Some of the articles I’m sharing today refer to CEOs, but the advice in them can be tweaked to apply to any level in both professional and personal arenas.
First, Steve Tobek, who writes The Corner Office for BNet offers some great thoughts entitlement, which he says has been around for decades. The cure is empowerment backed by accountability. Bull’s-eye, Steve!
Next is a great offering from McKinsey on re-energizing your team. It talks about how to overcome fear, denial and the need to learn and change—emotions that teams at all levels are facing.
By now, everybody knows that President Barack Obama won …read more

The silly blow-up over President Obama’s back-to-school speech drove home once again how I am that won’t be around when the current crop of kids take the reins of political, social and business so-called leadership roles.
I am continually amazed and revolted as I watch so-called conservatives of all stripes work to be sure their children are exposed to nothing that conflicts with whatever ideology they are steeping them in.
I say ‘conservatives’ because so-called liberals seem more flexible within their stands. (Please note that I said ‘flexible, not changeable.)
What exactly was in this speech, that some kids weren’t allowed to hear? …read more

In spite of the importance of Obama’s success in office, there is only so much I can read on a subject before I become jaded. As a result I try to make my sources as objective as possible, which is difficult when the subject is political.
I’m also not a political junkie, so in looking for ‘how’s it going’ information I tend to skip sources with rigid ideologies, since I pretty much know what they will say.
(I must say I find it amusing and satisfying that we finally have a president that both the far right and far left don’t like.)
I …read more

I was delighted when I was sent a free copy of Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign to review. Not just because I voted for him, but because this is a book about how to sell change, major change, to strangers and in doing so turn them into a community of supporters.
That’s what Apple did with the iPod and that’s what every CEO recognizes as being of paramount importance.
In a post last summer I said, “You must constantly change MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)—your own, your people’s and your culture’s.
But it’s not just about managing change; it’s about …read more

Just one quote today—one that’s depressing and sad and makes me very angry.
In a speech in 1962 then-President John F. Kennedy said
“The American people will find it hard to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans.”
I’m angry because 47 years later it’s déjà vu, all you need to do is change “steel” to “bank.”
But the real question is whether whoever is elected in 2056 will face yet another set of executives …read more

About two-thirds of the way through a January 7th CNBC interview with President Barack Obama when the conversation turned to his Blackberry, Obama talked about his reasons for wanting to keep it, even in the face of vehement opposition. (The bolding is mine.)
“What it has to do with is having mechanisms where you are interacting with people who are outside of the White House in a meaningful way. And I’ve got to look for every opportunity to do that–ways that aren’t scripted, ways that aren’t controlled, ways where, you know, people aren’t just complimenting you or standing up when you …read more

What does Yahoo’s new CEO Carol Bartz have in common with incoming President Barack Obama?
While they are superb choices as managers and as leaders,

both are entering their respective stages at a time of crisis;
both have multiple and diverse constituencies;
both are the focus of extremely high, often conflicting, sometimes impossible expectations; and
both are subject to substantial outside influences, circumstances and pressure.

Hopefully both will succeed, but the real lesson to be learned here is in the list of commonality and what they do.
Not because of the obvious difficulties, the scope of challenges or even enormous pressures, but because these four points are …read more

Wednesday Phil Gerbyshak over at Slacker Manager shared his application of Edward Brown’s description of the two dominant leadership models, Charismatic Leadership (often described as arousing the emotions of the populous through imagery and poetic prose) and Traditional Leadership (Often described as operations-centric and unilateral while courting consensus building) and analyzed Obama and McCain in that light.
I thought I’d add to that with a guest post from Korn/Ferry International’s Kevin Cashman and Ken Brousseau (detailed bios at end of post), in which they apply their CEO assessment, expertise and constructs to the Presidential candidates.
Note: The candidates are discussed in random order …read more