Read more about the article Leadership | How to Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other

Leadership | How to Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other

How to Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other

This phrase is powerful in so many ways.

Smart people can often be prima donnas – I’ve heard those accusations myself … the first part, of course, not the second (and typically disguised in less elegant terms) … but the brilliance of some people is often more blinding than enlightening.

Fortune magazine recently asked Dr. Mehmet Oz about the best leadership advice he had ever received.

Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other

As a Chief Resident associated with Columbia University, Dr. Oz’ mentor told him that the hardest part of being a leader was “keeping smart people from killing each other.” (more…)

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Read more about the article Leadership Obstacles: No execution? No results!

Leadership Obstacles: No execution? No results!

Strategy and Execution
If the execution of a company’s plans is an avowed priority, critical to the success of both the CEO and the business, why aren’t CEOs spending enough time on it to make it successful?

Why is it that every time the Conference Board surveys CEOs to identify their Top Ten Challenges, “consistent execution of strategy” or “excellence in execution” is invariably cited as being in the top two or three “greatest concerns”?

Yet, when CEOs are asked about their greatest disappointments or failures, they routinely list their company’s inability to execute?

Conundrum … Mystery … Enigma

Huh?

How is it that a subject among the top three goals of most CEOs is the very one where the CEO has the least amount of success? Is this simply a conundrum tucked inside a mystery hidden inside an enigma … or can we sort out some of this ambiguity? (more…)

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Read more about the article Leadership Obstacles: There’s no one to blame … except yourself

Leadership Obstacles: There’s no one to blame … except yourself

Entrepreneur with binoculars looking to future

Déjà vu all over again?

How often have you heard that phrase banging against your skull … and how often was it telling you …

“I’ve been here before” …

“Didn’t we already solve this problem?” …

“Why does this subject keep coming up all the time?”

Why do these issues keep resurfacing?

Late last year, I embarked on a retrospective of my first 100 newspaper columns from the last four years. You may recall that I emphasized how often so many of those issues continue to be the same challenges year after year.

They’re constantly resurfacing, often in disguise as a different issue altogether … but really, the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.

Have we become dumb and dumberer?

I promised you then that we would attack the litany of reasons that these same issues keep popping up like whack-a-moles. I don’t think we’ve gotten “dumb and dumberer,” so what’s going on? Why are we tackling the same problems over and over again? (more…)

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Read more about the article Leadership Lessons: Hope Springs Eternal … but it’s not enough!

Leadership Lessons: Hope Springs Eternal … but it’s not enough!

Nothing but LEADERSHIPFor most of us, this is the time of the year when hope springs eternal.

We’re revved up for an exciting new year, determined to change all of the things that didn’t work last year so we can pound the ball out of the park in 2012.

Nothing wrong with any of that. Commitment, momentum, focus … these are the energies that will fuel our engine and help us jumpstart 2012 with the vigor and rigor that we need to make this year the most successful ever.

Does your gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

Yet, like most New Year’s resolutions we’ve made, the “gum loses its flavor on the bedpost overnight”.

We soon discover that it’s much easier to start than to finish.

We struggle to keep the engine stoked with the same energy that propelled us into the New Year.

We begin to feel some of the air already coming out of the tires, and begin to wonder … “where did that new-found energy go”?

What’s that whimpering sound?

It comes back to that whimpering sound of “hope springs eternal.” (more…)

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Read more about the article Leadership Lessons | Delaying the tough call only makes it worse

Leadership Lessons | Delaying the tough call only makes it worse

What Does It Take to be a Great Leader?

We’re always sharing valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make sure to take some time so you’re thinking past today. Don’t forget our 12 part Leadership series.

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Do it quickly, don’t look back … and move on

Remember how Mom used to say: “You know better than that?”

It wasn’t that we were ignorant or unaware of what was supposed to be done. Quite the contrary. We knew damn well what we were supposed to do but we just didn’t want to do it. Why not?

Why don’t we do what we know we should do?

That’s the eternal conundrum, isn’t it my friends? Why don’t we do what we know we must do? (more…)

Continue ReadingLeadership Lessons | Delaying the tough call only makes it worse