Is Your Company a Camp Circled by Wagons?

Does Your Company Have a Partnering Mentality?  Or do you have a Laager Mentality? (Camp protected by a circle of wagons).  The style of your leaders is what will determine the answer to this question. 

One of the finest characteristics of spirited leaders is that they have a strong partnering mentality.  This is what makes them true leaders.  One of their innate values is collaboration – you know that because they think, act and speak collaboratively. They are superb team players. When you interact with them you hear a great deal of ‘we’ and ‘us’ and very little of ‘me, my and I.’   Spirited leaders thrive on the energy of teams and comradeship and are constantly on the lookout for synergistic relationships and strategies. Continue reading Is Your Company a Camp Circled by Wagons?

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Leaders of the Future

Dean Erikson and Dr. Gluckman

Students are such an exciting audience.   They are discerning and open, forthright and respectful, curious and imaginative.  That’s how I found the leadership faculty and students to be when I spoke at TCU’s Neely School of Business.  The topic was Spirited Leadership and how this differs from ego-driven leadership.

One of the issues we discussed is how leaders, in business and congress, had made self-serving, short-term decisions that helped create the recession.  I shared my belief with them that USA leaders will need to go through a transformation from thinking about ‘Me, My and I’ to thinking about ‘Us and We’. Continue reading Leaders of the Future

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What’s Your Company’s Economic Score?

Your Economic Scorecard

Here is a fun (yet serious) way to check your company’s deficits and assets using the alphabet. Continue reading What’s Your Company’s Economic Score?

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Should Your Leaders All Think Alike?

 

I sometimes wonder why making great decisions seems to be such a challenge for many leaders and their teams.  Consider this scenario.  There are four key decision-makers in a meeting speaking about a process that is not working.  Feelings are running high and there is a great deal of heated debate.  Everyone has a different take on what the problem is and what the best solutions should be.  And they are all putting forward a strong case for their way of seeing and solving this. Continue reading Should Your Leaders All Think Alike?

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The ONE Ability that made Nelson Mandela A Great Leader

If you haven’t seen the movie ‘Invictus’ yet, I can highly recommend it.   Apart from a truly astonishing performance by Morgan Freeman as Mandela, this movie beautifully depicts the unmatched, absolutely unique leadership style of Nelson Mandela.

Mandela spent twenty seven years in a tiny prison cell on Robben Island for opposing apartheid.  And despite the hardships of this terrible experience, when he was eventually released and elected as South Africa’s first black president, he preached forgiveness and reconciliation.  Imagine that!  Almost 30 years in a tiny cell and he came out ready to forgive the people who put him there.  Continue reading The ONE Ability that made Nelson Mandela A Great Leader

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