When Confrontation ISN’T Confrontation

When Confrontation ISN’T Confrontation

“I don’t like confrontation.”  That is a phrase I hear remarkably often.   The perception there is that to be a great leader, you have to like — or at least welcome — confrontation. But confrontation is hard. It’s vulnerable and scary and for too many of...
Finding Connection: Two Easy Steps

Finding Connection: Two Easy Steps

20 years ago Linda Ellis penned a beautiful poem called The Dash which reminds us that though our tombstones mark the dates of our birth and death, those dates tell nothing of who we were. It is the dash in between that represents our life. How, she asks in the end,...
Is It Leadership – Or Just Power?

Is It Leadership – Or Just Power?

As 2017 takes shape, I am finding myself recalibrating this masterpiece-in-progress I call my work & the impact I want to have on the world. It’s time to step up and call out our inner leader in meaningful ways. That is, after all, the heart of my work: to change...
2×381: The Formula For Leadership

2×381: The Formula For Leadership

Published for Martin Luther King Jr. Day in my newsletter. Sign up here! Four days before the Montgomery Bus Boycott began on December 5, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on a public bus. She wasn’t the first to take such a stand. And she wasn’t, as many...
Beware The Lure of Pragmatism

Beware The Lure of Pragmatism

Pragmatism – i.e. practicality.  A traditional, and often desirable, trait of leaders. Unfortunately, it reminds me of that Dudley Moore line in the 1990 movie “Crazy People,” when, as an advertising exec, he wrote: “Volvo’s: they’re boxy but they’re safe.”...
Welcome to 2017

Welcome to 2017

Welcome to 2017!  How does it feel so far? Here’s your first challenge of the year. Over the next 12 months you are either going to let things happen, or make things happen.  Which will it be? I’ll give you a minute to decide. …(Theme from Jeopardy plays in the...