Fear is one of our most primal emotions. It helped our cave-swelling brethren survive – and they presumably passed on their successful genetics to us. Unfortunately, that hard-wired emotion of fear is still with us millions of year later. Fear is a leading cause of procrastination. Seth Godin argues in his book Tribes that it is often the fear of [...]
I guess we’re just not there yet. A recent study by Dr Timothy Judge, Dr Beth Livingston and Dr Charlice Hurst in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that leaders who are agreeable and who focus on relationships and collaboration, earn less than their less-agreeable colleagues. Judge, Livingston and Hurst write that “Nice [...]
Ever noticed that once you start thinking about something you start seeing it everywhere? Think about buying a new car, and pretty soon you start seeing that model of car constantly? It seems that the more I read and talk about trust, the more issues related to trust, trustworthiness and lack of trust start to [...]
Is it better to jump or be pushed? Leadership is about tough decisions. And sometimes the toughest decision for a leader is coming to terms with whether its time to move on to new challenges. While I love writing and talking about leadership – I also practice leadership in the real world. It’s the practice [...]
It seems that empathic leadership is increasingly being devalued in organizations. While the great minds of leadership extol the virtues of engaged, supportive “show me that you care” approaches, it appears that many organizations want to embrace a much different set of values. Psychopathic leadership seems to be the new shiny thing that is taking [...]
Nobody said that leadership was simple. It can, in fact, be an extremely complex and challenging pursuit. Some people are naturally drawn to leadership while others grow into the roles. Some believe that there are born leaders while others suggest that leadership is a choice and that we are all capable of leadership. Leaders are [...]
It’s said that the best defence is a good offence. A consultant colleague and I were debriefing a recent meeting where one participant, challenged for effectively mocking another participant during a small group discussion, went instead on the attack and, instead of addressing their behaviour, began to verbally attack the other participant. In other words, [...]
Let’s face it, we have a love-hate relationship with the Bell Curve. Despite it’s critics, the underlying premise of the curve explains so much about life and the tendency of nearly all things to cluster around the mean. We want to believe that people are individuals. The Bell Curve will tells us that, quite frankly, [...]
It’s generally held that real leadership is about collaboration. We are encouraged to work together with colleagues, staff and partners to achieve shared goals. As Stephen Covey calls it, we seek to synergize to try and find third alternatives: innovative solutions that we couldn’t have discovered working on the same issue by ourselves. But collaboration, [...]
What kind of leader are you: iPhone or Blackberry? It’s the kind of question that reminds me of when I was a kid hanging with my pals and arguing over what was better: Ford or Chevy. My employer provides me with a Blackberry but I also have an iPhone4 for personal use. Work is on [...]