In his excellent book, The Leadership Mystique, Manfred Kets De Vries looks at the importance of a leader’s ‘interior’ condition, or ‘world’. He recognizes that whatever is ‘inside’ leaders, is what influences how they interact externally with others.[i] He asks important questions such as:
What are the problems that preoccupy the leader?
What ...
In 2007, Robert Eckert, the CEO of Mattel Toys, chose not to recall millions of toys he had learned contained excessive lead. Instead of taking responsibility for the products and their failure to comply with safety standards, he blamed the Chinese manufacturers.
While some might argue Eckert was brave to resist a global product recall with huge financial implications for his company, most w...
I had the privilege of meeting Nicholas Barnett, CEO of Insync Surveys and the author of an outstanding book called GPS for your Organisation.[i] Ken Blanchard, co-author of the best-selling book, The One Minute Manager, wrote the foreword.
Barnett developed a very practical tool—the GPS Framework—that is able to help organizational leaders develop their strategic plans and budge...
In 2006, Dr. André Martin for the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), analyzed global trends in order to paint a picture of the challenges and needs facing organizations as they seek to develop leaders to guide them through the complexity and uncertainty of the future.[i]
His research sample was 800 leaders aged 29-70. The organizations they led ranged in size from 11 employees to 1...
You make thousands of decisions every day—ranging from smaller, insignificant ones, to those of great importance. But have you ever stopped to think about how you make decisions?
Why is it that some leaders find it easier to make certain decisions than you do? When you are confronted with a difficult decision, do you go with your instinct or do you seek consensus or approval from other...
"The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.”[i]
Much could be said about our changing world—economic volatility, political and civil unrest, epic levels of national debt, corrupt governments and the impact of new technologies on the labor market.
While not exclusively, there is no doubt that the online world has also pushed many organizati...
For children growing up in the U.S during the 1960’s and 70’s, ‘Gilligan’, ‘Skipper’, the ‘Howells’, ‘Ginger, the movie star’, ‘The Professor’ and ‘Mary Ann’ were household names as characters in CBS’ hit television series, Gilligan’s Island.[i]
For 98 episodes the characters looked for a way to g...
Book Review
The Alliance: Managing Talent in a Networked Age
Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh; Harvard Business Review Press, 2014
A business without loyalty is a business without long-term thinking. A business without long-term thinking is a business that’s unable to invest in the future. And a business that isn’t investing in tomorrow’s opportunities and ...
Book Review
The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.
Shawn Achor, 2011.
We think: If I just get that raise, or hit that next sales target, I’ll be happy. If I can just get that next good grade, I’ll be happy. If I lose that five pounds, I’ll be happy. And so on. Success first, happiness second. The only problem is that...
Book Review
A Brief Guide to Ideas
William Raeper and Linda Edwards (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1997).
Many of our great philosophers and theologians over the years have wrestled with the notion that, at our core, it is our beliefs, assumptions and behaviours that influence our decisions—what we believe about the world, others, and ourselves is reflected in every dec...
