After attending this year’s annual conference, I wanted to share some highlights and personal reflections about it. Research about and application of The Five Practices remains vibrant and growing. Here we go. 1. The focus on this year’s conference was related to the practice of Challenge The Process. Recognizing, confronting and overcoming adversity were clearly [Read More]
The Potential/Performance Gap
May 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Have you ever looked at someone in your organization and thought to yourself – “ if only she would ever live up to her potential.” You know from her moments of brilliance that she has so much to offer, but more often than not, her performance is fine, just not fabulous or even exceptional. Work [Read More]
The Other Side Of Change
January 31, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Change can be a pesky creature. One of my favorite sayings, attributed to Yogi Berra, is “the future ain’t what it used to be.” That pretty well sums up the truth about change. In fact, of all the words written about the topic, the one most accurate is likely “inevitable.” Not too long ago, I [Read More]
Entitled or Engaged
November 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A few weeks ago, author Jim Kouzes (The Leadership Challenge) was in Cincinnati, talking about the ties between effective leadership and higher levels of employee engagement. An interesting question was posed by one of the attendees. He asked, something to the effect, if levels of engagement might be different in those who have a strong [Read More]
No Shortcut to Success
October 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge, spoke to an enthusiastic audience in Cincinnati, a couple of weeks back. During his talk, he posed a question, which really got people thinking. He asked how many in the group either were – or knew of someone who was – a very good, even exceptional athlete or musician [Read More]
Lessons About Credibility
September 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
We seem to be going through one of those cycles when everyday we are reminded of people or organizations falling off the credibility wagon. You likely recall the example of the local news station in San Francisco, who apparently got duped and reported joke-like names, when attempting to identify the pilots of the Asiana airliner [Read More]
Reflections From The Leadership Challenge Forum 2013
August 4, 2013 by 2 Comments
The Leadership Challenge Forum 2013, the annual conference for students, practitioners and others excited about this proven methodology, was held during the last week of July. The Forum theme was Inspire A Shared Vision, based on one of the Five Practices, described in The Leadership Challenge. Here are some reflections about the conference which I [Read More]
Transferring Practice to Game Day
July 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Many years ago I played on a soccer team. And, I clearly remember practicing everything – passing, shooting, trapping, head balls, defending, you name it. In fact we would spend quite a bit of time at practice working on skills and hopefully building muscle memory. I also remember something else – that has stayed with [Read More]
Innovations in Leadership
June 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The insightful comments below are from noted author, Ron Crossland (The Leader’s Voice, Voice Lessons). Enjoy. I recently read Michael Schrage’s, author of Serious Play (a seriously good book), recent article in Harvard Business Review about the role of surprise as applied to innovation. He asks, “Is it better to be predictably surprising or surprisingly [Read More]
What Can You Believe?
May 1, 2013 by 2 Comments
A key lesson in The Leadership Challenge is the subject of credibility. At its core, credibility means to be believable. Our friends Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (authors of The Leadership Challenge), capture its importance with their statement: “if we don’t believe in the messenger, we will not believe the message. That is one of [Read More]
