What kind of leadership is this: Obama fighting for less accountability and more centralized power

Leadership and politics overlap. I generally try not to take political positions on this blog to make it accessible to more people, but the push to increase surveillance and erode protections like habeas corpus seem enough like ineffective leadership that I feel compelled to cover them. In response to this article stating that Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act of 2012], but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely Note it says merely "accused." Note it also says "indefinitely." I wrote the following on Hacker News (an entrepreneurial / geeky community site), which…

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Men, women, attraction, and power

Here's a conversation I had with a friend. It shows the way my physics training gets me to think that I expect others will find interesting. Remember, physics to me means respecting and appreciating nature -- not just something that happens in a laboratory, but how rainbows work, why the sky is blue, and why people are the way we are. My friend also said she found the result enlightening. Normally I don't write about men-women issues, but the way of thinking can apply elsewhere too. You'll see I had to refine my first question and then re-ask it to give clear and unambiguous answers -- like creating an experiment. Physicists like answers that you can measure. Josh: Do you think overall men find women…

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What are your beliefs and models?

My series on beliefs got me more page views and emails from readers than average. Did it get you to examine your beliefs? Did you do the exercise that started it for me? It costs nothing and takes only a few minutes. I ask not just because I'm curious, I ask for a reason we could all benefit from. As much as I like how my beliefs work for me, many people have beliefs that could work yet better for me and everyone else. I invite you to share your beliefs here. You might help me. You might help others. More importantly, you'll help yourself. Writing them out will force you to examine them more deeply, which will likely help them help you. Giving others…

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Daily models and beliefs that work

[Today's post is an alternative introduction to my series on beliefs and how to change them. It gives a different, more team-oriented approach.] A major tool of leadership is setting the common beliefs and models of your team. Some examples: The head of a corporation may decide that the company's highest priority is product quality when it used to be customer service. Or may decide it is a consumer electronics company instead of a business-to-business company. The coach of a sports team may decide the team is a defensive team where it used to be offensive and before that it fed the ball to its star player. A person in a relationship may decide love means understanding and supporting their significant other where they used…

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Restore the Fourth

Independence Day is one of the holidays I like to take time to think about its meaning. Today I'm thinking about the U.S. Bill of Rights, as timely today as ever. Why are they as important today as ever? They limit the power of government. It seems unchecked governments tend to try to seize more power. That doesn't mean they're bad or the people in them are bad. Just that people in positions of power feel motivations to increase that power, often for what many people would consider noble reasons. If you've read my posts lately you've read how I consider the NSA's spying a major step toward unaccountable centralized power (which I think the writers of the Constitution would have called tyranny) and an…

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Managing difficult teammates, managers, employees, and people

We've all had to deal with difficult team members. Those who have led have had to deal with difficult people reporting to us. Most of us have had to deal with difficult managers and bosses. We've also had to deal with difficult people in general. When someone makes our jobs and lives difficult we want to influence them to stop challenging us and start helping us, or at least getting out of the way (and sometimes to be open to them influencing us, accepting that sometimes we are the difficult ones). When the difficult person is our manager or boss, many of us feel powerless to do anything to influence them. You can influence anyone. I'm writing today's post to increase your ability to influence.…

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Morality and the development of language

I write a lot here about how counterproductive judging others or imposing your values on them is for leadership or influencing them. (Here are five posts on it, for example: Instead of calling something right, wrong, good, or bad, consider the consequences of your actions, What is morality?, On the counterproductivity of motivating people with guilt and blame — aka moralizing, Talking about "truth" or "reality" always confuses things, How willing are you not to judge?) Thinking about the development of language gave me a new perspective that, I think, helps undermine people's attachment to calling things right, wrong, good, bad, or evil. This post may sound philosophical or esoteric, but I didn't write it that way. My goal, as with the posts I linked…

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People who succeeded despite adversity

[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.] Do you ever feel like things are stacked against you? Consider how many people succeeded despite the odds. Ask yourself which helps more -- having advantages or learning to overcome adversity? I've noticed how many extremely successful people had problems that mediocre people claim hold them back. I started noticing it with actors on Inside the Actor's Studio, but then started noticing it elsewhere. Sure, many successful people emerged from privileged backgrounds and sure, some social problems keep many people from any chance at success,…

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Leadership and United States’ spying

I'd like to look at some headlines from a leadership perspective. I don't intend for today's post to be political. Governments have needed secrecy and spying since before Sun Tzu's The Art of War over two thousand years ago. People will also oppose governments that overreach their influence into their lives. Different people oppose different levels of intrusion so that the more a government intrudes the more people will oppose the government. One of the main roles of a government's highest leaders is to balance the government's secrecy and spying with its citizens' private interests. Government officials and decision-makers have conflicting interests because their jobs get easier with more of the former and harder with more of the latter. If a leader doesn't take responsibility…

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“Needs as understood”: How to start sales presentations — and conversations where you want to influence someone

I've written before about a student group from Columbia Business School I still contribute to long after graduation called InSITE that promotes entrepreneurship and connects students at several schools including Columbia, NYU, Harvard, and Stanford to entrepreneurs. A recent post on InSITE's blog by Lukasz Strozek, Stanford Business School 2014, described a challenge common in product development and entrepreneurship. It reminded me of a great solution I'll write below applicable to many situations where you want to influence people. The challenge Read that post for the details, but broadly it points out We care about products we create We want to get feedback from customers and potential customers Pitching the product gets closed answers, not broad understanding of a customer's needs or interests So the…

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Google, strategy, and what your strategy says about you

I've read a few articles recently how people are using search engines that track you less than Google in light of the spying. I've been using DuckDuckGo for a while since I find Google so spooky. Nobody is challenging in Google's dominance, but competition is increasing. Its search results aren't as good as Google's, but I prefer it, as I'll explain. Nearly every successful company has a strategy or it will lose focus and fail. Same with people, for that matter. Whatever a company or person says, if you know their strategy you can predict their behavior. Usually if you know their behavior you can figure out their strategy. In the case of Google and your privacy, I believe their strategy says a lot about…

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More thoughts on centralized power without accountability

Comparisons to Nazis and Hitler happen all the time, usually backfiring on the people making the comparison. Since almost no one has tried to take over the world or kill everyone they could based on religion, whomever you're comparing looks better. This comparison makes things so black-and-white you lose the ability to learn from the past. Today we know how Nazism ended, but while it developed and grew, nobody knew. When most people talk about the topic, they talk about after their power passed a point of no return. The problem with looking only there is that there was little anyone could do then to change anything. I write this blog about what you can do. I want to share things we can act on.…

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My main problem with centralized power without accountability

I once read that in the build-up to WWII, people in America were concerned that democracy would hold them back in a conflict with the nations creating strong centralized authorities. They speculated that in a war, while they deliberated, nations with centralized power would win for not having to take time making decisions. Apparently they were right, but only at the beginning. When the strong central leaders made effective decisions, their nations won. Things changed when the strong central leaders started making bad decisions when things got out of their depth. The powerful leaders continued making decisions and nobody could stop them until their nations were ruined. I don't know how accurately I remember what I read or how accurately what I read portrayed what…

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Ad hominem attacks are easy but counterproductive and best ignored

I'm following the story of the government spying more closely than most issues and writing about it here because I see it as a failure of leadership in many ways, most importantly that the system seems to be out of control with the person in charge -- the President of the United States -- exercising little accountability if not outright lying. Yesterday an opinion piece in the New York Times ignored the issues and attacked the character of the whistle-blower, using malevolent tones to insinuate problems. Today the New Yorker challenged that piece, still respecting the Times writer, as if the piece deserved respect. I don't think the piece deserved respect of serious consideration. Instead of addressing it point by point, as the New Yorker…

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A model for intuition, especially in complicated times

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Leading in complicated times can be challenging. Many people prefer not to lead because of the risk of visible failure. Others thrive under pressure. They don't have better odds of success than others. If you can become like that, people will want you around. Even if all you can do is stay calm beyond where others lose their cool, people will want you on their team or leading it. How do you learn to stay calm and perform effectively under pressure…

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A model and strategy to lead people so they appreciate and thank you for being led

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Want to know a great way to lead people so they appreciate that you led them? Today's model and strategy show how. Often they'll thank you and look forward to being led again by you later. Note that it works when you and they both care about the goal. It may not work on projects that they have no internal motivation to work on. The first few times you do it, it may seem mechanical, but if you pay attention, you'll…

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A model of emotional intelligence and self-awareness

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] What is self-awareness? What is emotional intelligence? Everybody I know agrees that improving them improves your life and ability to lead yourself and others. "Know thyself," a basic instruction for improving yourself that has stood the test of thousands of years, means improving self-awareness. Yet few people can define either of these terms effectively. Today's model explains them both. A model for emotional intelligence and self-awareness First, some basics I'll take for granted. You have a head and body. You breathe.…

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A model to replace jerks with people who improve your life

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Who hasn't had to deal with an annoying coworker? Or boss? Or family member? ... someone you couldn't get away from and had to treat respectfully, no matter what you felt about them? I once worked on a consulting project for a company with a difficult-to-work-with (to put it mildly) CEO. He was friendly before the project started, and you could see how he brought in clients, but I found him overbearing with his team. Soon after the project started I…

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A model to think deeper

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Have you gotten to consider and tackle the important things in your life? Do some important issues still elude you? Do you still spend time in the unimportant parts of life? Or even when on the important parts, do the urgent fires take more of your time than you want? Urgency Importance Important, not urgent Important, urgent Unimportant, not urgent Unimportant, urgent Today's belief helps you get to those topics. A model to think more deeply: You think on the time…

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My Seminar on Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence and Self-awareness in four evening sessions starting June 17, 6:30pm-9:30pm in New York

I'll be leading the next session of my leadership seminar in New York in June. I'm experimenting as four three-hour evening sessions Session 1: Monday, June 17 Session 2: Wednesday, June 19 Session 3: Monday, June 24 Session 4: Wednesday, June 26 I'll give the same full attention I do for a weekend session. Sign up here. Here's the course description: What You'll Learn If you don't know how to lead, you can only do what you can do yourself. If you can lead, you can achieve anything anyone else did with a team. Even if you want only to live a quiet, happy, rewarding life you still have to lead yourself. The more you know how to lead, the more you are in control…

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A model to live like beautiful people do

[Today is the forty-second in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.] People commonly believe that beautiful women have better lives than everybody else and that they have access to more valuable things. I came across that belief a lot when I used to go out dancing a lot. The evidence seemed overwhelming -- they automatically get invited to the best parties, they get past the doorpeople, men buy them drinks if the club doesn't already give them, and so on. In regular life, studies show attractive people get paid more, get promoted more, and so on. Sounds…

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What happens when you change beliefs

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] The movie Moneyball and the book it's based on illustrate how new beliefs take root and can challenge and crowd out your old beliefs. Today's post is long, but the movie very well illustrates some stages and the emotional challenge of adopting a new belief, facing and overcoming resistance, and how it can lead to effective leadership and creating community. I'll quote enough of it here if you haven't seen the movie, but it was nominated for seven Oscars and stars…

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A model to implement the answers to all of life’s most important questions

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Putting into practice the answers to all of life's most important questions -- that is, the Model -- may seem like a tall order, but I've written up how to do it. I call the process the Method. If you worked with the Model long enough, you'd probably develop the Method yourself, but why not learn from my mistakes and get farther with less effort? A model to implement the answers to all of life's most important questions: The Method I've written…

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A model that answers all of life’s most important questions

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Answering all of life's most important questions is a tall order, but if you've read this web page long, you know the value I put on the Model, my model for human motivations and emotions. The Model forms the foundation of what I consider the best way to view and live life. A model that answers all of life's most important questions: The Model If you haven't read my series on the Model, I wrote about it at length. I put a…

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A model for direction in leadership and personal development

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] We are a social species. Most of what we care about in our environments are other people. Maybe I'm different than most people because I spent so much of my life not working on or valuing social skills -- a PhD in physics doesn't force you to learn social skills. Learning them later in life, I think I value them a lot more than I would have if I had them earlier in life. The social and leadership skills I've mastered…

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