Requisite to Good Leadership: Holding Your Leaders Accountable

In 2008 the popular television show How I Met Your Mother put forth “The Pyramid of Screaming” as a model for explaining where some of our frustration and come from – and where it can go to. The concept, detailed thoroughly in The Bro Code (a humorous read, highly recommended), essentially explains the process in [...]

Communicating Meaning is Prerequisite to Good Leadership

There are nearly as many definitions for leadership now as there are examples of poor leaders. Attempting to define such a concept is a challenge for many reasons, not the least of which is determining what qualities your definition should be built upon. Some definitions, for example, play up the need for charisma, assertiveness, and [...]

A leaderless enterprise

Driving home from work today, I heard a radio piece on the Fort Hood shooting. Just casually listening, I didn’t take much interest until a specific phrase caught my attention. In congressional testimony today Brian Jenkins, an advisor affiliated with the RAND Corporation, reported that

“Some analysts say that al Qaeda is currently following a strategy [...]

Leaders: Can They Fake Competence?

They certainly can, according to a study recently performed by researchers at the University of California, Berkley and reported on by Jeffrey Kluger at Time.
More on this, later.

(The Good) Life and Leadership Laboratory

I’m a regular reader of about two dozen blogs. One of my favorites is Talking Philosophy, which recently featured a really compelling post by Jeff Mason, entitled “Philosophy and the Good Life.”
I’m not sure what inspired it, but I’m glad Mason indulged himself. A couple of excerpts intrigued me:

“Religion, as it were, does the thinking [...]

Self-efficacy as the secret ingredient to effective leadership?

(Review of “A Leadership Self-Efficacy Taxonomy and Its Relation to Effective Leadership.”)
What makes that crucial difference between a leader and an effective leader? One study out this month[1] suggests that the key is leadership self-efficacy, which the authors perceive to be
“a person’s judgment that he or she can successfully exert leadership by setting direction for [...]

Emptying Pews Cry For Leadership

Religion is losing its hold on our lives. This realization is inescapable, given the marked decline in the number of people attending church services. In 1996 the Barna Research Group released a report which illustrated church attendance was declining steadily and that churches were losing “entire segments of the population: men, singles, empty nesters…” In [...]

Leadership Over Lunch

Over the last few weeks, I have been asked to participate in interview luncheons for candidates to the Assistant Professor in Leadership position open at the McDonough Center. Each candidate has been posed the question, “What is your definition of leadership?”
This question is interesting, and problematic to me for a variety of reasons – not [...]