When Leaders Commit to Personal Learning
“Change before you have to.” — Jack Welch
How are you focused on changing and growing as a Leader over the next six months?
Top Five reasons to NOT be a Learning Leader in the coming months (pick yours):
__ “I have no time to focus on this.”
__ “Nothing comes to mind that I really need to learn.”
__ “I want to grow, but I don’t like to read business books and don’t know of any other resources.”
__ “This is great to think about the first week in January, but the demands of my job will overwhelm me by next week.”
__ “I don’t really need to learn anything new; instead, I need to be teaching my direct reports how to improve as leaders.”
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)
Leaders Have Weaknesses with Their Strengths
I’m learning that Leaders have weaknesses with their strengths.
Specifically, I’ve recently observed that . . .
1. Leaders have difficulty naming their unique strengths. Leaders tend to be good at a lot of things. But in talks with Leaders I work with, they are often fuzzy on the one-of-a-kind abilities they bring to their companies . . . the abilities they have that no one else does. Without clarity on these strengths, a Leader can miss opportunities for their most powerful contributions.