Recovering Leader

6 Awesome Ways to Lend a Helping Hand ... Virtually

How to prioritize and practice finding peace amidst all the background radiation of ambiguity, chaos, and fear, and take that peace and use it to focus on helping others now more than ever; after all, it's food for the soul to lend a helping hand. Read more →

Every Day is Bring Your Kindness to Work Day

A friendly leadership approach works wonders when you want to enable those around you to free up their most powerful talents and skills in service of a shared vision or goal.  Read more →

Martin Luther King's Take on Leadership

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader who, like Mahatma Gandhi before him, and Nelson Mandela after him, showed us the way from weakness and division to strength in unity. He challenged and inspired us to reach deeper within ourselves, despite ourselves, for our best, which sometimes is, simply, better than yesterday. His power endures because it's rooted in... Read more →

To Post-Baby Boomer CEOs: Evolve!

It's up to baby boomers to forge an open road of capitalism for the common good, one where all may travel, confident that a better future is just ahead. Read more →

4 Factors To Be an Effective Buyer of Your Next Job

Whether you’re considering an internal move, or enticed by a position elsewhere, once you know you’ve got the right skills and experience, remember that even as you’re “selling” yourself, you’re also buying. As a buyer, here are four things to consider that can make or break your ability to do your best work, and be fulfilled: 1. Buying the Values... Read more →

Leadership Lessons From Recovering Alcoholics

Fear, force, greed, and need are all tried and true ways to lead. Yet none positive or sustainable. When it comes to greatness, and lasting for the long haul, look no further than 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA. Its membership has grown into the tens of millions, fully global (since well before Walmart or even Sears Roebuck, for... Read more →

New: The Recovering Leader Congressional Pledge

Most Congressional Republicans have signed an anti-tax pledge. It's time for a new, constructive pledge—one that puts leadership into politics. Here's the idea... Since 1986 Americans for Tax Reform has “invited” U.S. congress people to sign a pledge they will oppose any and all tax increases for individuals and/or businesses. They will "publicize" those who decide not to sign it,... Read more →

Three Key Principles of Believe-In-You Leadership

Never has there been a more important time for leaders of organizations, communities, and governments to believe in their people—for each of us to believe in each other. That’s the world I want to live in, and the organization I want to do business with. Yet it's in major short supply. People in organizations and communities around the world are... Read more →

Recovering Our Leadership: Seven Intentions for 2012

Happy New Year! While no one knows what 2012 has up its sleeve, based on my own post-executive experience working with leaders across industries over the last eight years, no one doubts it’s time for a positive “pivot.” My hope is that will include a new sense of executive responsibility when it comes to humanism, collectivism, and capitalism with care... Read more →

Why Leadership Meant Quitting My Executive Job

I feel a great affinity with those protesting on Wall Street and other business centers right now. When I asked myself why, I remembered a key turning point in my own career: my response eight years ago to the then-shocking dehumanizing corporate behavior that’s become the norm in recent years. I started my business career delivering interoffice mail—yes, rolling around... Read more →

Six Questions to Help You Avoid Protestors at Your Doorstep

I’m puzzled by the puzzlement over the growing protests across America. While the media is stumped at how to cover the early days of a post-conventional, web-era movement, exemplified by the Wall Street "live in," we all know what they’re talking about. As one protester’s sign says, “Dear 1%, We Fell Asleep For A While. Just Woke Up. Sincerely, the... Read more →

How Does Your Organization Impact the Common Good?

My workforce research showed most workers put organizational integrity ahead of financial gain. Yet in the current practice of capitalism, as organizations grow, gaining financial sustainability, influence and impact on society, they tend toward self-protection and self-interest. What's a well-meaning worker to do? When buying a car, or a mattress for that matter, we'd look at Consumer Reports. When taking... Read more →

Leaders: Understand Your Impact

As a leader, it’s important to understand the nature of your impact on the world. For better and worse, you are affecting your people, and, collectively, you are all affecting communities and lives beyond your organization’s walls. No need to wait until some unintended consequence or difficulty makes you take stock of how your leadership is touching the world. Better... Read more →

Goldman Sachs Leadership Lesson in Addiction

What can we learn from our friends at Goldman Sachs? Are they ready to have an epiphany, face their bad acts, and recover? Is Sen. Carl Levin’s committee likely to help propel them toward healing? Okay, well, no and no. Yet maybe we should toast Goldman Sachs anyway. Give them a wink, and tell them we’re here for them whenever... Read more →

7 Leadership Strengths Are Weaknesses When Taken Too Far

Consider a few of the typical strengths a leader may have: maybe they're a good delegator, a great relationship-builder, results-oriented, decisive, etc. Interestingly, our strengths become weaknesses when we overuse or misapply them to the situation. That's why I often hear my clients' colleagues say, "It's his strength, but also weakness at times..." So it's important to know which of... Read more →

LeaderTip: Leading in Sync with Your Values

We are at our best when our work is well-aligned with our values, and leaders are no exception. Yet in the fray of day-to-day challenges, rarely do we stop to reflect on what we hold most important, and/or how that might have changed over the years. If you don’t take time to do that, you may miss an important insight,... Read more →

LeaderTip: Leadership and Unity

Sustainable leadership requires making the common good your highest priority. “Common good” doesn’t mean consensus—in fact it’s often discovered through intense and candid debate. Develop your own methods of assessing what’s best for your people, organization, clients, and your community, and where those interests intersect. You can “succeed” without doing this, but over time you risk undermining what you intend... Read more →

LeaderTip: Humility’s Power

A deliberate practice of staying humble is a source of power for any leader. As achievements, expertise, and experience mount, it’s not uncommon for self-assurance to evolve into swagger. Yet a pattern of arrogance or pride, even in tiny doses, tends to turn people off—distancing you from others, and de-motivating even your high performers. Humility means putting your ego in... Read more →

The Why and How of Your Next Promotion

Suggestions and considerations to help you move up At its best, a promotion to a more senior level of responsibility can challenge, energize, and reward you, and enable you to accomplish something of greater meaning in your professional life. Moving up isn’t for everyone—it may not be important to you, and/or you may be happy with the level of responsibilities... Read more →

Layoffs and Human Capital Accounting

Lessons from the Great Recession of 08-09. Many organizations like to say that their people are their most valuable asset. Yet in the real world, and from an accounting perspective, people are viewed as expenses rather than assets. This drives bust and boom cycles of hiring freezes, layoffs, unemployment, and then wasteful rehiring. The truth: you’re my most valuable asset... Read more →

Are You a Manager or a Leader: Complete Analysis of Survey Results (Final)

In June, 2009 we started taking a sharp look at the distinctions between manager and leader. I developed a 20-question online survey (“Are you more of a manager or leader?”) that's so far received 139 responses. Given the volume of info, I broke my analysis into several blog posts that cover all 20 questions. Previous posts had analyzed the results... Read more →

Ethical Leadership: Make the World a Better Place

My work as an executive coach has me working with leaders constantly. I can’t help but notice that they have a wide variety of reasons for doing what they do. When asked, they tell me things like this: “My job as a leader is to motivate people,” or “I’m here to tell people what to do and how to do... Read more →