If you lead an organization and can experience joy alone, without your team, you’re not a leader — you’re a selfish boor. I don’t mean you need others’ accolades to feel successful; that’s just low self-esteem. Rather, I mean that real leaders feel the most joy when they can celebrate and share the rewards of […]
A successful CEO recently told me how several of his senior leaders presented potential acquisition targets to him in the past year that were “must do” deals. Funny, he thought, that after they were outbid or lost for some other reason, they became “no big deal” deals. Only fools would completely ignore opportunities that they […]
When you were a kid, did you play tug of war? If so, you may remember having two equally strong teams matched up. There was lots of spent energy, sweating, perhaps swearing — and that damn rope just didn’t move! Does your company feel that way sometimes? Lots of people working hard and no movement?! […]
Most of my blog readers don’t wake up every day and think, “I want to be only as good as most other people.” I know that many of you want to leave your mark on the world and succeed versus just survive. (There are many ways to succeed, well beyond money and status.) Conformity and […]
If book smarts were enough to be a CEO, any intelligent person could pull it off. However, there’s a difference between information (which you can get from a book) and knowledge. Though you see it more in the younger ages, informative incompetence (II) isn’t the domain of just young leaders. One of the smartest guys […]
Intuitively, most people would agree that CEOs shouldn’t be jerks or wimps. No one wants to work for either. However, some jerks and wimps make it into the C-suite. I’ve run into many, as have some of you. If you have jerklike or wimplike tendencies yourself and are an executive, pay attention. If you’re on […]
Meetings aren’t the problem — leadership is Ah, meetings. Most of you have a full day of them if you’re in a senior leadership role. Be honest, wouldn’t you rather have a Rottweiler chew on your shin than go to most of them? The fact that you “own” many of them is even more disheartening! […]
Parallels between aviation and business The Boeing 737 crashes of 2018 and 2019 have me thinking of flying and its parallels to business. With the 737s that crashed, the aircraft “CEO” didn’t know the critical infrastructure of the operating system, and the result was fatal. CEOs in business who let the company get away from […]
What’s most difficult, however, isn’t the infrequent bad behavior from a boss. We all deal with that. It’s the boss or board members who are consistently poor leaders. Those I encounter typically suffer from one or more of the following: Inability to trust others Putting their self-interest ahead of the company’s Unwillingness to make tough […]
Positive behavioral change affects everyone “For behaviors that you want to do, the goal is to make triggers salient, the behavior easy, and the reward as immediate and satisfying as possible. For behaviors that you don’t want to do, it’s the opposite. Bury the trigger (move the fridge to the garage), make the behavior hard […]