Leadership

Do you rely on authority to lead? The more you rely on authority to lead the more authoritarian you are. Think of authoritarian leaders in the past. Do you want to follow in their footsteps? Relying on authority means using tools of authority, like what comes with your position in the organization, group, or family. Things like hiring, firing, promotions, bonuses, performance-based pay, giving or removing responsibility, perks, and so on. I see many of these things as essential tools to manage people already committed to the cause, but not to lead, inspire, or motivate. If people are already committed or agree with you, these tools aren't that necessary. They can even undermine internal support. Like if someone cares about what they do but have…

If you think leadership is about getting people to do what you want, you'll develop a strategy to control and change them. I haven't found much success in trying to change people. If you think leadership is about understanding people and bringing out and supporting them on motivations they already have, you'll develop a strategy of meeting many people and attracting those with similar or complementary goals. Instead of trying to control them, you'll feel more like you unleash them. Instead of trying to change them, you'll tend to coordinate with them. To improve as a leader, you'll develop skills about understanding, empathizing, and showing compassion. Where does the difference come from? People create strategies based on their beliefs, in this case your model of…

Four reasons, among others, coaching helps, whether you're Michael Jordan, fresh out of school and first making life decisions for yourself, or some place in between: A mirror: The one person you can't see from another person's perspective is yourself, yet you are the one you wish you could see the most. If you lead others, they react to your behavior they see, not what you think or want them to react to, which is most of what you observe of yourself. An effective coach tells you what everyone else sees but you don't. Accountability: When something you want to do ends up harder or takes longer than you expect, you can more easily relax your standards and finish less than to work harder or…

The scene: Greenwich Village, crossing the street to my building. A windy rainy spring afternoon. I'm hurrying home. As I cross the street I see a woman, maybe in her 70s, about five feet tall, struggling with an umbrella in the wind. She also has a cane and a handbag. Three things, two hands, and wind. I stop, turn around and ask her if she could use a hand. Yes, she says. She just wants to get across the street. So I take her umbrella in my left hand and offer my right arm for her to hold. She shuffled around her bag and cane to her right hand and took my arm with her left. We waited for the light and crossed. When we…

[This post is part of a series on people who succeed despite adversity. 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.] More inspiration, continuing my series on people who succeeded adversity... Person Achievement Adversity Auguste Rodin Generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he is recognized as the most important sculptor of the modern era. He freed sculpture from the repetition of traditional patterns, providing the foundation for greater experimentation in the 20th century. His popularity is ascribed to his emotion-laden representations of ordinary men and women — to his ability to find the beauty and pathos in the human animal. His most popular works, such as…

Years ago computers were people. That is, before we built digital computers to compute for us, businesses and projects needing long computations would hire people to compute for them. They called those people computers. During World War II, the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb had lots of hard calculations. The scientists would simplify them to simple but numerous and arduous basic calculations of addition, subtraction, and so on, which they'd give to teams of computers---often women since men were fighting. As you might expect, they made mistakes, being human, after all. Scientists had to estimate errors based on the calculations' complexity. The project's war-based secrecy kept the computers from knowing what they were working on. Imagine such a job: adding and multiplying…