Leadership

One of the blogs I regularly track is Mac Lake's.  Last week he posted a great reminder about how we need to minimize the "friendly fire" that happens in a work environment, be it church or business.  Here it is: Hit by Friendly Fire Just months after the September 11 attack on US soil Pat Tillman, safety for the Arizona Cardinals, turned down a 3.5 million dollar contract in order to join the US Army and defend his country . While serving on patrol in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident.  Friendly fire is a strange term isn’t it?  It means to fire inadvertently on someone on your own squad.   It isn’t intentional, they don’t purposely cause harm, it happens because someone isn’t paying attention. Unfortunately there are people in offices all across the country who are struck by “friendly fire” everyday. Leaders…

An old Russian proverb states, "Success has many fathers while failure is an orphan." Nearly everyone I've met wants to be successful -- though the definition of success may vary, the desire is there.  I've met few people who aspire to be failures. Because of this, there is a great temptation to take credit where none is deserved.  When an idea goes well, it's everyone's idea.  "I knew that would work."  Of course, at the time they may have thought it was the craziest idea out there. On the other hand, when an idea or project fails, it's like dropping a skunk in the middle of a party -- everyone scatters.  No one wants to own the smell. This is where great leaders (and spouses and parents and coaches) stand out.  They are content to let others get the credit and are willing to accept the blame.  Perhaps the most…

From Alvin Toffler via The Speed of Trust: "The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write.  They are those that cannot learn, unlearn, relearn."

One of the blogs I regularly track is The Harvard Business Review.  Actually, it's a collection of multiple blogs all under one roof.  Last week, one of the articles that caught my attention was this one: "12 Things Good Bosses Believe."  Here are the highlights: I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not…