Back to Work We Go & Leadership Essential #3: Leaders Keep Commitments

Good morning – first Thursday after Labor Day! Time to bring your summertime shorts, t-shirt, flip-flop-wearing-self back to work! This morning, two thoughts – one marking the change of season; the other, a third installment in my Leadership Essentials series – something that frustrates your followers so much when you don’t do it! First, here […]

One Cure For Busyness

In my last post, I wrote about the chronic problem of “I’m so busy” leadership. Thanks to all those of you who commented on and shared this post through LinkedIn. This week, I follow up with thoughts on an antidote for leaders’ busyness: delegation. Two months ago, I was in conversation with the president of […]

CEO Non-Negotiable #2

(This is the second in a series of what I call “The 3 CEO Non-Negotiables” — responsibilities that lie squarely with the leader at the top. If you are not a CEO, but aspire to be, this is for you as well.) Congratulations to my friends Geoff Ramsey and Terry Chabrowe, co-founders of NYC-based eMarketer, […]

18 Months in Crisis Mode

So here are some lessons from a Leader guiding his company through crisis for a little over a year now, and getting some traction.
A partial list of what Alan Mulally inherited when he took the CEO job at Ford in the Fall of 2006 – the “Brutal Facts:”
* A divided company, actually a lot of different companies under one roof, each with a leader going in a different direction
* Tight cash flow with a real risk of running out altogether
* A built-in $3,400 expense premium on every finished product based on onerous labor costs
* Complexity of business systems that predecessors had been unable to untangle
* Infighting and turf wars among his direct reports
* Lots of elaborate plans (marketing, manufacturing, sales, product) followed by poor execution
* A talented and dedicated team of workers (the problems lay mostly with management, not the workers!)
At lunch last week in Charlotte, home to big banks reporting record losses, my friend sat down and said, “Well, at least we can celebrate Ford’s good news.”

When Leaders Speak

“I thought his press conference the other day was brilliant; though brilliant might be the wrong word to use at a time like this. I think you saw compassion and that first day you saw leadership. He was a strong presence. He had human interest stories and he had honesty when he said, ‘I’ve never dealt with this before.’ When you’re sitting there you’ve got a guy who is strong, compassionate and has a plan.”
– The Washington Post, 12.1.07
The Leader: Joe Gibbs, President and Head Coach.
The audience: players and coaches of the Washington Redskins football team.
The challenge: Leading the team in the aftermath of player Sean Taylor’s sudden death.
What talk have you given to the players in your organization in the past 30 days? What was the challenge? How would the reviews have read on your leadership performance?