I had a leadership class at Columbia with a famous professor. He wrote a bestselling book after working as a high-level executive at one of the world’s most valuable companies. His class at Columbia was among the school’s most popular ones. People knew he taught well and cared about his students but he could be intimidating. You knew to do the work and never slack. Once I spoke to him[…] Keep reading →

(Working on a presentation, I had to rewrite a post from a couple months ago. It’s very similar to the original, but I thought there’d be value in posting a slightly different way of putting it. I hope that value is more important than the repetition). If you read this blog you know about the researchers who asked people who won huge lotteries and people who just had accidents leading[…] Keep reading →

I think it helps to look at the world from a different point of view sometimes. You see things differently. When I did yoga, sometimes my teacher would have us cross our arms left over right instead of right over left (or vice versa, depending on how you did it normally). If you’ve never done it, try it. I doubt it will make you suddenly enlightened, but it feels weird[…] Keep reading →

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Today’s post is simple. You show me the best leader in a room and I’ll show you the one who works the hardest. Leadership comes from hard work and preparation. You don’t just get up and give the “I have a dream” speech. You develop skills and experience over a decade or so. Then you probably don’t look forward to giving the speech so much as feel you have to[…] Keep reading →

I’m sure I’ll continue it with other thoughts soon, but for now I’m wrapping up the series on highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students with a review of the major point from it, particularly on 360-degree feedback reports. First, I commend Columbia for offering coaching to all MBA candidates. When I went there we got the reports and reviewed them overall in class but didn’t get personalized coaching. Giving[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] In the context of the lessons from coaching Columbia Business School students in leadership, I’ve mostly written about the value of 360-degree feedback processes and reports and[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Today I’ll cover one of the most encouraging perspectives for many students and clients whose reports show they underperform in a few areas. For example, this student’s[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Learning leadership and developing leadership skills isn’t like learning history or any other academic subject. Learning leadership and developing leadership skills means learning about yourself and other[…] Keep reading →