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2018Good Behavior At Bad Moments: The Secret of Great Leaders
I fly a lot. So, it doesn’t take me long to size up a flight attendant’s mood. This is an important skill because the flight attendant’s mood is a good predictor of how enjoyable the flight will be. Recently I was flying from Chicago to Nashville with an angry flight attendant. As a matter of fact, she bluntly announced, “I’m in a bad mood!”—and she…
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2018The Backwards Road to Success
Successful people realize true success is not always outcome based. This truth is not one you will find in most success manuals. It runs counter to what the world says about success. But I believe it may be the most important of the success truths. True success is the determination to do the right thing— no matter what the cost. And realize, it is very…
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20173 Insightful Secrets of the Truly Successful Leader
It’s human nature to desire success without effort. But unless you have a big inheritance (or, a mask and a gun), that probably won’t happen. The ancient biblical proverb says, “The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” Following are three ideas you may find helpful: 1) The most successful people put out the most effort. While the…
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2017Great Leaders Are Mentally Ambidextrous
“Great, so, what does that mean?” you ask. Do you remember that kid in grade school who could write equally well with either her right or left hand? She was said to be ambidextrous. In a similar way, most successful people learn to work from both their right and left-brains. We’re told that there are two groups of people: right-brained thinkers (those who are primarily…
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2017The Great Divide in Today’s Workforce…and How to Deal With It.
There is a great chasm in our culture. This is the reason fifty-five-year-old bosses are clueless when it comes to motivating and dispatching their younger workforce. This is why parents feel adrift when communicating with their pre-teen and teenage children. This is why we don’t get along. What causes this? It is the cultural divide between Modernists and Post-Modernists. In case these are terms with…
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2017Four Tips for Handling Change
Following are four tips that have helped me deal with change. You may want to consider using some of them the next time you are faced with a “change moment.” 1) Don’t wait for all the details. Good leaders want lots of details before they make a decision. That’s great…up to a point. Despite one’s best efforts, in most situations it’s impossible to get all…
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2017Fast-Forward Leadership Means Not Being Swayed By Herd-Think
Most of the failed people whom I’ve known have been herd thinkers. So, one of the things I warn audiences about is this phenomenon where people all do the same thing. A prime example is people buying the same investment that lots of other people are buying…not because it makes logical sense, but because everyone else is buying it. At the base of this behavior…
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2017The “3 D’s of Conflict Avoidance”
I want to tell you about a call from a young person that I’ll call Greg. I’ve known Greg all of his life. He is well educated and has extremely good people skills. However, this call wasn’t a pleasant one. Greg told me that he was depressed and discouraged. As a matter of fact, he was ready to rethink his chosen career path. “What,” I…
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2017Don’t Ignore the Obvious
The 1950s was a good time for America. We had won the big war. The baby boom was in full swing. America liked Ike. We were feeling our collective oats. But not everything was as it seemed. In fact, we didn’t know that several decades later we’d look back on the 1950s as the Happy Days era. In reality, there was a lot of tension…
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2017Conflict Resolution Specialists: 4 Tricks of the Trade
For anyone who aspires to succeed in a field, it’s always best to study what other successful people are already doing. Through the years I’ve dealt with conflict resolution on various levels. Here are 4 tricks the greats all use: 1. They listen. Effective conflict resolvers are good listeners. They make it a point to hear what is being said. Much of the conflict I…