Everyone has a boss. CEOs answer to a board. Small business leaders always have to answer to the customers. When the boss is great, life is good for his or her subordinate leaders. When I’ve worked for good bosses, I was able to accomplish more, learn more, and I believe become a better …
Tag Archive: leaders
Nov 27 2013
Leadership Reading – Part 4
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (10.7MB)
For the final installment of this series let’s leave books and look at some other sources of information for leaders. The first is magazines. I get 13 different magazines and I almost never seem to catch up. Two of those are Fortune and Forbes. Both are business magazines that although they only sometimes …
Nov 22 2013
Leading Millennials
Send to Kindle“These young people just don’t understand. I really fear for our future.” Obviously a comment about the Millennial Generation right? Wrong. It’s actually a comment that we Baby Boomers heard a lot when we were entering the workforce. In fact, I’d guess that every generation has worried about what the next generation was …
Nov 20 2013
Leadership Reading – Part 3
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.9MB)
In this, the third part of a look at leadership books, I’ll turn to a little different genre; biographies and autobiographies. I like to read about how other people have handled the real issues of life. A word of caution though. Biographies are often written by authors who either have an ax to …
Nov 18 2013
What Do You Learn From Bad Leaders?
How do you really learn how to be a good leader? Do you learn what you need to know from books? Maybe those all day courses that cover everything you need to know in 6 hours. Or, maybe you have a coach. Those sources provide information, but when faced with the real situations …
Nov 13 2013
Leadership Reading – Part 2
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.0MB)
For the second part of this series on books, I’ll look at some that are a little different. Let’s start with Bad Leadership by Barbara Kellerman. One of my constant mantras is that leadership isn’t necessarily good. There’s good leadership and bad leadership. Kellerman makes this point very well with clear examples of …
Nov 08 2013
Are There Really Born Leaders?
Send to Kindle“Born Leader.” Those two words always give me a chill. Two reasons. First, executives tend to look for who they think are, or who appears to be born with some sort of natural leadership talent. What they find are employees who are outgoing (extroverts) and charismatic. What they miss are employees who are …
Nov 06 2013
Leadership Reading – Part 1
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (16.0MB)
This is the first of a 4-part series on books I recommend for leaders. I have hundreds of books on my shelves and it’s really tough to pick just a few, but these will give you an idea of some good reads, and some good authors. There are plenty more good books out …
Nov 04 2013
4 Steps Leaders Must Follow to Start the Discussion
As I write this the U.S. government has recently gone back to work after allowing itself to be shutdown; well sort of. During that period and for the weeks after there has been no shortage of commentators to tell us whose fault all this is. After all, finger pointing is one of the …
Nov 01 2013
Strategic Planning and Leadership – The Critical Link
The small group of business owners were enjoying lunch and discussing the various issues that always affect business owners. In response to a question I mentioned the importance of a solid strategic plan. To illustrate how critical it was to have a good mission statement and to ensure everyone in the company understands …
