This article was first published by HR Executive Online on April 10, 2013. Mike Rice, the former men’s basketball coach for Rutgers University, has been plastered and chastised in the media for exhibiting abusive behavior toward his players that included homophobic slurs. After a fine and three-game suspension four months ago, he was fired when...Read More
Management has always professed that people are a company’s most valuable asset. However, demonstrations of that belief are hard to find. A leader who wants to grow human capital needs to apply approaches identified in a University of North Carolina Executive Development ideas@work article. Based on their research, here are the straightforward approaches the three...Read More
Last week I wrote about the positive correlation between a leader’s character and financial returns. This week I discuss the value of a compassionate leader. Similarly, Christina Boedker of the Australian School of Business found a ‘positive link between productivity and compassionate leadership.’ She found the ‘greatest influence on profitability and productivity is the ability...Read More
I have the pleasure of knowing Fred Kiel, founder of the international coaching and leadership firm KRW. Fred is well-known for his books on Moral Intelligence. Just recently he presented at TEDxBGI, during which he showed that leadership character demonstrably leads to higher financial returns. Moreover, he gave us clear criteria for what constitutes character...Read More
With Super Bowl LXVII fast approaching, it made me wonder about what makes a group of individuals perform as a superb team. Tom Landry, famed coach of the Dallas Cowboys, said “A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so...Read More
Have you ever considered how coaching can change businesses and change lives? Henry Kimsey-House, Karen Kimsey-House and Phillip Sandahl make their case for these effects through the process of ‘co-active coaching.’ In this week’s blog, I examine the primary facets of their approach, trusting it will help me as a coach and you as either...Read More
What is it about the behavior of people who truly inspire their managers, who are the leaders we aspire to become? In perusing my files today, I came upon an anonymous article that identified seven traits shared among what the writer entitled ‘Truly Inspiring Leaders”. Based on interviews with thousands of executives, the author noticed a...Read More
Did you ever consider that listening can improve performance because ‘it is the front-end of decision-making’? Bernard Ferrari wrote in The McKinsey Quarterly that strong listening skills make a critical difference in the performance of senior executives. Unfortunately, he writes too that few are able to cultivate these necessary skills. Poor listening skills often ‘short-circuit...Read More
Steven Spielberg‘s movie Lincoln and Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s book from 2005 entitled Team of Rivals are both respectful appreciations of a quiet man who did extraordinary things. What are some of the lessons we can extract from a closer look at our 16th president? According to Bloomberg Businessweek, there are five behaviors of President Lincoln...Read More
Reid Hastie, a professor at the University of Chicago (must admit, my MBA alma mater) in behavioral science, wrote that “We know there was no single cause or event that set in motion the [financial] crisis and that the truth is complex and multicausal. So why do we keep seeking easy answers? It may be...Read More
