Why the Environment Needs Leadership Leaders know guilt, blame, doom, and gloom don’t work. What works better? Here’s one effective way to lead: Go where the people you want to lead are–emotionally, not necessarily physically. That is, learn what they care about and connect those motivations to the task. Then the task will feel meaningful and purposeful to them. They’ll do it for themselves. They’ll thank you for leading them to work. What doesn’t[…] Keep reading →

10 Signs U.S. Universities Are Sabotaging Themselves Moody’s downgraded higher education to “negative.” S&P agreed. Finances aren’t the problem. Leadership is. S&P predicted a bleak future for higher education last week. Last month Moody’s downgraded the sector to from “stable” to “negative.” Leaders know financial issues usually aren’t root problems but point to them. Here are 10 signs pointing to problems among American universities independent of finance, from most obvious leading to the broadest and most important. 10. The most[…] Keep reading →

I wanted to do an episode on the big picture. I have no illusions that the episodes so far I’ve not made a very big effect on the environment in terms of carbon dioxide levels or emissions or pollution. But this podcast is about much more than just a podcast. So I want to talk about where I’m going with it, what the big plans are and at the end[…] Keep reading →

Daniel and I had an unscripted, unguarded, very vulnerable conversation. It’s not often that two men on an Internet chat that tears well up and people get choked up. He actually ended up posting this interview on his podcast because of the rawness of the emotion that came up and so look at the notes for this podcast to get the links to his podcast to listen to that. This[…] Keep reading →

Tanner clearly has just as much fun in the second conversation as he did the first one. And that’s the fun of the conversation but talking about what he did, he went beyond just modest size changes. If you hear he’s already getting into leading people right away. It’s about responsibility. It’s about people changing or not. I mean he does but not everyone does. You get to hear about his[…] Keep reading →

Lies We Tell Ourselves When We Pollute We all want clean air, water, and land, yet pollute more than necessary. Leaders act with responsibility, accountability, and self-awareness. Our leadership vacuum on the environment I hook my audiences easily in my workshops on my podcast, Leadership and the Environment, by saying, Raise your hand if you like pollution, rising sea levels, and more plastic in the ocean than fish. No hands ever go up. I continue, Now raise your[…] Keep reading →

Elizabeth Kolbert presents a practical adult perspective on the environment. This is what’s happening without fanfare, without sensationalism, something that adults can act on. I highly recommend her book The Sixth Extinction for which she won the Pulitzer Prize and I highly recommend reading her many articles in The New Yorker in which she treats these environmental issues, often adding a human element, a historical perspective, but not telling you[…] Keep reading →