Today a client asked for some possible images to express a recent idea he had. "Can you show me some 'ferocious' movie men, maybe?"
"Ferocity? Yessir, we can do that."
"And tenacious, determined."&nbsp;Right. Got it.
Fun assignment, up the proverbial alley.
In fact, I had just been talking with someone the other day about a few of these. Childhood memories, many of them.
There are some cool, nostalgic items here.&nbsp;
I only wish we'd had more than an hour (there are so many gems!), but he did say these succeeded at getting the incubatory idea across the ol' finish line.
Ooh Rah!
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&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
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&nbsp;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m gonna take this right foot, and I&rsquo;m gonna whop you on that side of your face, and you wanna know something? There&rsquo;s not a damn thing you&rsquo;re gonna be able to do about it.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Quickly as you can, snatch the pebble from my hand.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mess with the bull, young man; you&rsquo;ll get the horns!&rdquo;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you can take us all.&rdquo; &ldquo;No, but I&rsquo;ll get an &lsquo;A&rsquo; for effort.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I want you to be nice, until it&rsquo;s time to not be nice.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nothing like a good piece of hickory.&rdquo;
&ldquo;On the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away.&rdquo;

"Ferocity? Yessir, we can do that."

Ego, "the 'I' that distinguishes us from others," including "our self-esteem and self-image," but also "our conceit and self-importance" is a tricky, tricky&nbsp;beast.&nbsp; A devil on our shoulder, a gremlin in the machinery.
On the one hand, it is necessary, essential.&nbsp; Without it, we are paper dolls, folded by the least life has to offer or brings our way.&nbsp; But too much of it and we are rigid, always right, enrobed in our self-righteousness and sense of entitlement or destiny.
In its extremes<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;too much and too little<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;it is&nbsp;as easy to spot as the peacock.&nbsp;
Too Little, Exhibit A: The abused, who apologizes for her abuse.
Too Much, Exhibit A:&nbsp;The tyrant, whose way is the only way.
In between, we find a&nbsp;diorama of figurines, from the insecure who, like the puffer fish, make themselves appear larger than they really are as an act of self-protection.&nbsp; Or bullies,&nbsp;the&nbsp;hyenas of humankind, who identify those whom they perceive as a step slower or out of sync with the herd, catching them alone at the watering hole or in a wild turn on an open field.&nbsp; Or the indignant.&nbsp; Or&nbsp;sometimes even martyrs, who originally felt called to champion a cause in someone else's name, or on behalf of others, but who&nbsp;may lose their way once they close their ears and become tone-deaf to the changing landscape or situation at hand.
There are dozens and dozens of archetypes smeared across&nbsp;our little&nbsp;stage, each of us&nbsp;having played many such parts in the course of our life.
I see it every day; we all do.&nbsp; For all his "honesty" and "straight talk," Donald Trump is periodically behaving&nbsp;rather badly: mean, divisive, sometimes employing hateful speech that borders on bullying, leaving very little room for the gray of life and which is, to my way of thinking at least, sexist, racist, superior, bigoted.&nbsp; I'm as ready as the next guy for a transparent leader, for spin-free and politics-free zones.&nbsp; Gosh, our country needs&nbsp;this desperately.&nbsp; We are lost; marooned.&nbsp;&nbsp;There is no America, just islands, camps, tribes, parties, factions, lobbyists, separatists.&nbsp; And Trump's absolutely&nbsp;right: political&nbsp;correctness can be a blight.&nbsp; But to lump entire people into&nbsp;categories, to deride said&nbsp;categories, to marginalize others, to be dismissive about what Warren Buffett succinctly describes as "the lottery of birth" (having been blessed, due to grace or chance alone, to be born in the United States or any progressive country) is absolute foolishness.&nbsp; Trump's&nbsp;name is so fitting, because his ego trumps everything.&nbsp; He appears to believe that he is right about everything and is equally intolerant of&nbsp;contrary opinions.&nbsp; I cannot fathom the circus his governance style would&nbsp;create.&nbsp;&nbsp;As much as people might like it&nbsp;to be&nbsp;the case, government does not operate like business.&nbsp; There are times I&nbsp;absolutely wish it did, but our government is a legislative democracy, not an autocracy or private venture or profitably oriented enterprise with shareholders and so, on the face of it, his approach will always be unsuitable.&nbsp; We need a statesman or stateswoman, but one who can, in fact, effect change to create unity, whether through the next figurative moonshot or something else larger than partisan politics.
But he is not alone, for if we are not careful, and when we are our worst selves rather than our best selves,&nbsp;a great many of us could be castigated for our example.&nbsp; It's not just politicians who believe they are above the law, or professional athletes, or celebrities.&nbsp; No, in&nbsp;a world that Andy Warhol would have loved, we are each enticed to create, proliferate, and maintain a cult of personality, be it through Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or&nbsp;Tumblr or wherever.&nbsp;&nbsp;
And the irony is not lost on this writer,&nbsp;who named a company after himself.
But we shall get to that.
Whether we lack ego, and&nbsp;forfeit ourselves to others' pleasures or dominion, or overcompensate for our shortcomings by bullying, or believe we are the smartest person in the room...chosen, designated, called, destined, whatever...and adopt a narrow-minded and "me-centric" worldview, we all fall short.
When things must be our way, or our way is the only way, or our way is the right way, well,&nbsp;one's world becomes very tiny indeed.&nbsp; It is inclusion, involvement, collaboration,&nbsp;diversity, delegation,&nbsp;even situationally appropriate submission that&nbsp;returns oxygen to the room, enlarges the table, leads to variety and better ideas and more amazing outcomes.
The "heroic manager" (be it a command-and-control throwback to 1955 or Steve Jobs himself in his early days before his dismissal and wandering in the desert which led to contrition)&nbsp;is a dying breed.&nbsp; I still stumble across it now and again, but even in the&nbsp;military, and paramilitary organizations, and the church itself<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;organizations which have every right to practice bureaucracy, considering they are among our oldest and were originally designed as hierarchies<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;I see&nbsp;autocratic management&nbsp;becoming all the more pass&eacute;.&nbsp; People are simply too aware, too educated, too empowered to abide it.
So where does this leave the leader?&nbsp; How does he or she strike the right balance, the right chord?&nbsp; How much ego is too little, and how much is too much?
As was put to me yesterday in conversation, "Perhaps like all things, Blake, it's a matter of moderation.&nbsp; One must constantly shift and find the right gear."
Well said.&nbsp; I couldn't agree more.
In hindsight, and with foresight, this is true.&nbsp; There are certainly issues in life which are black and white, but it is also true that most are quite complicated, and with complication comes&nbsp;different perspectives on&nbsp;the same issues, alternative paths up and out and, therefore, a whole lotta gray.
Among others, which are arguably too esoteric or spiritual for a business blog, two northern stars which have often guided my own sensibilities are derivatives of The Golden Rule and&nbsp;The Craftsman's Pride.
Regarding the former, I often ask myself, "In this situation, how would I want someone to treat my daughter?&nbsp; If she were to come home and share this scenario with me, to describe others' treatment of her, how would I feel about that, about them, about her behavior in this situation?&nbsp; And what would I do if the shoe were on the other foot...if I was 'the jerk' in her story?"&nbsp; It is true: only at my best am I so enlightened, but it's a star nonetheless, one which usually compels me to pause, to breathe deep, to ponder, and which later convicts me to re-think my ego, stance, position, or sense of self-righteousness or indignation.
Regarding the latter, a craftsman's pride, the company is called Leath Group because we are a group.&nbsp;&nbsp;And foremost, one that stands behind&nbsp;its work<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;so much so that we are willing to sign our name to it, like a silversmith or cobbler of old who put his initials on the bottom of his&nbsp;wares or inside a pair of boots he'd lovingly stitched.&nbsp; It's not&nbsp;ego behind the name, its personalization and accountability and a nod to simpler times.&nbsp; We could have named ourselves ACME Inc. or Consortium Consulting but, honestly, I prefer buying from Jim or Bob or Steve, not some faceless conglomerate, and so we began our work in that vein, and it stuck.
Our ethos, however, which may fly in the face of our branding<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;and gosh, I hope it does not<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;is generally one of anonymity.&nbsp; We are, at our core, creators and cultivators commissioned to plant and grow something small which, if successful,&nbsp;becomes our client's, not our own.&nbsp; Like any parent, our ultimate success and joy&nbsp;are best revealed in the well-being of our child.&nbsp; Try as we might, there are always genetics and internal/external forces beyond our control with which we must contend, but we strive mightily to be good examples, good role models, and to love unconditionally and without bias.&nbsp; To create great work products, deliver great services, then let them go.
Along the way, whether one is a politician, business leader, military leader, church leader, parent, you name it, one is constantly shifting gears while also remaining consistent and directed and pulled toward a northern star.&nbsp; This creates the much needed sense of stability, for oneself and others, while also fostering adaptability, malleableness, suppleness to bend in the wind without breaking.
To know oneself, one's strengths and weaknesses, and to be confident in his or her being, while also being willing to become invisible when it is the right thing to do, or to take the reins and grab the mic and take the stage when it is the right thing to do is precisely the shifting of gears that I'm describing.&nbsp; And as you know from personal experience, there is no rulebook, it is often gray, and it requires a deft touch, an ability to read the room and the situation, and the courage to vanish or show-up and absolutely represent.
Sometimes, it even requires we, as told to me by a former mentor, "Know when to lay it down and walk away."
I find, and perhaps you'll agree, that sometimes "the I" that is in each of us can become an Idol.&nbsp;&nbsp;Or, something that we do, or are, or perceive we stand for can become idolatrous because it means too much to us, it defines us, is addictive to us, or we cannot walk away from it when we should.&nbsp; We become obstinate, intractable, stubborn; we cannot let it go.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Consider these examples, all of which are complicated and have 50/50 sides:
If the day came, weeks or months from now, that Donald Trump found himself unsupportable or unelectable as the Republican nominee, would he fade quietly into the sunset, returning to his enterprises, supportive of those who remain, or would he bash the remaining and perhaps choose to run Independent, thereby splintering the country further and weakening his professed party in the process?&nbsp; In his rulebook, what comes first: self or the greater good?&nbsp; And what is right?&nbsp; Is there a right?
If a County Clerk found herself in violation of the Supreme Court's ruling and refused to issue marriage licenses to&nbsp;same-sex couples, should she stand her moral ground or yield to public opinion and let someone else do the job?&nbsp; What is right in this situation, who determines it, and what's the proper gear for the terrain?&nbsp; These are thorny issues for our Republic, the sort that define church, state, and the separation thereof.
If a hygienist in a dentist's office found herself to be the source of division and gossip, should she walk away for the health and betterment of the practice, or remain?&nbsp; Should she be loyal to the hand that feeds her, or loyal to her own personal convictions, cause, and sense of justice or injustice?&nbsp;
If a corporation becomes a cult of personality, or is represented in the public sphere by a spokesperson who generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue then does bad things in his or her personal life, should this person remain the spokesperson?&nbsp; What is the cost of collateral damage, the price of&nbsp;a corporate soul, and how does&nbsp;an organization&nbsp;tally it?&nbsp; There is a sea of examples to represent this conundrum, from Evel Knievel and Ideal Toys to Tiger Woods and Nike.&nbsp;
In each of these scenarios, one's ego is relevant.&nbsp; The candidate, the clerk, the employee, the representative: each&nbsp;is forced by circumstance to&nbsp;take stock, every conceivable&nbsp;path forward&nbsp;having gray alleys and obstacles, each alternative leading to personal consequences, some of which result in more or less polarization and none of which are simple, easy, or politically unambiguous.
In David Simon's HBO miniseries, Show Me a Hero, Yonkers' mayor Nich Wasicsko initially finds himself victorious, largely because of an unpopular political issue, public housing, which creates an opportunity for him to be the alternative candidate and steal the race.&nbsp; Two years later, the same thing happens to him, and for six more years he pursues the idol of political fame and purpose, repeatedly falling short and, rather than simply walking away and starting a legal practice, he clings to the past, fails to see it for what it was, becomes chronically depressed, and takes his own life standing at his father's grave during the week of his final election loss.&nbsp; It is a searing, heartbreaking story; a Greek tragedy of epic proportion, but set rather intimately in the fourth most populous city in the state of New York.
Kenny Rogers crooned, "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run."&nbsp; It's good advice, and we only wish the gears were thusly labeled.&nbsp; They are often inscrutable, caked in mud, clogged with debris from life's trails, and impossible to free.
I have walked away, and I have doubled down.&nbsp; I've won some, and lost many more.&nbsp; There were rarely buzzing, directional neon signs pointing the way; it was often a sense of intuition that necessitated a light touch (which is in contrast to being grabby-grabby, like the raccoon in Where the Red Fern Grows who won't release the shiny silver object within the log and gets scooped up by Billy and placed in a burlap sack).&nbsp; The illusions of power, of control are precisely that, as Anthony Hopkins&nbsp;reminds Cuba Gooding, Jr. in 1999's Instinct.&nbsp; 
Most everyone learns this lesson, eventually.&nbsp; Our sense of importance, of power, they can become idols in our heart, things which&nbsp;over-inflate our sense of self, distracting us from what is right,&nbsp;or pure,&nbsp;or good.&nbsp; Virtuous.
Left to one's own devices, he or she can lose sight of the big picture, or the long game, or the fact that our lives are but brief sparks, and legacy casts the longer shadow.
So stand for something, and be up for something, possessing a strong and firm foundation of ego that is not subject to whims, or peer pressure, or bullying, or popularity, or the transient in life like fad or fashion, but also be as selfless as possible, as modest and humble and quiet in spirit, knowing that one's works and craftsmanship and contributions to others and to causes greater than oneself are what matter far more, benefit multitudes more, and ultimately lead to greater peace, fulfillment, and contentment in this world.
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Ego: Destroyer of Worlds

Public Speaking, Stage Fright, and Beyond

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<div class="_uaw clearfix _uaw" style="text-align: left;">&ldquo;You just have to decide whether you are Tigger or Eeyore.&nbsp;&nbsp;You have to be clear where you stand on the Tigger/Eeyore debate.&rdquo;</div>
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&nbsp;
Ten months before succumbing to pancreatic cancer at age 47, Carnegie Mellon&rsquo;s Randy Pausch made it clear where he stood on the Tigger/Eeyore debate in his final lecture, which ultimately sold 4 &frac12; million copies in the U.S. alone when committed to paper as The Last Lecture.&nbsp; The runaway bestseller has now been translated into 46 languages. 
 It seems the world loves Tigger, in part because he&mdash;like each of us at our very best&mdash;bounces rather than breaks.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s the ultimate proprietor of the proverbial lemonade stand, always making the very best from the worst life has to offer.
 In a world besotted with news, soundbytes, spin and social media, we are similarly saturated in hyperbole and hysteria, much of it negative.&nbsp;&nbsp;It&rsquo;s difficult to turn on and tune in without soon wishing to tune out.&nbsp; Terrorism, &ldquo;fearbola,&rdquo; the long tail of 2008, Congressional gridlock, wars without end, crime, thoughtlessness, selfishness, shallowness&hellip;it&rsquo;s understandable that after prolonged exposure to virtually any newscast, one finds him or herself slowly devolving into Eeyore. 
 Be they good or bad, our attitudes and behaviors&mdash;like yawning and laughing&mdash;are often contagious, and all the more so when they are extreme.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not the lukewarm and middlers who influence us most, it&rsquo;s the superstars and the slugs, the hot and the cold, the zealots and the absolutely catatonic who seem to motivate or demotivate us the most.&nbsp; The tiggers cajole, challenge and champion, often bringing out our best, while the eeyores serve as cautionary tales, reminding us what happens when one loses his passion, purpose or hope. 
 Any time one finds herself discouraged, daunted or down, it&rsquo;s helpful to consider &ldquo;The Six P&rsquo;s,&rdquo; each and every one of which was demonstrated by Pausch and admittedly run like an undercurrent throughout the entire philosophies of Pooh himself, but which you&rsquo;ll similarly find in any optimistic archetype, from Terry Fox and Viktor Frankl and King George VI and Helen Keller and Winston Churchill to Clara Barton and Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony and George Washington Carver and Teddy Roosevelt, who captured the sentiment of tiggerness so perfectly on April 23, 1910 when he spoke at the Sorbonnes in Paris, saying, in part:
&ldquo;It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.&nbsp; The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.&rdquo;
 Both optimism and pessimism are incontrovertibly contagious, but the former bolsters our immune system, while the latter simply makes us&mdash;and those around us&mdash;ill.&nbsp; But if one were to journey toward optimism, by what stars would he chart his course?&nbsp; Is there such a constellation?&nbsp; Indeed there is, as demonstrated by the aforementioned superstars, so many others like them, and enumerated here:
 1. Perspective. The primary difference between the dour and the dynamic is perspective.&nbsp; It is from perspective that we see the following flow. 
2. Proportion. When bad things happen, the pessimist (Eeyore) blows things out of proportion.&nbsp; The optimist (Tigger) keeps things in proportion. 
3. Pervasiveness. For the pessimist, one bad thing becomes universal, leaking and tainting everything it touches.&nbsp; The optimist partitions &ldquo;that one bad thing.&rdquo; 
4. Permanence. For the pessimist, bad things become lasting, while optimists see them for what they generally are: temporary. 
5. Personalization. Pessimists are blamers, waving their accusatory finger at others, and pointing out the window at those whom they perceive as responsible for their own problems.&nbsp; Optimists are owners, taking responsibility for their choices, the consequences, and staring in the mirror at the captain of their ship (or, as described in Invictus and recounted by Nelson Mandela day after day for the majority of his adult life, &ldquo;the captain of my soul&rdquo;). 
6. Power. Pessimists behave as if they are hapless and helpless victims to a buggy code that lost a zero or one somewhere along the way, while optimists assume control of their own software and rewrite it to achieve a new and better outcome.
&nbsp;
We do well to remember Tolstoy who wrote, &ldquo;Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself&rdquo; because, ultimately, regardless our role, each and every one of us is in charge of us&hellip;and is an influencer in his/her own right.&nbsp; A force for good, positivity and possibility, or for negativity, criticism or despair. 
 Far better, it seems, to be realistic, of course&mdash;but optimistically so.&nbsp; After all, the perils of pessimism are well-documented and undesirable all the way down the line.&nbsp; Doom and gloom may sell tickets and lather crowds, but they never win elections, rarely rally, and have a very poor track record for catalyzing communities or companies toward any sustainable change or culture.
 But Pausch, or Tigger himself, why, they seem to have tails so springy and levers so long that&mdash;time and again&mdash;the world is moved.
&nbsp;
*** Please forgive any errors, omissions or abruptness; this post was conceived around midnight, completed on an iPhone, and uploaded while being jostled in line at TGI Friday's in an airport. But I CHOSE to upload it nonetheless, so any shortcomings are mine and mine alone.
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The Perils of Pessimism & The Power of Positivity

For
this gorgeous Friday, I have four diverse quotes comin&rsquo; at ya&hellip;each of which, I
hope, speaks to the true heart of leadership, which is service.




&ldquo;If
anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.&rdquo;&nbsp; (Mark
9:35)




&ldquo;Everybody
can be great, because anybody can serve.&nbsp; You don&#39;t have to have a college
degree to serve.&nbsp; You don&#39;t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.&nbsp; You
only need a heart full of grace.&nbsp; A soul generated by love.&rdquo;&nbsp; (MLK)




&ldquo;The
first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.&nbsp; The last is to say
&lsquo;thank you.&rsquo;&nbsp; In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor.&nbsp; That sums up the progress of an artful leader.&rdquo;&nbsp; (Max DePree)




And
to these, one might add, &ldquo;To succeed, assume the responsibility to communicate.&nbsp; To fail, presume it is others&rsquo; obligation to understand.&rdquo;




* * *

Leadership = Service

This is no great revelation, of course, but I thought I would share this way of thinking about it because, for all i know, it might come up in a Performance Review you must give today.


It&#39;s not unlike the analogy of traveling eastward and, thousands of miles later, finding oneself in the west.&nbsp; 


Strengths work in a similar way.


That ability you have, that talent, that gift, that natural capacity that accompanies you so effortlessly...it can, when applied beyond its appropriate envelope, be a weakness.


Are you a great listener with no voice?


Are you a great speaker with no ears?


Are you&nbsp;a great visionary who lacks people skills?


Are you an insightful person who decides prematurely?


Are you a wonderfully gung-ho sort who bulldozes over people?


I don&#39;t know.


Maybe you are or maybe you aren&#39;t.


But the problem is you might not even know yourself.


It&#39;s often hardest to see ourselves.


For example, I &#39;think&#39; I know what I sound like when I speak.&nbsp; After all, I speak daily.&nbsp; But then I hear my recorded voice and shudder.&nbsp; &quot;Is that really ME?&nbsp; Yikes...&quot;


The same is often true of our strengths--we think we know them, we presume they work wonderfully for us...but perhaps we should step back, regularly seek feedback from others, and be cautious when red-lining our talents and abilities.


After all, the maxim, &quot;If some is good, more must be better&quot; ain&#39;t always true.


Too much medicine is poisonous.


Too much of most good things is debilitating.


Those strengths we possess, when used in moderation or appropriate situations, can be wonderful.


Just remember, they are circular, too.&nbsp; 


Perhaps David Banner said it best, &quot;You&nbsp;wouldn&#39;t like&nbsp;me when I&#39;m angry.&quot;&nbsp; True that.


Green is great, but even more so in small doses.

Strengths are Circular

Shared with&nbsp;me today by a very dear collaborator,&nbsp;several of us&nbsp;found this Civil War era love letter profoundly touching; and that&#39;s saying something--because a great many of these bygone letters are highly eloquent, moving and altogether romantic, either despite or because of the circumstances in which they were written. 


While most of our politicians are doing their best, it does seem as though they lose their way more often than they find it...bickering, grandstanding, politicking, posturing, oversimplifying, overcomplicating, spinning, subterfuging, zero-summing.&nbsp; And all, allegedly, under the guise of &#39;good faith negotiations&#39; and at the behest of&nbsp;some vague, amorphous electorate who issued&nbsp;an oft-invoked referendum on taxing and spending. 


Though I&nbsp;write&nbsp;tonight while Congress haggles over increasing the&nbsp;U.S. debt ceiling, leadership squabbles--and political ones--are timeless and unceasing.&nbsp; 


For this reason alone, I personally find Major Ballou&#39;s letter to his&nbsp;wife, Sarah, a great reminder&nbsp;of why patriots do what they do.&nbsp; Or should.&nbsp; 


It&#39;s a clarion call, indeed--or a North Star, or a lighthouse, or a touchstone or, at the very least, a glimmer that catches one&#39;s attention and brings his eyes back to the road. 


I&#39;m sure it will do the same for you: <a href="/blogging/file.axd?file=2011%2f7%2fMyVeryDearSarah.pdf">MyVeryDearSarah.pdf (141.70 kb)</a>

Major Sullivan Ballou's last letter to his beloved Sarah

Not quite, but my promise to you today is one of pithiness.
Of all the words that have been written about leadership, performance and the like...of all the 'ornamentation' we hang here and there to garnish the tree, it always comes down to this:
CONNECTION &amp; CONTRIBUTION within RELATIONSHIPS defined by TRUST.
End of story.&nbsp; Period.
We all desire a sense of connection--to others, to purpose.&nbsp; To make a difference, to contribute something.&nbsp; To buzz the work and get 'r done.&nbsp; To see, as Steve Jobs wrote, "a dent in the universe."
"I made that," the credit rolls...
If we can truly connect to someone and something--and be trusted to&nbsp;achieve worthwhile outcomes, life is good.
Don't believe me?&nbsp; Read any study, particularly longitudinal ones like Harvard's 70-year-old 'Happiness Study.'&nbsp; Or&nbsp;faster yet, ask an unemployed person why he or she is periodically depressed.&nbsp; "I'm drifting, untethered.&nbsp; I feel emasculated and small.&nbsp; I want to engage and provide and be counted."
Whether we look at it as a parent, sibling, child, employee, citizen...it makes no difference.
To reach our potential, to sing our song, to paint our masterpiece, to live life to the fullest--this organism requires connection and contribution within relationships defined by trust.
Now go get yourself some air, water, sunlight and soil.&nbsp; Plug-in and power-up.
And if or where you struggle, don't lose hope or give up the fight.
Even weeds find sunlight through concrete, and so&nbsp;do we.
Connect and contribute in even the smallest of ways and, like a spark in the night, the rest often takes care of itself.

An Entry to End Entries?

Several days ago while differentiating <a href="../../blog/post/leadership-the-university-poor-vs-great-leaders">Good vs. Poor Leaders</a>, I&nbsp;committed to write a bit more about leadership.&nbsp;
In keeping that&nbsp;commitment, allow me to share the following model which has proven helpful for&nbsp;several groups over the years.
&nbsp;
<div style="text-align: center;"><img style="width: 471px; height: 392px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f8%2fLeadershipModel.jpg" alt="" width="564" height="565" /></div>
&nbsp;
Beyond 'arguably,' there are&nbsp;certainly a number of key&nbsp;leadership competencies&nbsp;unaccounted for here (like systems thinking and change), but we can dive into those another time.
What the model here does do, and simply, is capture 2 key axes, 4 diverse endpoints...and all this while reminding the leader&nbsp;the importance of stability.
Let's start with the 2 axes, Results and Relationships.&nbsp; 
Notionally, the premise of Results and Relationships (like Yin and Yang)&nbsp;alerts leaders to mind these two very unique yet interrelated dimensions.&nbsp;
On the one hand, great leaders have got to be adequate (or, more ideally, exceptional) relationship-builders.&nbsp; For those&nbsp;leaders&nbsp;who like to think programmatically, linearly or&nbsp;via 'building blocks,' understanding that he or she can build relationships in two ways often proves constructive.&nbsp;
For example, on the one hand, a leader can&nbsp;build and&nbsp;improve relationships by focusing on how he or she Collaborates with others.&nbsp; Collaborate is a&nbsp;straightforward word -- it means to "co-labor" or "work together."&nbsp; Two practical ways to think about this include: (1)People do not resist their own ideas and (2)People like to see their photo...or 'DNA' in the scrapbook.&nbsp; In short, to be a better leader, co-labor with others in ways that allow them to contribute and see their contributions.&nbsp; It's as simple as that, and yet a huge portion of the 'leadership population' does not operate this way.&nbsp; Instead, they place themselves at the center of everything, marginalizing those around them as grunts and missing tremendous opportunities to facilitate dialogue, contribution, better solutions and support.
A second way for a leader to build and improve relationships is through Communication.&nbsp;&nbsp;Here's a neat way to think about communication: (1)Awareness occurs through the senses, (2)Understanding occurs in the mind, (3)Belief occurs in the heart and (4)Behavior occurs through the hands.&nbsp; Pragmatically, this means&nbsp;more than time&nbsp;permits us to unpack today...but imagine a company that seeks to 'communicate' through posters in the cafeteria, name badges, mouse pads or screen savers.&nbsp;&nbsp;Will people be 'aware' of the company's&nbsp;direction?&nbsp; Perhaps.&nbsp; But will they integratively understand, believe and demonstrate that direction daily?&nbsp;&nbsp;It's doubtful.&nbsp; To improve the odds, the organization should learn to communicate in ways that involve people and breathe life into the ideologies by animating and modeling&nbsp;beliefs and behaviors.&nbsp; The Confucius maxim, "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand" holds water.
But communication is about a lot more than 'spewing or sensing.'&nbsp; I believe that, as is the case our entire lives, we learn more by doing than seeing or hearing.&nbsp; Said more plainly, if you want to communicate effectively, involve another person in the decision-making or delegation of a task.&nbsp; (Like mathematics, you don't really know whether I understand the problem's nuances&nbsp;until I show my work.)&nbsp; And while I have you here, let me add one more morsel: Deciding and Delegating are two of our strongest methodologies for Developing people.&nbsp; Lots of leaders 'miss' this, making too many decisions themselves or seeing delegation as a way to clear their plate.&nbsp; This is a huge mistake.&nbsp; Instead, approach each task and ask yourself, "How can this serve as a developmental opportunity for someone else, too?"&nbsp; Then, draw&nbsp;others into the decision-making process or delegation loop purposefully.&nbsp; (The sign of a great leader is increasing irrelevance.&nbsp; The sign of a poor leader is unending dependence.&nbsp;&nbsp;Great parents&nbsp;teach this, starting with removing the training wheels.)&nbsp;
Continuing now, any leader must accomplish results.&nbsp; I have&nbsp;often viewed results as occurring&nbsp;across two common categories of activities, distinguishable along a scale of management and leadership.&nbsp; The teeter-totter image below should prove a helpful tool for your further&nbsp;consideration&nbsp;of this idea.&nbsp;
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<img style="width: 417px; height: 415px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f8%2fL%26M.jpg" alt="" width="536" height="629" />
&nbsp;
At the core of the first model, though, are values &amp; ethics.&nbsp; These alone are an entire field of inquiry that Aristotle himself didn't finish pondering.&nbsp; One's own values and ethics&nbsp;warrant a lifetime of exploration and commitment.&nbsp; They&nbsp;unquestionably serve as our&nbsp;compass' True North position, without which we wander, wonder and succumb to all manner of&nbsp;mirages and temptations.
I&nbsp;know it's not true in the purest sense, but I have always been predisposed to believe that if it's easy or convenient, it's probably wrong.&nbsp;&nbsp;Those&nbsp;things in life which prove virtuous or right generally seem to be more difficult&nbsp;or inconvenient.&nbsp; Diet, exercise, discipline, meaningful communication, giving others the benefit of the doubt, turning the other cheek, being selfless, meeting others' expectations, checking one's work, proofreading, going slowly now to go faster later, saving money, finishing one's homework proactively rather than procrastinating, loving thine enemy, living a whole and undivided life (walking the talk), dying unto oneself, checking&nbsp;one's ego at the door, truly listening (vs. reloading), being creative rather than a revisionist....&nbsp; These are difficult things, and right.
In summary then, if you aspire to be a better leader, don't forget these 'minima:' Create better relationships through more purposeful collaboration and communication.&nbsp; Achieve results through a proper mixture of management and leadership.&nbsp; And all the while, drop your anchor deep into a stable, unchanging bedrock of consistent values and ethics.
Do these and you'll be more consciously-competent than half the leaders on the field.

Holistic Leadership

Remember 1982 and that brain-rut-inducing Thomas Dolby song, She Blinded Me with Science?&nbsp;
Science can be blinding--and blind--but today let's explore how Emotions can be, too.
(Science, of course, can be blind because it presumes itself to be the determinant of what is real.&nbsp; It is the great judge, jury and executioner.&nbsp; And yet, on matters such as art or ethics, science has little if anything to say.&nbsp; Genomes or no genomes, deconstruction is no panacea.)
But what do I mean by "Emotional Impairment" or "Emotional Blindness?"&nbsp; Simply put, I mean that emotions can swallow us whole and, once enveloped within their darkness it is virtually impossible to see our hands in front of our face.
There's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013TTK1W/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">a great book</a> that describes similar phenomena, but let me attack it this way...
Forget for a moment the limbic system and all the hormones (which play absolutely vital roles in emotion) and let's just focus on two psychological elements: (1)Loss Avoidance&nbsp;and (2)Commitment.
As denoted by the image below, when one's "Opposition to Loss" (loss avoidance) and "Commitment" escalate, we have a recipe to brew disaster.
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<div style="text-align: center;"><img style="width: 329px; height: 210px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f7%2f5.png" alt="" width="603" height="442" /></div>
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Examples are ubiquitous, from gambling and airplane crashes to suicide and high-risk behaviors.&nbsp; Wherever we see an individual tied to high-stakes, we are right if we see trouble.
Let's take a&nbsp;current example, one that I'm sure has universal applications: War.
Whether we look at "Civil" Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq...or the thousands of wars that have been waged non-stop since the dawn of humankind, we see leaders in the crosshairs.&nbsp; Leaders like Lyndon B. Johnson, who felt a tremendous pull between the war in Vietnam and his commitment stateside to create the Great Society.&nbsp; Here's a great, representative quote from LBJ in 1968.&nbsp; At the time, America had 500,000 troops in Vietnam and there had been tens of thousands of U.S. casualties:
&ldquo;I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved.&nbsp; If I left the woman I really loved &ndash; the Great Society &ndash; in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home.&nbsp; All my programs, all my dreams to provide education and medical care.&nbsp; But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, there would follow in this country an endless national debate &ndash; a mean and destructive debate &ndash; that would shatter my presidency, kill my administration, and damage our democracy.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
What happens when we, as leaders, become consumed by Loss Avoidance while simultaneously Escalating our Commitment?&nbsp; We go blind.
We send more and more troops into un-win-able wars.&nbsp; We change mission.&nbsp; We broaden mission through scope-creep.&nbsp; We change the game.&nbsp; We change the rules.&nbsp; We change the scoreboard.&nbsp; We sell, we push, we spin.&nbsp; We beg for more.&nbsp; We ask and take and dicker and steal and we, along with all those around us, go up in flames.
I have a sweet friend whom everyone calls, "Zippo."&nbsp; Why Zippo?&nbsp;
Because every time he opens his mouth, he lights himself on fire.
He has no (in the words of my mother) "governor."&nbsp; No filter between his brain and his tongue.&nbsp; Or, perhaps too permeable a filter.
We all know Zippos.&nbsp; "Did he just say that?" we ask ourselves.&nbsp; And maybe, just maybe, it occurs to them after they've said what they've said..."did I just say that out loud?"
Beware your emotions.&nbsp; Yes, they serve a prehistoric purpose, without which you will win the <a href="http://www.darwinawards.com/">Darwin Award</a>.
As human beings, it is true that our emotions often supersede rational thought.&nbsp; We are reaction machines, our pulse often telling the story before we ourselves are attuned to our anger.
Be vigilant and self-aware, especially when--while reaching for the prize--you scale to the tippy-top of a precarious ladder comprised of self-justifying rungs named "I cannot lose" and "No turning back."&nbsp; The air up there gets very, very thin...and where so, we stop thinking, stop seeing clearly and become blind to our own emotionality.
Surround yourself with buddies, fail-safes, ejection seats&nbsp;and fire extinguishers.&nbsp; People who can say, "What are you thinking?&nbsp; What are you telling yourself?&nbsp; Why are you acting like this?&nbsp; Who have you become, Mr. Hyde?"&nbsp; And mechanisms designed to break the glass and douse the flames while you extricate yourself from your burning building&nbsp;and all that&nbsp;you have wrought.

Emotional Impairment

While literally countless important questions swirl around us every day, there are few that stimulate me as much as, "What makes a great leader?"
It's a loaded question, of course, because embedded within it is&nbsp;another question, "Are leaders born or made?"&nbsp; (The short answer, for today, is&mdash;"Yes."&nbsp; But more on that Russian doll another time.)
Leadership is such a perennially important issue and this year is no different.&nbsp; Every generation believes its time is unheralded and novel, and ours is not unique: we&nbsp;continue to live&nbsp;in undeniably tremendous times&mdash;an era of explosive growth, ceaseless change and limitless potential.&nbsp; (But again, the same could be said 4,000 years ago...2,000 years ago, and again during the Renaissance...it is no less true today.)
As always, we need great leaders and greater leadership if we are to continue progressing in fields and practices as diverse as geopolitics, science, economics, finance,&nbsp;spirituality (yes, spirituality), innovation and sustainability.&nbsp; From natural to man-made disasters in Alaska, New York, Sri Lanka and India&nbsp;to Thailand, Haiti&nbsp;and Louisiana, the importance&nbsp;and effects of leadership (or its absence) are&mdash;if we are fortunate&mdash;a broadcast away.&nbsp;
In future blogs, I commit to writing more extensively about leadership at large, but today I will limit my thoughts to the importance of formal education (e.g., the University) as a mechanism and greenhouse for creating and growing tomorrow's leaders and will then conclude with a&nbsp;rough&nbsp;table differentiating poor from great leaders.
My preliminary comments are <a href="https://charlierose.com/guests/6283">inspired today by John Sexton</a>, President of New York University ("NYU").&nbsp; My later comments are inspired by <a href="http://www.johnmaxwell.com/">John Maxwell</a>, author of 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (among other books).&nbsp; 
Though I believe there are indeed few 'new things' under the Sun, to the extent these men's ideas are held tenably together, I am to blame.
&nbsp;
Universities for Tomorrow
Describing the University for Tomorrow requires a few thousand dissertions and years of research, to be sure, so I will simply take a slipshod whack to get your mind whirring.&nbsp; You, along with millions of others who are already studying this opportunity, can do the remaining 99.9999%&nbsp;by filling in the gaps.
Fact #1: 70 of today's 85 oldest organizations are, in fact, universities.&nbsp; (Vatican City and Parliament are examples of the other 15.)
Fact #2: If you want to create a vibrant 'center of thought,' create a great university and wait 200 years.
Fact #3: The universities-within-walls which brought us this far will not lead us into the future.
<a href="http://nyuad.nyu.edu/">What NYU is doing in Abu Dhabi </a>is right on the money: it's primarily about people, programs, teaching and research (and just so happens to serendipitously be what my doctoral program was, but on steroids to the&nbsp;100th power).&nbsp; I attended the modest Union Institute &amp; University, the first&nbsp;"University without Walls" and participated in classes&nbsp;hosted in&nbsp;Brattleboro, Montpelier, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Miami.&nbsp; We regularly&nbsp;embraced eccentric&nbsp;professors on sabbaticals from the Ivy League&nbsp;who operated 'unfettered' from many of the restraints they described occurring in Cambridge, New Haven, Providence, Princeton, Philadelphia, Hanover, Ithaca and NYC.&nbsp;
...but I digress...
What&nbsp;encouraged me about Mr. Sexton's comments was the notion that&nbsp;tomorrow's university is an open, diverse, ecumenical, organic circulatory system of ideas and best practices that&nbsp;will focus&nbsp;on&nbsp;creative, exploratory thought and nuanced discourse.
I couldn't agree more.&nbsp;
Indeed, any university, even the ones mired in the past&nbsp;(the ones we revere, historically)&nbsp;are mandated to help students learn to think (and critically) for themselves.&nbsp; But&nbsp;my impression, far too often, is that university life can quickly become&nbsp;High School 2.0,&nbsp;packed to the gills with&nbsp;memorizing facts, completing rote work, regurgitating information or defending knowledge.&nbsp; Unquestionably, we should&nbsp;possess societal standards of 'minimum knowledge,' but&nbsp;I&nbsp;expect this work to occur more fully in grades K-12.&nbsp; The undergraduate years can round-out this process, but the fact that today's ACT and SAT tests still&nbsp;emphasize standardized knowledge, facts, reading, mathematics&mdash;and some writing (though many admissions boards admit they don't quite know what to do with this&nbsp;element yet)&mdash;I remain concerned that our perspectives are deficient.
While the United States is proceeding toward national standards in 48 of the 50 states, China is migrating toward a more exploratory curriculum designed to create great THINKERS and INNOVATORS rather than fact-regurgitators.&nbsp; The ideal approach is, of course, a hybrid that includes the best&nbsp;of both.&nbsp; We need a hygiene-oriented 'bare minimum' (which should be rigorous, not minimalistic; a 'threshold knowledge base' if you will) combined with strong creative and critical thinking skills.&nbsp; IQ has never been a predictor of leadership success and it never will be.&nbsp; Similarly, while&nbsp;standardized admissions are&nbsp;undoubtedly sufficient at predicting university success, they are representative solely of&nbsp;the coursework&nbsp;comprising undergraduate schoolwork&mdash;which illuminates my point and&nbsp;the&nbsp;'smallness' of what we expect today.&nbsp; Moreover, IQ&nbsp;and standardized metrics will never&nbsp;wholly predict&nbsp;a leader's ultimate&nbsp;societal contributions,&nbsp;service to humankind or&nbsp;general performance, so whatever the University of Tomorrow intends to look like, it must quickly learn to shed historic metrics in favor of indices that get at meaning, contribution and potential.
The single greatest determinant of student performance in the classroom is the teacher's expectations.&nbsp; Knowing this, we should ourselves have the highest expectations for tomorrow's teachers, educators, instructors, professors...and each and every one of them should be well-versed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect">Pygmalion Effect</a>.
Finally, the university of tomorrow should be a bastion of&nbsp;deep discourse, not soundbytes.&nbsp; Mr. Sexton described at length the disadvantage that today's thoughtful politicians start from when they find themselves embroiled in conflicts with opponents adept at dumbing down exceedingly complex issues.&nbsp; The media loves sticky slogans (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid">"It's the economy, stupid."</a>), but we must have an appetite for prolonged, nuanced,&nbsp;systemic dialogue if we are to more fully understand issues, one another and create students and leaders capable of doing the same.
&nbsp;
Poor&nbsp;vs. Great Leaders
Perhaps contary to popular opinion, the leader at the helm of such a university is not terribly dissimilar from the sort of leader who thrives in enterprise.&nbsp; In the comments of John Sexton and the work of John Maxwell, I see similar threads regarding how students, university officials and tomorrow's leaders interact with the world around them.&nbsp;
In this light, I conclude today's very embryonic blog with the following table&nbsp;differentiating 'poor' and 'great' leaders.&nbsp; I trust that it might prove handy somewhere along the line.
More on these and adjacent thoughts in the weeks to come.&nbsp;
<img style="width: 665px; height: 369px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f7%2fPoorvsGreatLeadersPDF.png" alt="" width="741" height="202" />

Leadership, the University & Poor vs. Great Leaders

The&nbsp;matter of 'workplace' and 'personal' motivation comes up a lot.
Here's one of the more pleasurable explanations that I've come across.&nbsp; My thanks to a dear colleague for sharing it.
Enjoy!&nbsp;
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u6XAPnuFjJc" width="290" height="150" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<a title="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc</a>