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When I first started working in the leadership industry, the great expectations of leadership only fell to the senior executives of a company. These leaders were under pressure to think strategically, steer organizational change, and execute all aspects of the business plan. Expectations for middle and front-line managers were pretty minimal. They simply needed to […]

As many of you know, I am a big fan of regular self-assessment. In my last blog post, I asked readers to perform a mid-year gut check review of their leadership accomplishments. I find that the six-month marker in the calendar year is a great time to assess your performance and set goals for the

I’ve always loved reading the ancient writings of Greek mythology. The stories have always fascinated me because they spoke so eloquently about the human condition of the time.  But what I find particularly interesting is how many of those ancient texts are still relevant to our current world. One prominent and recurring theme in those

The term ‘downward spiral’ seems to be all the rage. It’s understandable given what’s going on in the world these days. I did a quick search of the Web this past week and found numerous stories where downward spiral – defined in contemporary terms as an unstoppable downward trajectory – was used to describe the

There are few business leaders who truly deserve the title of “innovator” more than Mickey Drexler. Drexler was considered a man ahead of his time when he was CEO of Gap Inc. back in the 1990s. He also spent time on the board of Apple and was considered a mentor to the mercurial Steve Jobs.

In my book, The Leadership Contract, I position that there is no easy path to being a truly accountable leader. Almost everything a leader is asked to do involves considerable hard work: delivering consistent financial results, attaining high team performance, executing strategy, leading change and driving innovation. All these tasks place enormous demands and pressures

Few of us become leaders thinking we’re going to fail. But at one point or another, everyone in a leadership role will suffer a setback. It’s how we react to those setbacks that define who we are as people and as leaders. In these challenging times, we are certainly gaining insight into the mettle and

“Accountability is as important as the concept of leadership. Those who are granted power must be held accountable.” These observations came from John W. Gardner – former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson – in his book, Excellence, published in 1961. These words are as relevant today as they were over