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 […]

A Leader's Secrets

Elliot Spitzer is a role model for it. So is Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit. Bill Clinton. Jack Welch. Each of these leaders had a secret. When the secret was exposed it tainted or destroyed a promising or otherwise successful leadership legacy.
Why is it everyone shares their “secrets” of leadership success, but no one talks about the secrets of leadership destruction?

Leaders in the Middle of It

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
— From “Once in a Lifetime” by David Byrne & the Talking Heads
If you’re in your 30’s, it’s coming.
In your 40’s? You sense it or know you’re in the middle of it.
50’s – it’s either the best thing that ever happened to you, or you’re wondering if you missed an opportunity.
Mid-life. I’m having more conversations with Leaders lately about this particular time-zone.

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?

When Leaders Fudge Because They're Afraid

This past Spring I noticed a rash of reports (in less than one week!) about current and future leaders of all ages caught lying.
* April 27th ”The Dean of Admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was forced to resign after the school confirmed . . . that she had lied about graduating from college herself.” Marilee Jones is 55. (The Wall Street Journal)
* May 2nd Fifteen freshmen Air Force Academy cadets were expelled in a cheating scandal. The cadets “either confessed or were found guilty by an honor board of sharing answers to a test . . . .” (Louisville Courier-Journal) Assume their average age was 19.
* May 2nd (This right below the Academy cheating article . . . .) Duke University is threatening to expel or suspend 24 of 34 graduate students caught in “the largest cheating scandal ever in its Fuqua School of Business . . . . Similar answers to a take-home test led to an investigation of the final exam and other assignments . . . . The average age of students in the first-year class is 29.” (Louisville Courier-Journal)