Three Intriguing Thoughts from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos

February 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Jeff-Bezos

A recent HBR blog podcast interviewed the CEO of Amazon who, in a major study reported in the Harvard Business Review's Jan/Feb issue, was ranked #2 of global CEO's. The late Steve Jobs was #1. Jeff Bezos is an intriguing guy. He permits interviews sparingly and is somewhat of a contrarian around some commonly held business beliefs. In the short audio, Bezos makes three points that I think are worth CEO's and managers hearing about. He sees the DNA of Amazon as that of an explorer, vs. a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Change Management, Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Another Slice on the Best CEO’s

January 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Adam Bryant

Adam Bryant writes a column in the New York Times called The Corner Office. He has selected 70 of the over 200 interviews he has done with CEO's for his column and put some core insights from these into a book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEO's and How to Lead and Succeed. You can hear a short interview of Bryant in a recent issue of Knowledge@Wharton. In addition to sharing the CEOs' lessons and tips around both managing and leading, the author … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Reactive vs. Creative Mind-sets…and Results

February 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

At the core of The Leadership Circle (360 degree assessment) model are the Reactive tendencies and Creative competencies. If you look at the circle itself, you will see Reactive structure of mind represented by the lower half of the circle and Creative structure by the upper half. When leaders operate from the Reactive mind-set they are, of course, able to achieve at least some level of results through their people. The problem is that, as research shows, at some point they hit a ceiling. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership, Performance Coaching Tagged With: , , , ,

Don’t Clone Yourself

August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Leader_clone

A boss of mine early on in my career had a tough, almost bulldog, style. He was a pragmatic, no nonsense guy. He didn't have a wide vocabulary and didn't spend a lot of time talking about concepts. He was super loyal to the company and even more so to the branch of which he was a part. In short, he was the antithesis of yours truly. I never understood why he hired me, with my Masters degree in HR Management and my parallel interest in the bigger picture and broader developments in the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership Development, Team Work Tagged With: , ,

The Leader as Authentic Actor

July 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Mask_ComedyTragedy

Actors on stage and screen are not genuine. They are fakes. They are playing a part, not themselves. Of course, we expect them to do this and, furthermore, we expect them to do it really well, to convince us that they are the character they are playing. But what about a managers who has to play a part and perhaps not express their fully genuine self in a particular situation? For example, In challenging economic times, projecting a confidence he may not fully feel himself Being … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communicating, Leadership Tagged With: , ,

To Flood or Not to Flood–a Test of Leadership

May 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Morganza Spillway

The Premier of Manitoba, Greg Selinger, makes the decision to break the dike near Portage la Prairie and deliberately flood 85 square miles and inundate 150 homes…to prevent an uncontrolled break in the dike that would flood 850 properties occupying 190 square miles along the Assiniboine River. He says it is one of the most difficult decisions he has ever had to make. The very same day, over a thousand miles to the south, Army Corps of Engineers Major General Michael Walsh calls a similar … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: ,

Fear and Managers’ Fears

May 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You seldom hear the word "fear" in management development workshops. Of course the word is not welcome anywhere in organizations. It's the "F word" in offices and plants. Odd, isn't it, since fear is always lurking in our workplaces, especially during the last few years of economic hell? For some inexplicable reason your people think that you aren't worried about your own job or about the brutal labor market you would be thrown into if you lost it. They think only they have fears. But, as you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communicating, Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

No Choice: You Have to Take Your Own Path

January 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
knight_woods

The late great expert on mythology, Joseph Campbell, used to tell a tale from the days of King Arthur. One day during a feast, the Holy Grail appears high in the great room but draped in a veil. Then it disappears. The bold Sir Gawain proposes that the knights all go off to find the cup and behold it unveiled. Just about all of the knights choose to follow existing paths through the forest, none of which lead anywhere near the grail. It turns out that to have even a chance of glimpsing the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Build Best Bosses Blog Hits its First Anniversary!

July 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Rocket-in-Orbit-300x225

I am proud to announce that my blog has reached the ripe old age of one! This anniversary one is my 80th. The photo that accompanied my first post was of rocket blasting off. Now, happily, it has settled into a solid orbit… When I started out this project on July 26, 2009, my declared intention was to be doing this for many years. So far, so good. The range of subjects was to be “leadership, team building and many other areas that relate to excellent leadership–at all levels of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership, Team Work Tagged With: ,

TW 2010 Global Workforce Study-Comment #1

May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
gws.banner-300x61

It's that time of year again when TowersWatson (formerly TowersPerrin) publishes its always informative Global Workforce Study. The 2010 report, conducted between November/09 and January/10, covered 20,000 full time employees of large and midsize organizations in 22 markets around the globe. Over the next several blog posts I want to highlight and comment on some of their main findings. As always, my focus will be on what the learnings are for managers and leaders. Three main themes … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Change Management, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Talent Management Tagged With: , , , , , ,