The 5 Biggest Employee Morale Killers

The 5 Biggest Employee Morale Killers

For nearly two-thirds of my 30-plus-year career, I have worked as a “middle manager” of one sort or another. For the remaining third—more than 10 years—I have been middle-managed. Of course, even as a manager, I had plenty of people above me telling me what to do. I...
A Skeptic’s Observations on Leadership

A Skeptic’s Observations on Leadership

Having just finished another article on leadership, I’m reminded of why I find most modern treatments of the subject uninspiring, uninformed, repetitive, and unoriginal.  No matter what color the wrapping, inside the best books and articles on leadership is a similar...
Making Tough Career Choices: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself

Making Tough Career Choices: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both… Robert Frost Last year, during one of our large leadership programs, a participant asked me about a major career choice she faced. In this case, the choice involved leaving her organization and...
Why “Soft” Skills Aren’t Really Soft

Why “Soft” Skills Aren’t Really Soft

Today, emerging leaders will likely have a college degree, technical qualifications (making them theoretically competent to perform the tasks required of them), and relevant work experience—but what about the personal attributes that enable leaders to interact...
Strategic Planning: 5 Common Challenges

Strategic Planning: 5 Common Challenges

Strategic planning is a process, an outcome, and—in its best form—a roadmap used by stakeholders throughout an organization to move the organization toward higher levels of achievement. Strategic planning is also a much-maligned endeavor, subject to the usual (and...
What Leaders Can Learn from the “World Happiness Report”

What Leaders Can Learn from the “World Happiness Report”

In Chapter 9 of The 9 Virtues of Exceptional Leaders, titled “Hope,” Rob and I devote several paragraphs to discussing the work of Viktor Frankl, a survivor of both Auschwitz and Dachau and the father of logotherapy—a theory founded on the belief that human nature is...