Leadership

Sometimes people who want to know to lead ask directly, How do you lead? I don't think they're asking a question that will help them improve their leadership. You can walk and talk, but you'd be hard pressed to describe how you do it beyond generalities like "you put one foot in front of the other." No one taught you the theory behind language or walking. You practiced until you succeeded. You fell along the way. You would never lecture to a child on how to talk. Same with playing an instrument, sport, or any performance-based practice. You learn by doing. In fact, you'd never ask someone to teach you to play tennis by lecturing you in a classroom or assigning you to write papers.…

Meeting with Frances Hesselbein means talking about service. Her touchstone phrase is "to serve is to live." All the men in her life served in the military. She taught at West Point and led me to my co-teaching for three days last fall. By contrast, when I grew up, I associated the military with the draft, whose compulsory nature seemed unconstitutional. My sense of community has changed---I would say matured. I find discipline valuable and lacking in the United States. A civilian service, maybe mandatory A year or so ago, Frances mentioned the idea of civilian service, maybe even compulsory civilian service. I hadn't seriously thought about the idea before. Many nations have it but not the U.S. Most of my life I would have…

Influencive's Surya Prakash Singh posted an interview of me, "Nurturing Millennial Leaders," of how to start leading, especially if your traditional education didn't help. The article begins Nurturing Millennial Leaders I get the chance to speak with author and leadership specialist Joshua Spodek. According to a survey, each day approximately 10,000 baby boomers retire. By 2020, 48% of the workforce will be made of millennials. Because of this scenario, 84% of organizations are bound to feel the lack of leaders in the organization in the next 5 years. How can we mold Millennials to embrace and develop leadership skills? Being a millennial entrepreneur myself, I always seek out coaches who help me develop my own leadership skills. Around 95% of Millennials feel either that they lack…