Jane, Kim, Wayne, Lynn, Bob, and Gretchen – the Positive Leadership (Scholars)* at University Michigan – were the most POSITIVE people I think I’d ever met. I have met some very religiously positive people. But these were PhDs, scholars(!), the kind I’d known at Yale and Harvard, who seldom believed in anything, except for not … Continued
Dear Friends, I wrote my first R2L blog on March 1, 2000! For most of those 22 years I have written every Sunday night. In the last 2 years, I’ve gotten erratic. And I have been radio-silent for the past couple of months. So, what’s up? Well, I have been thinking, reading and writing a … Continued
This is an experimental Read2Lead, so I would especially like your feedback. Today I go in. It’s about leading the leader. It’s a different kind of Leading by Two, where the observing self engages with the living self. Me leading me. You leading you. The reflection below flows from a friendship/mentorship with my TA, Mina. … Continued
The Greatest Achievement of your life! What if the greatest achievement of your life is not something that you do yourself. Or to put it differently, what if the greatest achievement you’ll ever claim is someone else doing something great? It is simply a fact of our nature that we think of ourselves first. Neither … Continued
Human nature is remarkably simple when you realize that feeling comes first. Therein lies the secret. Take covid. Relative to covid – and all things – Homo sapiens live in three places. Homo sapiens look back to: Facts to see-think: 800,000 deaths in the US. Untold suffering and loss. Disruption. Here’s the simple part of looking back: Feeling(s)! For homo … Continued
Ever wonder how a great quotation can be so meaningful? “To be or not to be…” Maybe because it’s the paradox: common sense and uncommon wisdom. It reminds you of what you know, but it tells it to you in a way that flips your brain to completely change the way you think – and … Continued
A month ago I wrote a post entitled, “Have you ever seen a time like this?” and described the intense and pervasive inter-generational conflict I am seeing with all my clients, as well as at Berkeley and in my personal life. I shared data and offered some hypotheses. I held off on offering prescriptions but … Continued
Beings (human included) are highly sensitive to threats. Therefore, Danger seizes our attention. We can’t turn away: from the proverbial train wreck. The fire. The predatory leader. 911 – in both senses of those three numbers. We fundamentally fear for our safety – from nature and from others. We’re vulnerable to being triggered. Media literally … Continued
For 22 years, I have signed off Read 2 Lead with the line, “lead with your best self.” It implies the obvious: often we lead with something other than our best! This closer implies, quite intentionally, that in some sense we have multiple selves. My friend and coach Cathy Raines introduced me to Shirzad Chamine, … Continued
warning: this one’s passionate, fact-based, but a bit long 🙁 Everyday Leadership definitionally asserts: everyone can lead. In our representative democracy, this is a tautology: citizens not kings are leaders. One of the complaints I hear a lot is that elected leaders are more like elected . . . followers, “with their finger in the … Continued