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The 5 Perils of Leadership
If we go into management to earn more, have more power/prestige, and work less, we are either naïve or ignorant. (And let’s admit right now that those are precisely the reasons most of us go into management.)
Wise leaders accept that some decisions will be unpopular. If you can’t handle others’ disapproval, then leadership probably isn’t for you. Trying to be everyone’s friend is a futile and selfish effort. Most of us want to be liked; as we progress through school, we do things to get others to accept us (with varying levels of success). We try to wear the cool clothes, have a cool car, or take the cool classes. We then carry those bad habits into the workplace; we do things to attain the approval of others, allowing true accountability to wither. Some of us want so desperately to be accepted that we will sacrifice the good of the rest of the organization for our own selfish emotional gain. While it might help in the short-term, the pursuit of approval is a guarantee of long-term failure. Those who don’t throw their leadership opportunities away in pursuit of approval will be teased at best; at worst, they will be ridiculed, mocked, and defamed. So prepare to be hated, but remember that the haters are the ones who don’t matter. The ones who do matter will sincerely appreciate your leadership and implicitly trust your guidance, since you have proven your constancy and trustworthiness.
In life, but especially in leadership positions, we all face fears. We fear not being accepted, feelings of inadequacy, shame, rejection, discomfort, and the list goes on. My response (and I am speaking to myself more loudly than others) is, “We’re all afraid . . . so what!” We must choose to get over our fears and not allow them to hinder our growth and development as leaders. So what if we don’t have it all together. So what if we didn’t go to the right school; so what if we didn’t have a good mentor. We all have something to offer, and we must choose to focus on what we do have to offer, not what we don’t. And remember the dirty little secret is that those who are acting like they have it all together really don’t.
Continue reading on Great Leadership…
One Fear illustration from Book of Fears (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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How Relevant Are Leadership Lessons from an Ancient Indian Classic?
Arjuna and Krishna as depicted on the 1980s cover of Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With iconic corporate leaders like Rajat Gupta, former managing director of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., being convicted of insider trading, notions of leadership and corporate ethics are once again in the spotlight. In his recent book, Timeless Leadership: 18 Leadership Sutras from The Bhagavad Gita, Debashis Chatterjee, director of the Indian Institute of Management in Kozhikode, has tried to glean universal principles of leadership from the ancient classic.
The Bhagavad Gita, also referred to as The Gita, comprises about 700 verses and is part of the ancient Indian classic,The Mahabharata. While The Mahabharata centers on the power struggle between two groups of royal cousins and their battle in Kurukshetra in North India, The Gita is a conversation between two of its main characters, Arjuna and his mentor Krishna, in the battlefield. Faced with the dilemma of waging war against his kin, Arjuna is paralyzed into inaction and turns to Krishna for counsel. Responding to Arjuna’s confusion, Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and a prince and also expounds on a range of practical and philosophical issues. The setting of The Gita, in the midst of a battle, is widely considered as an allegory for the ethical and moral struggles of human life.
Continue reading on India Knowledge @ Wharton…
Negative Thoughts? Put Them to Good Use
Research centers and laboratories at the University of California, Berkeley (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ignore all those motivational speakers that say you need to stay positive to be successful. Turns out, those with a more pessimistic outlook have certain advantages.
Bah humbug! where does that leave the significant proportion of the population that naturally tends towards a darker frame of mind? If you’re an inveterate worrier or bit of a pessimist are you out of luck when it comes to success?
Not at all, according to University of California at Berkeley‘s Greater Good Science Center, which studies happiness and well-being.
“A growing body of research suggests that negative thinking, if strategically pursued, has a role to play in happiness, too,” reports Oliver Burkeman in the Center’s newsletter. He goes on to suggest several ways you can put your tendency towards gloom to productive use.
Continue reading on Inc.com…
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3 Things Every Great Leader Gets Wrong
English: Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference Español: Presentación del iPhone 4 por Steve Jobs en la Worldwide Developers Conference del año 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Every great leader possesses a degree of what Walter Isaacson (in his biography of Steve Jobs) describes as “an ability to distort reality.”
What Isaacson meant is that Jobs forced his will on Apple, often pushing people to create things they never thought possible–a powerful asset in any leader.
But that reality distortion effect works both ways. It also means that every leader, to a greater or lesser degree, distorts the reality around themselves, leading to tensions, inconsistency, and bad decisions.
There are two reasons why leaders who live in a bubble become so dangerous to themselves and those they lead.
First, the most insidious aspect of this is that it happens in seemingly mundane ways which are hard to spot, but which have far-from mundane consequences to the group, team or organization.
Continue reading on Inc.com…
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The upside of failure…
designer tomato soup (Photo credit: Esthr)
Written in an easy, anecdotal fashion, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction & Get the Right Things Done is the reminder we need constantly to organize our life around the things that matter most. It makes no tall promises about changing your life but offers practical solutions to everyday struggles. 18 Minutes, author and leadership consultant Peter Bregman’s second book, tackles problems of life and work—how to be productive, how to master distraction, gain momentum, know when to slow down and recognize your own potential. Bregman has also co-
authored five books.
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Simplifying Leadership with the 3C Disciplines
I, and others, have been guilty in the past of making leadership so complicated. Both new and current leaders can become overwhelmed with the long lists of leadership “how tos” and “need tos”. How can any leader master all of these? But does great leadership really have to be so complicated?
So what is so special about Care, Curiosity, and Courage?
Continue reading on Great Leadership by Dan…
English: Headstrong executive leadership and management at MGDC presscon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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10 Leadership Practices to Stop Today
If you want to be the best in your industry, you have to get rid of your outdated management style.
You might not feel it day-to-day, but business management is in a major transition. The old days of command-and-control leadership are fading in favor of what might be better termed a trust-and-track method, in which people are not just told what to do, but why they are doing it. More formally, we’re moving from what was called “transactional” leadership to “transformative” leadership. And there’s no turning back.
Business owners certainly have a long way to go, especially in more established companies where old practices die hard. But you can see increasing evidence that by creating a company with a clear purpose and values, you’ll find your employees connect themselves to something bigger, and that increases productivity. In other words, a culture of engagement leads to greater customer loyalty, and better financial success.
Continue reading on Inc.com…
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