Category: Choices

Peo­ple who lead well nev­er real­ly do so out of author­i­ty, but out of their innate capac­i­ty for high­er order skills — their abil­i­ty to artic­u­late a vision or a stand for some­thing impor­tant, for exam­ple; or their abil­i­ty to touch peo­ples’ hearts, or their capac­i­ty to inter­rupt assump­tions in a way that is gen­uine… Con­tin­ue read­ing Lead­ing Is Not About Authority

One of the most trou­bling phe­nom­e­na and stum­bling blocks for lead­ers is respond­ing appro­pri­ate­ly to pas­­sive-aggres­­sive behav­ior.  Pas­sive aggres­sion is very com­mon as a way to bal­ance the for­mal pow­er of a boss with the infor­mal pow­er of employ­ees. Pas­­sive-aggres­­sive means sim­ply that peo­ple indi­rect­ly leak their neg­a­tive feel­ings through their actions while seem­ing­ly agree­ing… Con­tin­ue read­ing Stuck­ness is the Heart of Change

I once worked with the CEO of a hos­pi­tal who took respon­si­bil­i­ty for per­son­al­ly ensur­ing that every sin­gle piece of fur­ni­ture pur­chased would fit the hos­pi­tal’s exist­ing decor. Now, to be fair, the decor was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from oth­er health care facil­i­ties and had a rela­tion­ship to brand. But it was dif­fi­cult to imag­ine… Con­tin­ue read­ing Respon­si­bil­i­ty as Abdication

There is some­thing both dan­ger­ous and fan­tas­tic about going to the ends of the earth.  There is a place where I expe­ri­ence both of those qual­i­ties in equal mea­sure — along the road south of Can­non Beach, Ore­gon, just at the rise on the side of Neahkah­nie Moun­tain. Who­ev­er built the road, and the pull-out to… Con­tin­ue read­ing Ends of the Earth