Dov Baron brings the best out of you. See his interview of me.

Dov Baron---bestselling author, leadership coach (and more), named by Inc. as one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers and host of Full Monty Leadership---is probably the most dynamic, authentic, and colorful guest I've had on my podcast. To illustrate his authenticity, he took the greatest personal challenge to live by his environmental values---to consider getting rid of his car. Not just any car, but a Jaguar that he aspired to for most of his life. Listen to our conversation to hear the story, meet the man, and learn how to get more out of life than material objects can get…

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What Does LeBron James Know About Leadership?

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:…

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“Why the Ivy League could end up like the big 3 carmakers: utterly disrupted” My story in Quartz

Joshua Spodek Uneducated at Any GPA Is the Ivy League Today Big 3 Auto of the 1960s? America's top universities today are like America's Big 3 car manufacturers of the 60s: hugely profitable, projecting growth for decades, the envy of the world, dominating their markets, dictating terms to customers and employees, and accelerating to bankruptcy. Cars aren't diplomas, but besides the obvious differences between the fields, systemic similarities suggest a need to act for leadership asleep at the wheel. Missed Opportunities I participated in an NYU committee to promote entrepreneurship. Nobody seemed to notice the irony in the following two…

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Entrepreneur Magazine features me and Leadership Step by Step

Entrepreneur Magazine covered me for the first time, with a video no less, in Are People Born Leaders? The story begins Joshua Spodek, author of Leadership Step by Step: Becoming the Person Others Follow, talks about how people aren’t born leaders but instead develop leadership skills throughout life as a result of the obstacles life throws at them. He states that every great leader has learned leadership, but “no one’s born leading.” Spodek also says he treats leadership as a performance-based field and that people have to practice being good, effective leaders -- much like one has to practice playing the…

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Next Year Now and cracking the leadership code

Tom Heffner, host of the Next Year Now podcast, just posted his interview of me. Tom and I got to be friends following up this podcast, based on our mutual passion for learning and practicing leadership skills, education, values, and many of the things you read about here, so you'll hear the chemistry. Plus, he came to these areas from a science and aerospace background, as I did. As Tom wrote: Today might be our most important episode ever. That’s because we’re going to talk about leadership.  Few things are as impactful in our life as good leadership – be…

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Beliefs and the environment

I wanted to share some thoughts on reading The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf, one of the New York Times' 10 best books of 2017. Who is Alexander von Humboldt? The New York Times review of the book explains: Alexander von Humboldt was the pre-eminent scientist of his time. Contemporaries spoke of him as second in fame only to Napoleon. All over the Americas and the English-speaking world, towns and rivers are still named after him, along with mountain ranges, bays, waterfalls, 300 plants and more than 100 animals. There is a Humboldt glacier,…

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Social and emotional challenges are different

Leadership, entrepreneurship, and other performance-based professional practices are fundamentally social and emotional. Traditional academics teaches you to comply, not to lead or take initiative. It teaches intellectual skills, which are perfect for the knowledge worker of the mid-twentieth century. Those days are gone. Today's challenges are social and emotional—how to create relationships and learn people's problems so you can solve them. Learning to lead, innovate, create, and solve people's problems requires self-awareness, teamwork, empathy, and other social and emotional skills. Most graduates of traditional education learned to analyze, recall facts, and other intellectual skills, which, today, keep you from promotion.…

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Thomas Jefferson farmed, even as President of the United States

People tell me how their lives are too busy to act on their environmental values. "I wish I could pollute less," they say, "but I don't have time." I happened on a passage in a book on Thomas Jefferson, who actively farmed while President of the United States. You may say, "But the nation was smaller then." First, you don't have to farm to live by your values. You have plenty of other options. Second, he also Wrote most of the Declaration of Independence Was Minister to France Secretary of State Helped create the Democratic-Republican party Invented and designed many…

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Ask not how to lead but how to learn to lead

Sometimes people who want to know to lead ask directly, How do you lead? I don't think they're asking a question that will help them improve their leadership. You can walk and talk, but you'd be hard pressed to describe how you do it beyond generalities like “you put one foot in front of the other.” No one taught you the theory behind language or walking. You practiced until you succeeded. You fell along the way. You would never lecture to a child on how to talk. Same with playing an instrument, sport, or any performance-based practice. You learn by…

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Why the Environment Needs Leadership

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 work: telling people that their future is full of doom and gloom. Make them feel helpless and hopeless. What also doesn't work: debating about irrelevant issues, or even relevant ones.…

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10 Signs U.S. Universities Are Sabotaging Themselves

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 successful students leave American universities. The following people left American universities (or never went), not out of ignorance but knowing that what universities offered would hold them back: Elon Musk Bill…

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Should New York City Sue Mayor de Blasio? (Inc.)

Should New York City Sue Mayor de Blasio? Will New York City's mayor stop personally doing what the city is suing tobacco companies for? Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio explained why the city was suing five fossil fuel companies: For decades, Big Oil ravaged our environment. They knew what they were peddling was lethal, but they didn't care. They used the classical Big Tobacco playbook of denial, denial, denial, and all the while they did everything to hook society on their lethal product. Have they been punished for it? No. In fact, they've made trillions. Think how cynical that is. Then…

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From Self-Help Addiction to Self-Mastery

  • Post category:Leadership

From Self-Help Addiction to Self-Mastery Podcaster Daniel Gefen's book shares how to transition from compulsion and perfectionism to mastery and joy I heard of Daniel Gefen through his podcast, Can I Pick Your Brain?. I found his interviews engaging, open, vulnerable, and funny (especially his interview of me). His guests range from billionaires to mixed martial art champions to world-class marketers to celebrities. Somehow he gets them to be vulnerable, open, and engaging. The more I listened, the more I learned that he wasn't always that way. In fact, he started off picked on and made fun of. We've interviewed each other. I've been…

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Civilian Service and a Civilian Service Academy: Crazy or the Answer to Many Problems?

Meeting with Frances Hesselbein means talking about service. Her touchstone phrase is "to serve is to live." All the men in her life served in the military. She taught at West Point and led me to my co-teaching for three days last fall. By contrast, when I grew up, I associated the military with the draft, whose compulsory nature seemed unconstitutional. My sense of community has changed---I would say matured. I find discipline valuable and lacking in the United States. A civilian service, maybe mandatory A year or so ago, Frances mentioned the idea of civilian service, maybe even compulsory…

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Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Who Are Your Peers, and What Are Your Sidchas?

Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Who Are Your Peers, and What Are Your Sidchas? Want success? Compare yourself to historical greats and make them your peers, not the average. 18 years ago today, January 4, 2000, the New York Times reported: Today is the first day, after nearly half a century, that the daily comic strip ''Peanuts'' will not appear. Just why it would be funny to see a young boy lean his head against a tree and say ''I weep for our generation'' is hard to explain, but Charlie Brown and his creator, Charles M. Schulz, made it so. Mr. Schulz, who…

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010: Jim Harshaw, Conversation 2

The hero's journey In conversation 1, Jim shared his values and committed to live by one. In conversation 1.5, he shared problems with the challenge and how he overcame them. In this conversation he shares how it worked. Listen to hear how persevering through challenges to live by your values leads to a better life. Listen to the conversation Judge for yourself what you find from his experience. I heard: More time with his family Quality time with his family Fun Finding more challenges (why not, if they're fun?) Things became easier than before What are you waiting for? Commit…

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Nurturing Millennial Leaders: the Influencive Interview

Influencive's Surya Prakash Singh posted an interview of me, "Nurturing Millennial Leaders," of how to start leading, especially if your traditional education didn't help. The article begins Nurturing Millennial Leaders I get the chance to speak with author and leadership specialist Joshua Spodek. According to a survey, each day approximately 10,000 baby boomers retire. By 2020, 48% of the workforce will be made of millennials. Because of this scenario, 84% of organizations are bound to feel the lack of leaders in the organization in the next 5 years. How can we mold Millennials to embrace and develop leadership skills? Being…

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The Missing Element in Protecting the Environment (Inc.)

The Missing Element in Protecting the Environment We have the science and technology. We're missing effective leadership. Let's learn from past success. Who would expect an insight on how to protect the environment to come from hookworms? I recently saw Zia Khan, the Rockefeller Foundation's Vice President of Initiatives and Strategy, speak at the New York Academy of Science's Summit on United Nations Strategic Goals. That's a high-level group of organizations and people. He didn't speak on the environment, but the project he worked on showed something missing from climate change work, at least that I don't see. He talked about hookworms, hookworm disease, and how a 1909…

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Who is leading in climate research?

Have you thought about who is leading in the area of climate research? I don't mean who is doing the most research or the best research or publishing the most. I mean from a leadership perspective: who is leading people, setting direction, creating a vision, and motivating others to act toward a goal? What is the goal of climate research if not to figure out how to set policy for how people act in ways that affect the greenhouse effect? In the United States, we are not lowering our emissions overall. We're increasing them. What research scientists are doing, it's…

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Enron Environmentalism (Inc.)

Enron Environmentalism Enron looked profitable when it compartmentalized and hid its losses. Do you compartmentalize and hide your pollution? I just had lunch with a man who described himself as fanatical about the environment--in particular, about water bottles. He illustrated by describing how fastidiously he handled them. As he started his story, I expected him to describe how he never used water bottles. Americans have such clean and drinkable water that water made unclean makes front page news for weeks. Specifically, he lives near Manhattan, and our water wins blind taste tests with consumers. The EPA finds it meets or exceeds all safety requirements. I figured he knew that 91% of plastic isn't…

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Remember the “Crying Indian” Anti-Litter Ads From the 70s? You’ll Cry More at Our Pollution Levels Today (Inc.)

Remember the Single-Tear Anti-Litter Ads From the 70s? You'll Cry Too at Our Pollution Levels Today The chart below puts Keep America Beautiful's "Crying Indian" public service announcement in today's deplorable context A headline in The Guardian two days ago, "$180bn investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge" led me to some statistics about plastic production. Plastic Production Then The chart I saw, reproduced below, showed dramatic increase around 1970. Normally I wouldn't think much of that date, but it reminded me of the so-called "crying Indian ads,"--the Keep America Beautiful public service announcements from my childhood. I hadn't thought of them…

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Do Your Sidchas! (Inc.)

Start a Sidcha! Resolutions and short-term thinking create short-term results and long-term failure. Start a Sidcha to last a lifetime. I just read yet another thread of people pledging resolutions, suspiciously many being ones they failed last year. This year they really meant it, though. Right. I had to comment on what works and doesn't. Habits that work The day Nelson Mandela walked free for the first time in 27 years--a day of global importance and incredibly busy--he got up early and do you know what he did? His daily exercises. The calisthenics he'd done almost every day of those 27 years. A day Gandhi…

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Updates on Limits to Growth, finally!

One of my top resources on the environment is the book Limits to Growth. Reading it was revelatory. They approached the environment the way I thought made sense, then created a model, researched the numbers, plugged them in, and got answers. What made sense was what they call a systemic approach---not to look at one of all the interacting parts, but to look at the whole system, including how the parts interacted. For example, I sensed that just improving technology didn't feel like it would solve everything. The Green Revolution, for example, led to more food, but used fossil fuels…

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My strategy on wedge issues running for office

  • Post category:Leadership

Some voters seem to vote based on single issues---guns and abortion seem the big ones. Here's an idea for someone running for office: campaign that on those issues, you will keep things as-is for your term. You won't move to move things one way or the other. You could even suggest that you'd resist others trying to move things. Many might not like it, but it may diffuse people hating you for opposing them and disarm opponents attacking you. You give them transparency and predictability. You might consider it intolerable. You might think you should fight for your cause. But…

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