What One Expects In a Great Boss
One sees it over and over, large corporations are really not the good at choosing the next CEO. And in fact, it seems that some formerly great companies have become very good at putting the wrong person into the big chair. All of us no doubt have our own pet reasons why that is. One of mine is that interviews are an extremely poor method of predicting job performance. This article lists seven must have traits (notice, one is not getting an MBA or a JD.) Many of these are traits of personality.
- Integrity
- Passion
- Courage
- Vision
- Judgement
- Emotional intelligence
- Empathy
Skill Building: You Should Never Stop
One of the strategic blunders made by many is a they stop building skills. It’s like in the game of baseball. They somehow manage to get on first base, but they stop running they never go on.
One famous writer of human history who saw the same tendency was Aesop. And this is one meaning of his parable, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
The Hare was once boasting of his speed before the other animals. “I have never yet been beaten,” said he, “when I put forth my full speed. I challenge any one here to race with me.”
The Tortoise said quietly, “I accept your challenge.”
“That is a good joke,” said the Hare; “I could dance round you all the way.”
“Keep your boasting till you’ve beaten,” answered the Tortoise. “Shall we race?”
So a course was fixed and a start was made. The Hare darted almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show his contempt for the Tortoise, lay down to have a nap. The Tortoise plodded on and plodded on, and when the Hare awoke from his nap, he saw the Tortoise just near the winning-post and could not run up in time to save the race. Then said the Tortoise:
“Plodding wins the race.”
You might say, “How does that apply to me? Well, most people act like the Hare, they race to build knowledge and skills up to the point of graduation . . . .and then they stop.
The same rule about always building skills applies to your personal life and your business life. In fact, if you have a business, you have six skill building principles to keep in mind.
Getting More Exercise
Does being a coach potato ruin your health? You wouldn’t think so, but it does. It actually causes a great deal of health problems.
For example, in some countries like America, people sit for over 9 hours a day. And what does it do? It wrecks the body–probably due to the fact the historically our ancestors spend a lot more time an their feet.
If you believe THE FACTS, it’s best to change your routine. Of course, like many things that make sense, getting to it daily is much harder. Changing one’s routine so you decrease that time you sit can be difficult. The question worth mulling over is, “Why don’t we do something that makes sense?”
Does Leadership Run in Families?
“Some things change, some things don’t.” Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded.
One thing that does not change is the great families phenomena. Most nations have one or two. I am reminded of the slogan of one of these families; in this case, Italy’s House of Medici. It’s been said that the family slogan was simply, “Money to get power; Power to have money.”
Unlike many of today’s wealthy families, they could have used that great wealth to satisfy hedonistic impulses and materialistic urges. However, most of them were patrons of the arts during the fame years from the 14th to 18th century.
What is interesting about the great family phenomena is that each generation steps up to leadership roles, rather than taking the easy path of luxury.
The Transformational Mind-set: The True Nature of Change
Image by Felix Burton
I remember on organizational behavior professor taking about change as a rational process—something that you can manage. You have seen it before in PowerPoint slides and white reports. We know it as the Stair-Step Model—something always starting at Step 1 and going to Step . . . . Yes, if you are changing a tire, I can see how this can be a logical, rational process.
However, when it comes to changing anything involving people, the process is not so neat, not so orderly—if you think you will succeed by only managing change, you will likely fail.
Here a psychologist has an advantage over the manager—the psychologist knows that the Stair-Step Model is often illusory, change really functions more like finding a Path to the Mountain Top. You are likely to find dead-ends, will fall down, will at times take two steps back for every step forward.
Despite that weakness, Stair-Step Models are helpful. Here is one of the more useful ones, a summary from John Kotter’s book on “Leading Change.”
Leading To Innovate
Steve Jobs during the introduction of a vary thin notebook, the MacBook Air
Sustaining innovation requires a special type of leadership style—one very transformational in its orientation. An innovative company is less surprised by changes in the marketplace and will likely ambush competitors with product or service launches that put competitors on the defensive.
This was the case with Apple’s Mac, iMac, iPod, iTunes, and iPhone. For example, the iPhone made it difficult for competitors in two ways. The first way was the design and feature set of the phone itself. And the second was the thousand of apps that you could buy on the apps store.
For insight into the thinking of a very innovative CEO (and college dropout), be sure to listen the video of Steve Job’s commencement address delivered at Stanford in 2005. For those who would like to work in innovative companies, here is one list of the top 50 companies worldwide.
Self-Mastery: The Time Paradox
Titian, "Allegorie der Zeit"
If you don’t learn how to use time better, someday day you will realize the truth of Shakespeare’s quote, “I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.” Do you wisely use time or does it slip away from you, like trying to hold water in your hands?
The other day, I spent on hour with a organization president who was leaving the organization to go on to new and better things. What was so sad about the conversation, was that 80% of it was about the past, there was almost nothing about the future. This is the case with many, while living in the present they keep reliving the past; and so, in effect, have no future.
To discover whether you have a present, past or future orientation, take this free assessment at:
Take the survey
Below is a one-hour lecture by Philip Zimbardo, a true giant in the field of psychology. By listening, you will discover the details on seven major time orientations: 2 about the past, 3 from the present, and two about the future.
View the video
Quote: Machiavelli On Change
Source: Wikimedia Commons
“And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527), The Prince, Chapter 4
Machiavelli wrote classic books for the ruler an the practical (some would say cynical) side of leadership. The most well known is The Prince, which was written as a guide the the heads of various small city states which made up Italy during this period.
It’s worth scanning. For example, Chapter 23, is titled, “How to Avoid Flatterers.” It mentions, “A wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving to them only the liberty of speaking the truth. . .” However, most of us would no doubt reflect sadly, that we, unlike the Prince, have friends who just tell us what we want to hear. And because they tell use what we want to hear, we remain ignorant of the true nature of things.
—Murray Johannsen
Lessons From Rock Climbing
A hill or mountain is often a metaphor for a problem or obstacle that must be overcome.
You might ask, what does rock climbing have to do with transformational leadership success? Quite a lot it turns out.
It turns out that the rules defining success in one endeavor, can be used in other. In this case, the heuristics that work in a sport also work in leadership. A heuristic is just a fancy word for a rule of thumb–in this a a fuzzy rule that works most of the time but not all of the time. And it works in many situations or not all. So it is not like a scientific law, a formula or an algorithm.
For example, we have all heard metaphors saying you must, “Climb to the top,” and “Work your way up.” This video really describes a set of rules for getting from here to there.
Access the Video
Copyright © 2009 by Murray Johannsen
The Leader’s View of Uncertainty
“The most important thing is the troops have to understand where they are going. People don’t like change, but they can deal with change. They can’t handle uncertainty. I think it is the job of leaders to eliminate uncertainty.” — Colin Powell
