3 Reasons to Practice Optimistic Leadership
I’m really lucky. In looking back at my career, I can’t recall ever having a boss who was a negative pessimist. Many of you are not so lucky. It’s not hard to argue that having a negative, pessimistic leader is a bad spot in which to find yourself. There are numerous explanations why most people … Continue reading
Symantec Leadership Development Makes Corporate Transformation Possible
Originally posted on Forbes.com May 29, 2013 Some might think that developing leaders is a nice and noble venture for highly successful large corporations. One Silicon Valley software security firm has a different view. It sees it as making their corporation transformation possible. Bettina Koblick, Chief HR Officer puts it this way. “The radical transformation … Continue reading
HBR: We Wait Too Long to Train Our Leaders
Originally posted on Harvard Business Review on December 17, 2012 Years ago, I was involved with a firm that experimented with teaching leadership principles to elementary school children. We were introducing the same skills to 3rd and 4th graders that we teach managers in large corporations. These nine- and ten-year-olds had no trouble understanding such … Continue reading
Benjamin Franklin’s 3 Observations on Leadership Development (well, sort of . . .)
It was in describing his personal attempts to give up vices and develop virtues that led Franklin to share his interesting story of the speckled ax – but that’s jumping to the end of my story. Before recounting his, I’d like to share three simple, obvious, and remarkably related observations on developing great leaders. 1. … Continue reading
Cross-Training for Your Leadership Marathon
One of my colleagues here at Zenger Folkman recently ran in her first marathon. She’d done some running in a prior life, but nothing serious and nothing in the last 8 years or so. About a year ago she’d decided to get back into doing some casual running, so one morning she pulled out her … Continue reading
The Power of Asking
Recently I was sharing some data with a group of leaders on the impact of asking for feedback. The data showed an exceptionally strong correlation between asking for feedback and the overall effectiveness of a leader. One of the leaders commented, “I must be a great leader then because I seem to get boat load … Continue reading
Ladies First: Studies Show Women Are Better Leaders. So Why Aren’t There More of Us Leading?
Originally posted on Huffingtonpost.com on March 28.2012 When, over the span of a little over a week, two huge studies find that women are viewed as better leaders than men — and that, the higher the professional level, the wider the gap between the woman and her male counterpart (i.e., if you’ll pardon the grammar, … Continue reading
Forbes Blog: Filling the Talent Pool — With Women
Earlier this week I heard a presentation from a consultant representing one of the large auditing and consulting firms. He presented research the firm had done with CEOs regarding the issues that were top of their minds. Clearly revenue growth was one big worrying topic. The other was talent development. It sounded like many CEOs … Continue reading
Lin-Sanity: A Strengths-based Approach to Basketball
Many of you have heard about Jeremy Lin, the new, young superstar on the New York Knicks. His rapid rise to stardom has been noticed even outside the world of basketball, due to the inspirational human aspects of his story. In honor of New York’s most recent megastar, what’s now being called “Lin-Sanity” is seen … Continue reading
Quit it! Why Leaders Should Stop Answering Questions
The following post is a portion of Jack Zenger’s Forbes.com column. A subordinate drops by your office. She asks, “What do you think we should do about getting the technical manual written for our new product? Should we outsource it or try to find someone inside to do it?” In my opinion, the above interaction … Continue reading
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