Is Going With Your Gut Smart Leadership?

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

Before we get started I have a confession to make.  I’m not the smartest person in the room.  Many of you knew that already.  I am however someone with a good bit of experience leading and consulting to organizations and Boards.  I have learned a few things about smart leadership, decision-making and the power of execution.  Here are some things I want to share for your consideration.

  • Is going with your gut smart?
  • How do you leverage your big picture skills in execution?
  • How do you execute with excellence?

This post should have been sub-titled “How I Learned to Love the Micro-Biome” because it has perfect symmetry with the notion of going with your gut. Not exclusively mind you, but as a critical component of your decision tree.  Now the micro-biome as you may know refers to the microbes that live in the human intestinal tract. They are responsible for digesting the foods we eat.  Interestingly, even though they are bacteria, they don’t make us sick, they help keep us healthy.  Without them, you would starve to death.  Some of our best decisions meet the same fate, when we don’t trust our instincts.

I think we would all agree, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, it matters whether you can achieve the goals of your organization and illuminate the aspiration of your customers.

Downsizing your dreams—-the big picture, if you will–is not the way to go.  Right-sizing your expectations is.  I don’t mean settle for less. I mean be prepared to meet your team where they are and be prepared to advance them to where they need to be.  If as the French artist Gustave Flaubert said, “God is in the details”, then I’m going to trust my gut and only pray at the largest cathedrals.

Would you agree customer networking events need name tags? Right?  Me too!  Funny thing though, in one organization they said they didn’t.  When I asked why, they said, because everyone already knows one another.  To which I replied, if they already know one another, then why are we having networking events?  They got the message.  Big picture. Little executions.

If you are a “big picture” leader, your greatest strength is not trying to retrofit your skills in execution, it is using your broad perspective to ask the right questions of your team.  There is a caveat of course, if you’ve moved to a tiny firm, you may be asking yourself the questions.  So be it.  What’s important is asking the questions and thinking through the issues and the answers.

Likewise, it’s important to realize you have allies–among your peer network, the membership or customer base and ultimately your staff.  Finding people among those three groups who will accommodate you and leverage your big picture skills is critical.

I have followed several industry veterans with long tenure.  Two of them were in the CEO seat for 26 and 39 years respectively.  Where my predecessors gave short shrift to some issues, I found manna for a strategic vision.  An example–an industry is in the throes of seismic change.  One of our customers had been pitching an industry promotional campaign for at least five years with no success.  What are the three most common complaints we hear in today’s data saturated world?  Nobody knows what we do or why it’s important/valuable/vital and we need to do more to promote our business.  That’s exactly what we did.

With lots of collaboration and about six months of steady effort, we launched an educational campaign designed to help consumers connect the dots between the environment and the responsible use of our industry’s products.  Big picture project, with lots of opportunities to leverage the detail level skills of staff, volunteers and members alike.

If there’s any secret to this process it is demonstrating you are in the game. Know the details of the game plan.  Attend the execution meetings.  Ask the big picture, strategic questions.  For our industry campaign, it was asking the obvious questions about how to focus the campaign and the hard questions about the best ways to execute the “grass-roots” campaign we envisioned. More often than not, groups move to “how” far too quickly. Your job, no different than showing “you own the numbers” when it comes to financial reporting is showing your capacity to engage with vital questions and insights.

Be the champion.  The 7 Measures of Success research published by ASAE suggests CEO’s be the broker of ideas for their organizations. I agree, totally.  Using the big picture skills you possess to make clear the strategic imperatives behind your programs and efforts is a vital part of the job.  Helping your members/customers see “behind the curtain” of your plans makes a huge difference to your success.  Our industry campaign offers valued insight.  While the campaign does not necessarily drive buyers directly to our members, it does an outstanding job of driving visitors to the association’s website–where they can learn about our members and the association.  Not everyone fully appreciated that strategy at the outset.  We broke it down for them.

None of this is a guarantee of success.  It is more akin to a compass.  You have to learn how to use it proficiently before it yields any meaningful results.  Failure is inevitable at some point along the way.  Know it. Work like crazy to avoid it. Prepare for it in any case.

Now this is important.  Do not get caught in the trap of separating strategy from execution. It is a myth, that these two processes could or should be separate.  This is a false dichotomy.  This new age invention is based on an age-old joke.  ”While the surgery was a complete success, the patient died”.  Far too often, I hear claims of spectacular strategies which failed not because the strategies were bad, but because the execution was poor.

Let me be clear. Execution does not live outside of strategy. And frankly neither does your success.  If you haven’t taken all of the variables of your culture, organization dynamics, demographics, and attitudes into consideration right alongside your strategy, you’re missing a huge opportunity and a huge point of leverage.

Understand, I’m not talking about the pedestrian objections of “we’ve always done it this way” or “we’ll never be able to do this”. I  am really talking about the fine details of what will it take to be successful.  That old saw about “some people being too busy getting it done, to listen to those who say it can’t be done.” is about right.

Let me wrap up by saying this…Big picture leaders delight in seeing others achieve their fullest potential. Our sense of self comes from witnessing the success of others.  Our strength comes not from hitting targets others can’t hit, but rather from hitting targets others can’t see.

  • Take advantage of your “big picture” expertise to ask the critical questions to correct the shortcomings in execution.
  • Find those who will accommodate you.  That is, those who will gladly fly in the shadow of your creativity, innovation and strategic vision.  They thrive on getting it done and you will benefit from their knowledge.
  • Remember that execution and strategy will do more damage held separately than held together.

How do make sure you have the right team in place to support your “big picture” strategy?  So what’s keeping you from your next success?    May it’s your gut.

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Is Your Leadership Suffocating Your Followers?

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

35186“I feel as though I am being suffocated by my bosses”, Sally said plaintively, “I am publicly being criticized for small mistakes I’ve made in the past, my work is constantly being questioned and my new ideas to get things on track are completely ignored.”

Why is it so difficult for some leaders to focus their leadership efforts on the positive and facing forward?  Sheryl Sandberg in her new book, Lean In makes an important observation. “As hard as it is to have an honest dialogue about business decisions,” she writes, “it is even harder to give individuals honest feedback.”

What makes giving productive feedback so difficult? More importantly, what can leaders do about it?  You can start by considering the high leadership costs of being “stuck”.  That is–being hostage to your own unwillingness or inability–to provide the necessary and proper feedback to a team member who is not meeting expectations.

Fueling public criticism, ignoring new ideas and otherwise marginalizing the contributions of a team member has enormous leadership costs.  What are the long-term impacts of leaders being focused on the negative?  Declining morale, damaged self-esteem, confusion and falling productivity for starters.  You can probably add your own experiences to this list– few of them are ever good.

What are the long-term leadership impacts of fueling a disconnect between expectations and reality of someone’s performance?   Being stuck often feels as though there are no alternatives or options to your current situation.  In differing circumstances and over numerous years, those who continually focus their leadership on the negative tend to demoralize themselves and the people they need most.  Making progress on a complex issue or refocusing the organization after a stumble–big or small–demands positive leadership and re-direction. This is true at all levels across the organization.

Few of us do our best work under the constant duress of criticism, second-guessing or being ignored in the course of our day.  As leaders we need to find a new path forward for ourselves and our teams as well.  Here are some useful questions to help you do it:

  • Have you communicated your expectations clearly?
  • Have you confirmed the team’s or team member’s understanding and reached mutual agreement on those expectations?
  • Have you established agreed upon milestones, monitoring or reporting protocols?
  • Do you have agreed upon boundaries describing who can take action when?
  • Have you provided a mechanism (meeting, review session, checklist) for regular and timely feedback to your team members?

It’s likely members of your team are more resilient than you might think.  People can bounce back from failure and shortfalls.  If they know their leaders stand with them and are committed helping them get back on track.

In his writings about building trust author Stephen R. Covey talks about the importance of leaders making deposits into their team’s emotional bank account.  Offering regular praise when appropriate, complimenting initiative, giving credit in meetings, acknowledging ideas and offering positive feedback whenever possible, all provide leaders and team members with a needed reservoir of goodwill.  When the time comes that an emotional withdrawal is needed, your criticism or negative feedback coupled with the goodwill you’ve created along the way can lessen the defensiveness and help offset the sting of those difficult conversations.  It’s definitely worth remembering effective leaders praise in public, and as necessary criticize in private.

Finally, if there’s a vital lesson of the information age, it is this.  Your organization’s competitive advantage leaves the building and goes home to bed each day.  Smart and savvy leaders do everything in their power to make certain that same “competitive advantage” comes back to work–focused and fueled–to deliver their best.  Your customers, clients and members expect it.  How are you making sure it happens?

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Why The Elevator Speech Is Dead.

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

Print Is Alive. Elevator Speech Is DeadI was recently asked to discuss my reading habits and what I was learning from that effort.  Funny enough, two books that caught my attention both carried a similar message–The Elevator Speech Is Dead.

In his second book Running the Gauntlet, author and marketing expert Jeffrey Hayzlett says the limited attention span of most people is a serious impediment to success.  According to Hayzlett, if you are trying to convey an idea, you have eight seconds to “hook” the listener.  If you’re successful, you’ll gain another 110 seconds to reel them in, with the rest of your story.  Fishing metaphor aside, he makes an important point.  The incredible shrinking human attention span is now shorter than that of a goldfish.

Author Dan Pink in this latest book To Sell Is Human observes that elevator speeches have become passe’ in their current form.  He identifies several new frameworks to replace the dying elevator speech including the clever;

One-word equity.   When anybody thinks of you, they utter this word.  When anybody utters that word, they think you.

The Question Pitch made famous by Ronald Reagan’s Presidential Campaign against Jimmy Carter.  Think about it. You’ll remember the line.

The Rhyming Pitch used to great effect to by Defense Attorney Johnny Cochrane in his defense of O.J. Simpson, “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

To Sell Is Human also describes several other options for the now dead elevator speech including my personal favorite, the delightful PIXAR pitch which begins simply enough, “Once upon a time…”

Pink provides worksheets and exercises to help you sharpen your pitch.  He also offers thoughtful suggestions and examples of how you can adapt your story to these various formats.

According to a study described by the former Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano, Americans are exposed to 3.7 zettabytes of data per year, much of it in the form of transient pixels from television and computers.  It is very clear there is a lot of competition for people’s attention.  Hayzlett and Pink both offer a great jump-start.  The question for you is simple.  What’s your story and how will you fascinate the listener?  The next eight seconds will tell.

Posted in Change, Executive Development, Leadership, Membership | Leave a comment

Goodbye Google Reader. Hello E-Mail

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

Reading the Wired 4 Leadership BlogWait.  What?  Google is shutting down its Reader RSS feeder.  Yikes!  That’s right friends, come July 1, 2013 (unless they change their minds) Google Reader is a goner.

Over on the Google Official Blog here’s what they had to say. “We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.”

So you’ll just need to find yourself another option.  There’s a lot of good advice on what to do and how to migrate your Google Reader feeds found over at OSX Daily or LifeHacker.

With the coming demise of Google Reader there is no better time to make certain you receive the regular blog posts from Wired 4 Leadership than by your very own personal e-mail delivery.  It’s quick, it’s quiet and it arrives on whatever device you have at hand.  Don’t worry, we will never share your e-mail address with anyone.  You can “unsubscribe” at any time (although we hope you won’t).

Best of all you’ll be among the first to know about our latest blog postings.  So sign-up now for your very own e-mail delivery of Wired 4 Leadership.  CLICK HERE to find our e-mail subscription form.

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A Transparency and Leadership Primer

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

OBAMA_PRESSOver at the AssociationsNow blog, Ernie Smith wrote a story about the White House Correspondents Association(WHCA) complaining about “transparency” and lack of access during the President’s recent golf vacation.  Ed Henry, the president of WHCA issued a protest statement.  “I can say a broad cross-section of our members from print, radio, online, and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the president of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency.”

While “leadership transparency” is a worthy goal, it struck me as counterproductive to pick a public fight with the Press Secretary to the President of the United States.  It was made doubly awkward that Henry, who previously worked for CNN and C-SPAN currently works for the highly partisan Fox News Channel.  The White House Press Office fired back with a series of statements about the regular access the press enjoys with the President.  This all got me to thinking.  When it comes to staking out a public position, or pursuing an agenda for change what leadership lessons can be found here?

1. Pick the right spokesperson. When your organization stakes out a controversial position, be sure your spokesperson is not perceived as conflicted.  Pick your spokesperson carefully be sure they are credible and especially well informed.

2. Have your facts at the ready. While the White House Correspondents Association was quick to complain about access to the President, they offered no hard data to support their position.  The White House says the President has done 591 interviews, 104 with major news outlets. On average, that’s almost two interviews a week with reporters and one interview with major news outlet every two weeks since the President was elected in 2009.

3. Stick to the story. White House Correspondents Association President Ed Henry says it’s all about “transparency”.  He then goes on to say, “We’re not interested in the violating the president’s privacy. He’s entitled to vacations like everyone else.” So which is it? Transparency, access, the right to the President to take vacations or not wanting to violate the President’s right to privacy?  Keeping the WHCA’s message about what exactly they mean  by “transparency”  both clear and concise would have helped immensely.

4. Manage your member/customer/client and team’s expectations. See #2 above. While people may feel “extremely frustrated”,  it’s equally important feelings alone don’t drive your organization’s public relations or policy agenda.  Life is unfair, frustrating and occasionally boring.  Is that really the basis for a public spat on transparency?

We understand White House Correspondents would probably prefer to die of exhaustion than boredom in their line of work. Sitting around the Holiday Inn while the President of the United States vacations at the Floridian Golf Resort probably seems unfair to many reporters accustomed to regular access.  That said, allowing the President of the United States enjoy a few days vacation with friends hardly seems reason to launch a public relations outcry that ends up making your organization appear petty and ill-informed.

Posted in Executive Development, Leadership, Politics | Leave a comment

The Meaning of Change for Leaders

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

changeLeaders need to revel in change.  There’s no other way to say it.  Without a bona fide commitment at the top to alter an organization’s way of doing business, change will fail.  Not at first and maybe not for some time.  But it will fail.  Lasting change requires lasting effort and lasting leadership.  Much has been written about “change du jour” a common behavior of some leaders.  Flitting from the latest management fad to the next, their lack of focus drains the very resources they need to effect real, lasting change.

This isn’t to say there isn’t value in failure.  Michael Krigsman writing for ZDNet.com notes that “Failure creates excellent opportunities to refine experience and knowledge into great success.” True enough.  Let’s be clear though, smart leaders do everything possible to give themselves, their teams and organizations maximum leverage for success at the start.  How?  Here are five steps:

1.  Know the Readiness of your Team.  Sometimes you just need to move.  Doing so means change will be thrust upon people and the organization.  Smart leaders will begin the task of assessing their teams long before change is needed.  Knowing as much as possible about your team–strengths, weaknesses and motivations are key.  There are plenty of assessment tools to help.

2. Craft and Share Your Plan.  Change is not arbitrary nor capricious.  It is a well crafted and planned process.  Something well thought out, discussed at length with those affected with milestones for measuring progress.  None of this means you won’t alter course along the way.  Engaged team members will debate, define and redefine measures big and small.   They will help clarify your own thinking and bring meaningful measures to the process.  Change leadership is all about choosing the optimum actions and managing the consequences, expected and otherwise.

3. Avoid the Change Buddha.  Inevitably, someone on your team or in your organization will have seen this all before.  They will have a thousand reasons the latest change initiative will not succeed.  While it may be useful to hear out the naysayers, realize that fear is often the underlying emotion and powerful motivator.  Fear is often deployed in disguise as wise advice and cautious optimism–an expectation limiter–that damages the effort before it gains real traction.  There are so many ways to stifle a change initiative.  If You Meet The Change Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! (With apologies to Sheldon Kopp and his classic book If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!)

4. Be Gracious and Tenacious.  Remember at the outset, your team is only human.  Just like you.  The work of change leaders is intellectually difficult and emotionally draining.  There will be setbacks.  People who you trusted to carry-out portions of the plan will stumble.  Some will peel away in frustration.  Smart leaders are powerfully pro-active in seeking out these struggles among the team early. It requires persistence.  It requires courage.  It requires patience. This is hard work and smart leaders treat it as such everyday.

5.  Change Leadership Is An Art, Too!  As Max De Pree, the former CEO of Herman Miller and author of Leadership Is An Art reminds us, at the beginning of the day, it is the leader’s job to define reality.  At the end, it is the leader’s job to say thank you.  Smart leaders realize no one does this work by themselves.  At least not successfully.  Your entire team will require your energy, encouragement and support along the way.  They will demand it in different doses and in different circumstances.  Some will just need to know it’s there.  Be that leader.  Your success and their’s depends on it.

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Innovation Now. Five Big Ideas for Success.

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

Innovation and ChangeThe third annual GE Global Innovation Barometer released this past week is instructive for what ails leaders in today’s competitive and increasingly global marketplace.
Researchers have coined the term “Innovation Vertigo” to describe the struggles leaders are facing as they seek to embrace the complexity of a changing business environment.   While business executives continue to value innovation as a strategic priority, the changing dynamics of today’s business landscape and uncertainty over the best path forward – is challenging leaders to think differently about how they will achieve growth.

Many executives, however, seem to be embracing this complexity by exploring new and sometimes unexpected opportunities to innovate.  Their approaches are surprisingly diverse.  Commenting on the Innovation Barometer, Beth Comstock, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of GE said, “Change has become constant and we see leaders responding by betting big on more unconventional approaches to innovation to unlock growth.”

In the face of growing complexity and impacts on local economies 71% of executives believe some form of protectionism— promoting domestic innovation over imported innovations— need to be considered.  Oddly, an equal number of executives said governments should open markets further and promote imported innovation and investment.  The report says there is a 53% overlap between these two opposing views.  Confused enough yet?  Here’s the chart.

Another strategy gaining real traction is business model innovation as a route to success. According to the survey, innovating a new model may offer a less risky and resource-intense path to better understand and reach customers over traditional methods such as new product development.  In a number of markets such as non-profit organizations, start-ups and recent entrepreneurial ventures new business models have tilted the playing field.  In an earlier post, Eight Critical Steps to Leading Change, I noted universities and colleges are facing a fundamental shift in their longtime model.  They are far from alone.  Health care, associations, professional societies, retailers, news outlets, information empires, government and entertainment businesses to name a few are all under pressure from emerging broad access and delivery models.

Fifty-two percent of survey respondents believe that the development of new business models will contribute the most to their company’s performance going forward, representing a six point increase when compared to how it has traditionally contributed to their innovation portfolio.

Three other trends caught my attention for their influence on innovation and business strategy:

Collaboration as a Competitive Advantage – 
Collaboration between businesses is emerging as a means to surpass competitors and generate revenue, particularly in emerging markets. Despite global acknowledgement of the power of partnerships, lack of effective IP protection, trust and talent poaching pose barriers to action.

Governments as Stewards of Innovation Environment – 
Global business leaders are concerned by the policy environments affecting innovation, and are calling on policymakers to create more stable, supportive policy frameworks to help enable better innovation in markets and across borders. Executives perceive safeguarding business interests – talent, knowledge, IP – and removing policy barriers – bureaucracy, over-regulation – as key to allowing innovation to flourish.  Respondents said the main priorities their governments should focus on to support innovation, education (50 percent), fighting bureaucracy (48 percent) and protecting trade secrets (41 percent) were identified as the most pressing.

The Right Talent, in the Right Places – Talent has been consistently identified as a critical concern for innovation leaders across the globe, as the creativity and technical prowess of the workforce is seen as key to unlocking innovation potential. Concerns around workforce preparedness abound as companies are seeking to match the right job with the right people and line up the right skill sets to meet tomorrow’s economic needs today.

When you look ahead, what are the threats and opportunities you see for your organization?  Do any of the trends discussed here have relevance to the future of your enterprise?  Which ones?  Share your thoughts and comments below.

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8 Critical Steps to Leading Change

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Kerry Stackpole

Change LeadershipSome things change.  Some things don’t. You know that special, warm, certain feeling you get from visiting an old friend?  I got that feeling in abundance this week when I had the opportunity to discuss John Kotter’s work on change with a great group of association leaders.  Kotter is one of my favorite business authors.  I have grown professionally and gained enormously from the quality and caliber of his thinking.  The wisdom Kotter has extracted from his experiences resonates with me at so many different levels.  His work is thoughtful and profound.

Kotter, trained as an electrical engineer at MIT earned his doctorate at Harvard and joined the faculty at the Business School.  In the universe of “publish or perish” Kotter has excelled.  He wrote one of the Harvard Business Review’s all-time best-selling articles and has over the past 30 years, produced eighteen books many of which rank in the top 1% of sales on Amazon.com.  His work speaks authentically to the challenge of leadership and change.  So what does it take to create real lasting change?  Kotter offers this road map in his best-seller, Leading Change.  Kotter says there are eight crucial steps leaders must take to assure success:

  1. Establish a Sense of Urgency.
  2. Build a Guiding Coalition Throughout the Organization
  3. Develop a Vision and Strategy
  4. Communicate the Change Vision
  5. Empower Employees to Take Broad Based Action
  6. Generate Short-Term Wins
  7. Consolidate Gains to Produce More Change
  8. Anchor the New Approaches into the Culture

If you’ve ever undertaken a change effort, you know it is not for the faint-hearted.  There are just so many opportunities for sabotage at so many levels within an organization.  I have witnessed on more than one occasion—even in the face of certain collapse–individuals and organizations that cannot and will not muster the necessary resources and energy to change.  Frustration doesn’t begin to describe the feeling.

Change is daunting.  It is thrust upon us or something we choose to create.  It is an enormous catalyst for expanding your success and assuring continuity.  Unexpected change created by the actions and decisions of individuals or entities outside our control are the most challenging, oftentimes because—well, they’re unexpected.  Oddly enough, change you see on the horizon is challenging too, yet for a different reason. Think about public and private colleges and universities for a moment.

  • First there was the rise of private, for-profit colleges and universities vying for students, financial aid funds and prestige.
  • Growth of the lifetime learning movement caught colleges off-guard and both the non-profit and private sector took to the marketplace with fresh offerings.
  • Online degree programs began a new opportunity. With the fast rise in popularity and the benefit of education software, online payment systems and high speed Internet access, public and private colleges were able to ride the wave.
  • Now it’s MOOC — massive open online courses offered by leading colleges and universities such as MIT, Harvard, George Washington University, Rice, Emory, Brown and others.  While still in its infancy MOOC certainly suggests investments in “bricks and mortar” may be coming to an end.  MOOC proffers a dramatic rise in quality, diversity and depth of educational content not seen outside the walls of the Ivy League.

Change from the outside.  Adaptation.  Small Victories.  Innovation. And now, change from the inside.  It’s worth pondering your own organization’s future in the context of both types of change.  It’s also worth thinking about the ways in which our current business models no longer fit our collective futures.  For example, if you made your living as a gatekeeper to information, it’s increasingly unlikely in today’s increasing open information environment that you will be able to sustain the pricing model that made you a success in the first place.

So what make change so difficult for you or your organization?  In what ways does the Kotter model work for you and where does it fall short?  You can leave a comment below.

In future posts I will explore the Kotter Change Model in more detail and share your thoughts and comments about this model as well.

Posted in Change, Executive Development, Leadership | 1 Comment

Five Skills Every Leader Needs in 2013

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Kerry Stackpole

StatusQuoWhat’s your game plan for success in 2013?  As leaders we receive plenty of conflicting advice.  Real world insights are hard to come by and sometimes extremely difficult to comprehend.  We all know foresight is better than hindsight, so where can you gather both insight and foresight for the New Year?

If you’re planning on stepping up your game in pursuit of high level performance and greater success in 2013, you have a lot to gain by examining the thoughts and advice garnered from more than seventy-five CEO interviews captured in The Corner Office. The experiences were gathered up by Adam Bryant, a senior editor at The New York Times who writes a weekly feature entitled Corner Office.   Bryant recently gave an interview to Knowledge@Wharton in which he identified five qualities of successful leaders gathered from his interviews with CEOs:

Passion and curiosity. Having a deep sense of engagement with the world — a questioning mind.

Battle-hardened confidence.  Having a track record of facing down adversity and knowing your capabilities.

Team smarts. Having the organizational equivalent of street smarts.

Simple mindset.  Having the ability to distill a lot of information into the one or two or three things that truly matter.

Fearlessness.  Having a bias toward action — not recklessness, but a willingness to take risks.

Bryant’s crisp and concise writing draws on his extensive conversations with dozens of top CEOs including Ford Motor Company’s Alan Mulally, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Jeffrey Katzenberg at DreamWorks, Xerox’s Ursula Burns,  David Novak at Yum Brands, and Teach for America CEO Wendy Kopp, among seventy plus others.

As Bryant points out, leadership is not a one-size-fits-all skill.  Understanding and uncovering how these individuals kept getting promoted and what key skills they possessed drove much of this work.  As one of Mr. Bryant’s interview subjects points out, “Though chief executives are paid to have answers, their greatest contributions to their organizations may be asking the right questions.”  That’s good advice for all leaders new and old alike.

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We Lost A Valiant Leader

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Kerry Stackpole

superkidsThe world lost a talented and brave leader.  When gunfire erupted at her place of work, she instinctively ran toward danger and risk.  Dawn Hochsprung, the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut died in a school doing work she loved.  Her talents and strengths were deeply respected and admired.  A place committed to inspiring each student to excel.

In truth, this is all too difficult.  There are few words of comfort.  It is near impossible to imagine a day where 26 people—youngsters, talented educators, school staff and their leader—came to face such mortal danger and deadly consequences.  Outside the world of law enforcement or military service, few of us ever imagine facing off with a person so intent on such evil.  Yet here it was.

Our hearts are broken.  And again there is this certain reminder that life is full of unknowns and more risk than we might ever imagine.  While little consolation, the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School is a tribute to the uncommon bravery and courage of ordinary people and the unheralded leaders among us.  It is a testament and reminder of the character and courage of Dawn Hochsprung.  In the face of unspeakable chaos, she stepped into the moment and gave her all.  She will forever be that valiant leader.

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