is the accumulation of possessions and power.   This definition was unsatisfactory to John, so he came up with his own definition of success: Peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing that you made the...

The 8 Most Important Qualities of Leadership at Google

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For most of Google’s history, and especially in the early years, it took a laissez-faire policy toward leadership. The company hired smart engineers, promoted the most brilliant into leadership positions and then pretty much left them alone. The assumption was that they were smart and would figure it out or ask questions if they needed help. As Google evolved, it became apparent that some managers thrived in this environment more than others.  In a recent article, Laszlo Bock, Google’s...

How Effective Leaders Deal with Information Overload

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Information overload is not only a productivity killer; it can also lead to low morale, anxiety and mistakes.  The U.S. Military has identified “information overload” as the underlying cause of several major mistakes in the war in Afghanistan, and is taking steps to address the issue.  A recent article in the New York Times explains that modern warfare generates unprecedented amounts of data to help soldiers make better decisions, but: Research shows that the kind of intense multitasking...

How Technology is Impacting Leadership

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The wonders of technology are all around us.  Smart phones, ipads, kindles, email, apps, GPS, blogs and twitter to name just a few examples.  But step back for a moment and consider the impact of this technology on leadership. There is a famous essay in the the Atlantic titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid“.  The author, Nicholas Carr, reflects on how his daily Internet use, searching for information and skipping from topic to topic, seemed to change how his brain thinks.  Gone were the days when...

Move Over LMS, Here Comes the Learning Portal

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The Learning Management System (LMS) was originally designed for “managing” learning across the enterprise. That is, the true customer or end-user for the LMS is the training department, often charged with keeping track of who has taken what course. To use the analogy of a university, the LMS is the administration office. You remember, the face-less bureaucracy that tracked courses and credits earned.  The administration office is not what inspires college students to achieve higher levels of...

Urgency for Leadership Development is Growing

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Leadership development has long been considered a discretionary expense.  During economic downturns it is often one of the first budget line-items to be cut.  However, there was a different feeling this time around.  As we entered the recession in 2008 and 2009  there was hope, and some evidence, that  companies had learned from past downturns.  Eliminating leadership development only left them further behind when the economy did start picking up again, as it inevitably does. In the Wall Street...

Alignment of Learning to Business Goals

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Has the recession forced organizations to more closely align learning objectives to business goals? A new study by CLO Magazine surveying over 1,500 senior learning and development executives found: “90 percent of CLOs believe their learning will be more aligned with organizational business objectives this year. That’s music to some executives’ ears.” Jim Gillece, AlliedBarton’s senior vice president and chief people officer, talks in the article about the importance of well-defined leadership...

Feedback is a Gift

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“Get a feedback loop and listen to it. … When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it.” – Randy Pausch (1960 – 2008) was a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and a best-selling author, who achieved worldwide fame for his speech The Last Lecture, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and having only a few months to live. Most people, by now, know the story of Randy Pausch and his Last Lecture.    The book was a best-seller and the video of the lecture...

Something to be Thankful for: Your People

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As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow with our families, now is an appropriate time to take account of the many things to be thankful for at work.  As a leader, what comes to mind for me is the debt and gratitude I have for the people I have the honor to work with everyday.  So how do I, as a leader thank the many people around me who not only contribute to my success, but more importantly to the success of the organization?  One way is to simply say “thank you.”  But another more...

Leadership and Time Management

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Earlier this month, while catching a flight home to Seattle from New York City after a long week on the road meeting with clients, I made it to my seat, sat down and breathed a huge sigh of relief.  For a moment, it was bliss.  I knew in a few hours I would be home to see my family.  But then the slow, creeping realization set in that my email in-box was overloaded with hundreds of emails I was unable to get to while on the road.  Furthermore, I had five voicemails on my cell phone and probably...

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