[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.] Let’s look at part of a sample 360-degree feedback report. Today I’ll show the highlights — the summary of all the questions. Even if you’ve never had[…] 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.] I’ve been posting a lot on personal development, so I’m going to focus on specific leadership and leadership development issues for several posts. I’ve had the privilege[…] Keep reading →

I’ll be delivering my seminar on  next weekend in Singapore, October 6 and 7, at INSEAD. Here’s the announcement. I hope to see you there. Leadership Through Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence Workshop led by Joshua Spodek, MBA, PhD; supported by the INSEAD Toastmasters Club INSEAD Toastmasters Club is pleased to announce a two-day (half-day) experiential workshop focused on how to develop personal leadership skills, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence by using[…] Keep reading →

I ask people about their passions a lot. Many tell me they have no passions, which makes me sad for them. I don’t think passions are something you find lying around but something you create and build from small interests through self-awareness, effort, and dedication. It means they haven’t created something they could have. They either never invested enough to find out what it took to create a passion or,[…] Keep reading →

Following yesterday’s post on the Daily Show’s showing people saying they include and accept exclude and dismiss, here’s another on blaming and finger pointing, claiming others are doing it, not you. Watching the clip is funny, but I’m including it here because it gives us a chance to introspect. The point of this blog is to provide tools and insight to learn and grow, and I think this clip does[…] Keep reading →

I don’t know if I have to explain how shopping for, preparing, and eating food qualifies as fundamental to self-awareness and therefore leadership. A few years ago I would have considered food shopping irrelevant to self-awareness. I’ve changed. I’ll start with an aside on how big an effect just gardening can have with Victory Gardens. During the World Wars, when mainstream food production dropped, governments promoted their citizens planting so-called[…] Keep reading →

Today’s post derives from a lesson I learned from Professor Rao, whose class I took in business school and whose lessons I’ve written about often here. I’d try to improve on it, but he did a great job of it. His book mentioned that all the stress in your life comes from one place. I remember reading that concept thinking, “how can that possibly happen? I have so much stress[…] Keep reading →