Read any editorial page or media on any major topic---the pandemic, the environment, race, police, the election, . . . anything---and people are calling for leadership. In the United States, they often refer to missing leadership from the government, especially the executive branch from local to federal, but I see leadership vacuums in business, education, sports, arts, culture, military, religion, media, . . . everywhere. As a leadership writer, professor, speaker, podcast, coach, entrepreneur, and practitioner, I know and work with a few leadership peers, including globally renowned authors, speakers, etc. Here's an article on top leadership and management experts,…

I remember helping General Austin co-lead some leadership workshops at West Point. He described a crisis West Point was experiencing that they all knew about---a recent graduate spoke poorly of the institution and community in a way that the media amplified. Then a former teacher---a Colonel---piled on the criticism, prompting questioning from alumni. He asked cadets how they would handle the situation. I read their expressions as caring and determined, but they couldn't figure out what to do. Graduate students in more advanced classes responded with similar uncertainty. What struck me was not that they didn't know what to do---there…

Leaders: Seek This Outcome From Your Followers This simple feedback from your followers can tell you how you're leading. By Joshua SpodekAuthor, 'Leadership Step by Step' @spodek One of the great joys and tragedies of leadership is that you'll never exactly how well you led. An engineer can take a test. A baseball player can look at his stats. But leaders have no objective measure. Is that frustrating? It gets more difficult. What few measures we have rely on other people, whose thoughts we can never know. If they say something nice, we'll never know if they meant it or are sparing our…

Leading Through Emotions Is the Opposite of Manipulation Leading means helping people do what they want, not what they don't want. Thinking otherwise undermines your ability to lead. As a leadership professor, trainer, and author, I have occasion to see people develop leadership skills at all levels. When I describe the difference between leadership and management, they tend to accept that management generally involves behavior and things you can see and measure. Its goal is compliance. Leadership, by contrast, more involves emotions and motivations--things you can't see or measure. Its goal is more about getting people to want to do…

You'd Fire an Employee Whose Goal was Awareness. Why Accept it for the Environment? If you don't act on your values, are you able to lead? What can you learn? Ridiculous in business Imagine you needed surgery and asked the surgeon who was going to operate on you, "Have you ever done this surgery before?" and he or she said, I haven't done it before, by I'm aware of the procedure. Imagine you were going to hire a new COO, asked his or her operational experience, and he or she said, I haven't worked in operations, but my awareness is high. Would you hire a plumber who…

Roger Bannister, the 4-Minute Mile, and Leadership We who strive for more can learn from the great athlete, no matter our field. The greatest lesson we can learn from the achievement of Roger Bannister, who broke the 4-minute mile in 1954 and who died at 88 yesterday, arises from someone else breaking his record only seven weeks later. And then many times since. Why? Because as great as his physical feat, it shows that his mental feat was as great. Seven weeks isn't enough time for others to change training, strategy, diet, and so on. They already had the physical ability to break four minutes. Once he showed…

What Does LeBron James Know About Leadership? Athletes learn and practice leadership. They get elected. We can learn from them. To tell an athlete to "shut up and dribble" shows profound misunderstanding of how much sports and athletics teach leadership, all the more so among leaders of champion teams. If you read Inc. to improve your leadership, LeBron James may have his flaws, as any leader does, but remains an exemplary role model. As a leadership professor, coach, and author, I suggest looking more to learn from champion athletes than to demean them. Leaders and Sports Let's just consider United States presidents, representatives, and governors who were athletes:…