I often do work around my house, fixing, redoing and maintaining stuff, as do most of us.
When I moved and bought this house in March 2003 I found that every time it rained water ran under the garage door. Typically, I’m a jerry-rigger, especially fixing stuff around my home, but I thought I would do it “right” this time.
Over the next few years I spent over a thousand dollars on drywells, barriers, etc., but was still getting water under the door.
Having run out of affordable do-it-right options, I went back to jerry-rigging and usd a clear, vinyl shower curtain, tape, …read more

Recently Dan McCarthy asked if there was a leadership crisis or is it a branding issue and I’ve been stewing ever since. (Please take a moment to read the post and the discussion.)
I’ve been stewing not so much because I disagree with Dan’s individual points, but because I disagree with the whole leadership-for-the-chosen-few attitude prevalent since the end of WWII.More than that, I am vehemently against the leader-as-a-silver-bullet school of thought.
The extent of this attitude has become glaringly apparent and the Presidential election is the highest profile example.
Yes, I voted for Obama, but not with any expectation that he could …read more

Do you work for a company or a manger? Phil Gerbyshak over at Slacker manager did a great post on the fact that people quit managers, not companies—great because it is so true.
If you ask most people who they work for they’ll name a company, but if you ask them why they love or hate it, stay or leave they’ll usually mention a manager, the people or the culture, which is a projection of the manager and the people.
People quitting is expensive and bad for team morale, but, as Phil pointed out, they can quit and not leave, which, from …read more

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Last Monday I laid out a do-it-yourself plan for mangers to juice growth among their people. Beth Miller asked why I didn’t include coaching; I responded that I believed that line managers needed to take responsibility for professional development, especially in the current economic climate.
Beth asked,“So what holds back managers from coaching?”
My response is what I want to focus on today.
“I think it’s partly language. I know a number of managers who have implemented what I described in the post, do a terrific job developing their people, but don’t consider any of it coaching or even mentoring. One even scoffs …read more

Did you know that you can’t lead if you’re a lousy manager? No matter how many leadership classes you take, books you read and seminars you attend if you don’t build good management skills you won’t lead anyone anywhere.
(By the same token, and I’ve said this many times, if you don’t practice so-called leadership skills you’ll have a tough time managing today’s workforce.)
Steve Wyrostek, in a guest post at Brilliant Leadership, has a list of actions so you can figure out if you’re a bad boss or a good one. He says “that a managerial jerk can never achieve good, …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

I had a recent conversation on the final post from a series last summer regarding supposed differences between ‘leaders’ and managers.
The reader said she was confused and asked whether managers needed to be ‘leaders’, too.
I think that my responses will be of use to others, so I’ve rounded them out below to increase access to the information.
It would be lovely if there was a nice, clear-cut answer to the ‘leader’/manager thing, but like a lot of these types of questions it depends on whom you ask.
There are two distinct schools of thought. One believes that leaders and managers are …read more

Post from Leadership Turn  Image credit: danzo08  CC license
It’s not unusual for me to come up with what I think will be a great post and then find someone else thinking about the same thing.
Last Thursday I was sorting through ‘leadership’ articles and blog posts, once again disgusted with all the references to ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ that had little to do with leading and much to do with position.
Suddenly the proverbial light bulb went on and I realized that I could actually define my version of leadership without using the l-word (I hate words that are defined using variations of …read more

I’m excited to offer you a new feature here at Leadership Turn.
For the next few months (longer I hope) Wes Ball, founder of The Ball Group in 1982 and author of ­The Alpha Factor: a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success will be posting every Tuesday. Wes will be discussing leading and managing in light of his more than 15 years working with the likes of Subway and The US Treasury Department. To reach Wes call 717.627.0405 or write w.ball@ballgroup.com. Read all of Wes’ posts here.

What’s all the fuss about leader …read more