In a previous post, I listed “Vulnerability” as one of 5 Great Leadership Risks.power of vulnerabilityIn movies, leaders tend to be shown as super strong and svelte, dressed in an impenetrable and dashing suit with a walk that means business and talk that means taking action at all costs. It’s all about encompassing that “no funny business” demeanor and giving a stone-cold stare in the face of death. Now, that’s entertainme...

Psychologists tell us that all emotions, decisions, and actions are rooted in one of the two basic human motives: love or fear. Love gives rise to things like generosity, respect, joy, patience, honor, understanding, honesty, growth, and abundance; fear creates greed, selfishness, deception, bitterness, and stagnation.Choosing love, then, is not something that should be restricted to personal or romantic matters. Love is pr...

Like it or not, as a leader you have a significant impact on the energy around you at work. You’re either generating passion, enthusiasm and drive in people, or you’re sucking it out of them. Your ideal, therefore, is to display positive energy in everything you do. I know it’s a tall order; but, ultimately, the success of your company will depend on whether you can share this energy with others and foster consistent enthus...

After my two and a half decades of experience as a leadership keynote speaker (or what many generically call a motivational speaker), I’ve learned a few things about the craft that will help you in your public speaking endeavors, too.Whether you’re addressing your team, company, audience, or meeting, this infographic of 10 Tips will help you set the stage.So to speak.

I wish I could tell you that there’s a clear-cut, linear path to becoming a leader, but there isn’t; instead, you’ll need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable-ness of learning from your personal successes and failures as you go.And by definition, your successes and failures are predicated on the risks you take. (A practice I like to call “Pursuing the OS!M.”)But this isn’t about taking irresponsible or arbitrary risks....

It’s the oldest skill in the management texts: listen to your employees. Seek their input. But it’s not enough to ask for feedback; you have to be genuinely interested in the response—especially if you think you won’t like it. Those posing as leaders seek feedback because HR has ordered them to do it, not because they’re really interested.Extreme Leaders will not only use 360-degree assessments (which can be powerful tools...

A Declaration of Extreme LeadershipWe, the undersigned, have devoted ourselves–personally and professionally–to changing the world, in some way, for the better.We strive to use what we have–passion, talent, desire, resources, imagination, time–to make a difference, to expand the rightness of things.We don’t consider ourselves to be naive or idealistic–although others certainly may. We are pragmatists of the highest order:...

Last weekend at the always inspiring SobCon event in Chicago, I had the opportunity to meet Greg Hartle, the itinerate business consultant and philosopher.He’s on a mission to visit 50 states, collect 501 stories, and demonstrate that it’s possible to make a living starting from scratch–even in this new, challenging (to say the least) economy.He started his journey with ten dollars, a laptop, and the clothes on his back (ca...

Yesterday, I had a long talk with my old friend (and constant source of leadership inspiration), Dick Nettell. Dick had a long and storied career at Bank of America where his results and style were legendary. I mentioned in an earlier post that he’s in the process of writing a book, and he’s told me that I’ll be getting the rough draft, soon. But in the meantime……Since I wrote about Dick as a semi-anonymous example in The R...

Unfortunately, the word “empowerment” has, for many, become nothing more than a tired, old cliche–something that I’ve been teasing people about for years.Even though the value of empowerment is, ostensibly, conventional wisdom by now, it’s still the rare leader that does it and does it well. Most get caught up in a faulty, self-sabotaging thought process that goes something like this:Empowerment = I give them control = I ex...