Leading Thoughts for September 5, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Inky Johnson on burnout:

“People don’t burn out because of what they do. People burn out because life makes them forget why they do it. Meaning life hits and hits them with something until they just like, “Man if I’ve got to go through that, I’m not bringing it today, man.” And every day is not a good day. Everything is not all peaches and cream. But that’s why the culture is so important. That’s why when the culture is set, we know what we bring to it, and we know how we get down because we know what we’re working for. And the purpose of it is greater than any individual.”

Source: VIDEO: Control the Controllables

II.

Molly Fletcher stressing that drive is internal:

“When we focus on the opponent instead of running our own race, we allow the measuring stick to be our competition instead of ourselves. We are distracted by something uncontrollable.

“When I focused on the other agents, scrutinizing their every move and comparing myself with them, I was quickly distracted from upping my own game.”

Source: Dynamic Drive: The Purpose-Fueled Formula for Sustainable Success

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:33 PM
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Leading Thoughts for August 29, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Deborah Gruenfeld on power:

“Success, impact, and life satisfaction are not the result of how much power you can accumulate, or even how powerful others think you are; they are the result of what you are able to do for others with the power you already have.

“People who use the power they have to manage their own powerless feelings are bound to stray from their responsibilities.”

Source: Acting with Power: Why We Are More Powerful Than We Believe

II.

Robert Hurley on stewardship:

“Stewardship is about service, not opportunism. The authority to solve complex problems and challenges will reside in the system of stakeholders, not in the leader. The leader’s job is to energize and facilitate, not dominate and control.”

Source: The Decision to Trust: How Leaders Create High-Trust Organizations

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:51 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 22, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall on guilt:

“Trying to be guilt-free and have the highest self-esteem leads us into an irresponsible life no matter how successful we are in our careers and social lives. If our ultimate self-help goal is increasing and protecting our self-esteem, we risk preventing ourselves from making necessary substantive changes in our lives.”

Source: The Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need

II.

Jason Caldwell on mental processing:

“Accessing the problem-solving power of your mind is not about pushing; it’s about stopping. Mental processes are at their most effective during times of stillness, but we’ve stopped giving ourselves that opportunity. Because we keep forcing our minds to process, we never give them space to think, and by doing so, we take away their ability to solve.”

Source: Navigating the Impossible

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 15, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Brad Stulberg on the inescapability trigger:

“A person can tell themselves that what they are doing is not good for them and that they need to stop, but until they mean it in every bone of their body, their mental and emotional energy goes toward finding a solution in the current state instead of imagining a new state altogether.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

II.

Morgan Housel on incentives:

“No matter how much information and context you have, nothing is more persuasive than what you desperately want or need to be true.”

Source: Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 8, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Simon Bailey on resilience:

“Life is full of highs and lows – Life is kind of like a wave in the sense that there are both peaks and dips. Sometimes, you feel like an absolute rockstar. Other times, you feel like the human equivalent of a discarded soft top surfboard. Just remember that you can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf, which is to say that while the bad times will inevitably come, we have faith that you can always ride them out.”

Source: Resilience@Work: How to Coach Yourself Into a Thriving Future

II.

Errol Doebler on the importance of emotional awareness:

“As you can see, not acknowledging your emotions can be a recipe for disaster. This does not guarantee we’ll always make the right choice. The aim is to make sure you are making a conscious choice. Even when we make the wrong choice based on a conscious decision, we win. You win because you made a decision to go with your instinct, and then you were able to evaluate whether your instinct was good or bad.

“As leaders, we can’t hope or assume we will make the right choice on how to act. As leaders, we put ourselves in a position to take conscious action by always being aware of the driving behind our actions: our emotions.”

Source: Ice Cold Leader: Leading from the Inside Out

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:26 PM
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Leading Thoughts for August 1, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

James Murphy on continuous improvement:

“Our philosophy is that if that guy made the mistake, there are 50 other people who made the mistake, or who could. We want to prevent the mistake, not punish the person. He explained that debriefing can completely change the culture of an organization; in fact, he considers debriefing a culture, not an event. “As a leader, it was hard for me to stand up and list the mistakes I made—and what I was going to do about them. You have to accept that to create a culture of accountability, you can always do something better. You have to leave your ego at the door, create a safe environment for everyone, and be sincere. The moment you admit you made a mistake, it empowers everyone in the room.”

Source: Courage to Execute: What Elite U.S. Military Units Can Teach Business About Leadership and Team Performance

II.

Robert Hurley on stewardship fundamentals:

“Two fairly fundamental principles are associated with the adoption of an integrative stewardship orientation at the top of any organization. One is that the leader understands that the job requires him or her cooperate with and serve all stakeholders instead of competing with them. Stewardship is about service, not opportunism. The others is that the authority to solve complex problems and challenges will reside the system of stakeholders, not in the deader. The leader’s job is to energize and facilitate, not dominate and control.”

Source: The Decision to Trust: How Leaders Create High-Trust Organizations

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:31 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 25, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Greg Hoffman on inspiration:

“Leaving inspiration to chance, where it just hits you in a random moment, is not a recipe for sustained success in the creative world. You have to go out and find it. While some may be born with a seeker’s mentality, others can learn to be more curious. Curiosity is a muscle, and muscles need to be trained.”

Source: Emotion By Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike

II.

Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler on deliberately practicing soft skills:

“Few people, if any, would think of practicing with a coach to learn how to get along with coworkers, motivate team members to improve quality measures, emotionally connect with a troubled teen, or talk to a physician about a medical error. Most of us don’t even think that soft and gushy interpersonal skills are something you need to study at all, let alone something you’d study and practice with a coach. But that’s precisely what should be going on.

“Many of the profound and persistent problems we face stem from a lack of skill (which in turn stems from a lack of deliberate practice) than from a genetic curse, a lack of courage, or a character flaw.”

Source: Influencer: The Power to Change Anything

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:50 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 18, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Tom Asacker on leading with people:

“Those skilled at motivating people to cross a new bridge to change their beliefs and behavior, are not trying to cajole or manipulate them against their will. Rather, they seek to guide them to a new destination, a transformed way of feeling, thinking and acting that's aligned with their personal desires and values.

Effective leaders know that the first essential step to changing people's behavior is to understand their perspectives and embrace their desires and beliefs. Everything else flows naturally from there.”

Source: The Business of Belief

II.

August Turak on the three types of transformation:

“All human motivation arises from a longing for transformation. There are three different types of transformation. When thirsty man drinks, he transforms his condition. When a poor man the lottery, he transforms his circumstance. And when Mr. Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning an utterly new man, he has experienced a transformation of being.

All three types of transformation are necessary. It is only when we try to replace one type of transformation with another that we get into trouble. When we turn sustenance into ‘comfort food,’ are actually trying to fill that hole in our soul by overfilling our stomach. Comfort food is an attempt to substitute a transformation of condition for a transformation of being, often with disastrous results. Food, drugs, alcohol, and sex produce transformations of condition, and when used properly, all have their place. It is only when we mistakenly use them as a substitute for a transformation of being that things go terribly awry.”

Source: Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:34 PM
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Leading Thoughts for July 11, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Nance Guilmartin on the need to take a pause:

“Today you need the ability to discern what lies beneath people’s words, their reactions, or their silence. If you don’t build the neuropathways in your brain to pause, to momentarily disengage your automatic reactions, you can trigger a chain reaction that derails your best intentions and strategies.”

Source: The Power of Pause: How to be More Effective in a Demanding, 24/7 World

II.

Lawrence Levy on the nature of innovation:

“Culture is the invisible force on which innovation depends. We like to pin the mantle of invention on individuals, not circumstances. We anoint heroes and tell their stories. Yet innovation is a collective undertaking. It is as much the product of circumstance as of genius.”

Source: To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:54 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 4, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Peter Block on freedom and accountability :

“Freedom being the choice to be a creator of our own experience and accept the unbearable responsibility that goes with that. Out of this insight grows the idea that perhaps the real task of leadership is to confront people with their freedom. This may be the ultimate act of love that is called for from those who hold power over others.

Choosing our freedom is also the source of our willingness to choose to be accountable. The insight is that freedom is what creates accountability. Freedom is not an escape from accountability, as the popular culture so often misunderstands.”

Source: Community: The Structure of Belonging

II.

Peter Koestenbaum on free will and responsibility:

“Freedom is a fact inside your heart. It is your most precious possession. It gives you power over your life. It gives you the benefit of being responsible for your existence and accountable for your life. Free will cannot be explained scientifically—only philosophically, poetically, religiously, or mythologically. Claiming your freedom is the ultimate secret for mastering your life.”

Source: Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness—A Philosophy for Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:11 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 27, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Professor L.A. Paul on how to think about important life choices:

“As we live our lives, we find ourselves confronted with a brute fact about how little we can know about our futures—just when it is most important to us that we do know. For many big life choices, we only learn what we need to know after we’ve done it, and we change ourselves in the process of doing it. I’ll argue that, in the end, the best response to this situation is to choose based on whether we want to discover who we’ll become.”

Source: Transformative Experience

II.

Lee Kuan Yew on leadership:

“The task of the leaders must be to provide or create for them a strong framework within which they can learn, work hard, be productive and be rewarded accordingly. And this is not easy to achieve.”

Source: The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 20, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Michel de Montaigne on safeguards:

“The infancies of all things are feeble and weak. We must keep our eyes open at their beginnings; you cannot find the danger then because it is so small: once it has grown, you cannot find the cure.”

Source: Michel de Montaigne - The Complete Essays

 

II.

Martyn Newman on self-reliance:

“Being self-reliant does not mean that you just go out and do your own thing. It means being secure enough in yourself to turn to others and take into account different points of view while also regarding yourself as finally responsible for working what has to be said or done.

“When you boil it down, self-reliance involves having confidence in your own judgement as a leader, and being able to control where you devote your most productive emotional and intellectual energy.”

Source: Emotional Capitalists: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Emotional Intelligence for Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 13, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Dean Williams on real leadership:

“In exercising real leadership, one must be open to new ideas and novel information. One must be willing to test deeply held assumptions and question prevailing truths. Too often managers in organizations write off people they dislike and refuse to entertain ideas that don’t agree with their particular paradigm or sense of the way things should be.”

Source: Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges

II.

Kim Scott explaining why leaders are the exception to the “criticize in public” rule of thumb:

“When you encourage people to criticize you publicly, you get the chance to show your team that you really, genuinely want the criticism. You also set an ideal for the team as a whole: everyone should embrace criticism that helps us do our jobs better. The bigger the team, the more leverage you get out of reacting well to criticism in public.

“Too many managers fear that public challenge will undermine their authority. It’s natural to want to repress dissent, but a good reaction to public criticism can be the very thing that establishes your credibility as a strong leader, and will help you build a culture of guidance.”

Source: Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 6, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Garret Kramer on insight versus willpower:

“Insight is infinitely more powerful than willpower. Actually, insight, or having a new idea and/or a change of heart, erases the need for strength or force of will of any kind.”

Source: Stillpower: Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life

II.

Bob Seelert on asking what’s right:

“When people come into an underperforming company, they often start by asking themselves, “What’s wrong?” This is the opposite of what they should do. In my experience, the best starting point is to ask, “What’s right?” Most enterprises that prosper do so for good reasons, and these reasons form the foundation from which you can and must build a successful company. Taking the best of the past, and linking it to the present and desired future is the most dynamic way to build a business.”

Source: Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:31 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 30, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Herman Cain on focus:

“The essence of focus is sacrifice. Leaders who cannot bring themselves to give up the unnecessary stuff for the sake of the necessary do not possess the critical leadership characteristic of focus.”

Source: CEO of Self: You're in Charge

II.

Josh Axe on how to begin the hero’s journey:

“When you accept responsibility for your circumstances and take radical action to change, you automatically step into the shoes of a hero. That is how you begin to write your best story possible.”

Source: Think This, Not That: 12 Mindshifts to Breakthrough Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 23, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Judge Charles W. McCoy on keeping an open mind:

“The human mind contains a door, one that either opens to new ideas or closes them out. The door swings on hinges like any other, opening as it searches for understanding and closing as it makes. Judgments. Herein lies a crucial truth. Sharp thinkers do not take open minds for granted. They concentrate on keeping their minds open long enough to gather all the relevant information needed for making sound judgments. Mediocre thinking begins judging at the outset, and often confuses preconceptions with real understanding. As the old saying goes, “Some people never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.

“The mind’s door, even those of the greatest thinkers, can open and close seemingly on its own without the slightest conscious nudge. Sharp thinking thus requires intentional effort at keeping the door open, especially in trying circumstances where tough problems arise.”

Source: Why Didn’t I Think of That? Think the Unthinkable and Achieve Creative Greatness

II.

James Autry and Peter Roy on integrity:

“The choices that will create the most frustration and anxiety, as well as the greatest challenge to your ability to maintain an ethical balance, will be about relationships, not about money. Once you recognize that your integrity is on the line every day, then your work life takes on a different meaning. You realize that as you begin to face the choices and make the ones that reflect your true self, then you can have an enormous impact on your workplace, regardless of your position in the organizational hierarchy.”

Source: The Book of Hard Choices: How to Make the Right Decisions at Work and Keep Your Self-Respect

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:34 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 16, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Nido Qubein on becoming a transformational leader:

“People value authenticity ahead of charisma. Charisma gets you in the door, but it takes substance to deliver results. We all must remember it’s not about us. It’s about everyone around us. They are our team; you are their coach. You have to listen to what they say and engage your mind to absorb and understand their concerns. We need to listen twice as much as we talk, and others will hear twice as much of what we say. By listening, you will gain information and knowledge. Write it down to remember it. Then, execute. The end result? Wisdom begins to blossom.”

Source: Extraordinary Transformation: An Entrepreneurial Blueprint for Leaders Who Seek Transformational Growth in Any Organization Proven Lessons on How a ... and Inspired the Next Generation of Leaders

II.

Julia DiGangi on being right:

“What’s the fastest way to end a tug-of-war? Drop the rope. Maybe you’re starting to protest, “But why do I have to drop the rope? Why can’t they drop the rope?” Dropping the rope may seem like dropping out of the fight. Giving up. Losing. It’s not, though. Whoever voluntarily drops the rope is the leader.

To understand why, zoom out and look at tugs-of-war in the context of the leadership you want to create. Your role as a leader is to translate your vision into collective momentum—it’s about moving people from where they are to where they have the potential to be. No one will follow you while they’re busy fighting you. People get locked into exhausting tugs-of-war when they feel their independence is being disrespected—when their needs are ignored and their ideas devalued. Command energy is often the cause: Human beings can handle not getting their way; what they can’t handle is feeling dominated.”

Source: Article: The Anxious Micromanager—Why Some Leaders Become Too Controlling and How They Find the Right Balance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:47 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 9, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal on organizational politics:

“Leaders need friends and allies to get things done. To sew up support, they need to build coalitions. Rationalists and romantics sometimes react with horror to this scenario. Why should you have to play political games to get something accepted if it’s the right thing to do? One of the classics of French drama, Molière’s The Misanthrope, tells the story of a protagonist whose rigid rejection of all things political is destructive for him and everyone involved. The point that Molière made four centuries ago still holds: it is hard to dislike politics without also disliking people. Like it or not, political dynamics are inevitable under three conditions most managers face every day: ambiguity, diversity, and scarcity.”

Source: How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing

II.

Biologist John Medina on sleep:

“Sleep loss means mind loss. Sleep loss cripples thinking in just about every way you can measure thinking. Sleep loss hurts attention, executive function, immediate memory, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning ability, and general math knowledge. Eventually, sleep loss affects manual dexterity, including fine motor control and even gross motor movements, such as the ability to walk on a treadmill.”

Source: Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:47 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 2, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Robert Cooper on preparing for the unexpected:

“We don’t always handle difficult situations as well as we could. Consider that the most exceptional people in many fields—athletes, teachers, and artists, for example—spend more time rehearsing than they do performing, whereas for most people, it’s just the opposite: almost no time practicing and most of their time performing. In the rush to achieve objectives, there is little attention to actually learning, in advance, better ways to live and lead. It takes serious rehearsal to build new skills, especially when the task involves overturning deeply ingrained brain patterns and habits.

Mentally rehearsing a new way that you might behave in the face of adversity activates the prefrontal cortex, and your imagined activities begin firing neurons and wiring them into brain patterns that can be activated whenever they’re needed. Without attentive rehearsal, your brain will not mobilize in advance, and despite your best intentions, you will act out old, counterproductive routines instead—or new, counterproductive ones, fired not by calm effectiveness but by frustration, anger, and other emotions that can distract you from giving best. When you prepare the prefrontal cortex to activate ahead of time, you will be better at calmly, effectively performing the right action.”

Source: Get Out of Your Own Way: The 5 Keys to Surpassing Everyone’s Expectations

II.

Morgan McCall, Jr. on leadership development:

“People are complex tapestries of values, attitudes, beliefs, and abilities. It is misleading to believe that these ten or those ten virtues apply to all successful executives in all situations, even within the same company. How that tapestry is woven, not its individual threads, determines how it looks. The room it is hung in and the surrounding decor—not individual threads—determine whether the colors and patterns of the tapestry are a good fit.”

Source: High Flyers: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 25, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

David Rock on listening for potential in others:

“When you listen for potential, you’re assuming that others have the capacity to answer the question for themselves; you then respectfully see how you can best make yourself useful. Listening for potential is a choice in every moment. By choosing to listen to people as successful, competent, and able to resolve their dilemmas, guess what’s likely to happen? They often solve their problems and get on with the job. Quiet Leaders listen for potential. They listen to people as though they have all the tools they need to be successful, and could simply benefit from exploring their thoughts and ideas out loud.”

Source: Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work

II.

Roger Martin on our personal knowledge system dynamics:

“Personal knowledge systems are highly path-dependent. When a person starts in a given direction, that direction is likely to be reinforced and amplified, not diminished or altered. This can happen for good or bad. A narrow and defensive stance will lead to acquisition of extremely limited tools and extremely limiting experiences. Those experiences then feed back into the acquisition of even more limited tools and the formation of an even narrower stance.”

Source: The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 18, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Professor Mary Murphy on organizational mindsets:

“The question is not: ‘Are you a person with more of a fixed or growth mindset?’ The question is: ‘When are you in your fixed mindset and when are you in your growth mindset?’ At the organizational level, the question is not: ‘How can we avoid hiring fixed mindset people?’ The question is: ‘What triggers our employees to adopt more fixed- or growth-mindset views and behaviors? How can we shape the environment to encourage more of a growth mindset more of the time?’”

Source: Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations

II.

William Ury on how we become our own worst enemy:

“The greatest power we have in difficult situations is the power to choose not to react but to go to the balcony instead. The balcony is a place of calm and perspective where we can keep * our eyes on the prize.”

Source: Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:16 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 11, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson on co-creating:

“The dark truth of success is that if we make it all about ourselves, our own egos, our individual performance, it eventually breaks down. It won’t have staying power. Most of us have experienced the reality of bosses or corporate cultures that go it alone, pushing agendas on us rather than building with us. Startups know this feeling. People running full speed toward their dreams know this feeling. But it’s fleeting. It doesn’t last if it’s not built with others, co-created.”

Source: Brave Together: Lead by Design, Spark Creativity, and Shape the Future with the Power of Co-Creation

II.

Adam Grant on personality and character:

“Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition—your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.

Knowing your principles doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to practice them, particularly under stress or pressure. It’s easy to be proactive and determined when things are going well. The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character how you show up on a hard day.”

Source: Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:10 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 4, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

General Gordon R. Sullivan on the power of reflection:

“Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore said that he had been reflecting, asking himself three questions: “What is happening? What is not happening? How can I influence the action?” Moore’s behavior captured the essence of strategic leadership. Moore was scanning his environment, thinking about his situation, then determining his best course. The future was winning the battle, simply parrying each thrust. The genius in Moore’s approach lies in his second question. By reflecting on what was not happening, he opened his mind to broader opportunities, to see the full range of his options. He was better able to anticipate what might or might not happen next and to plan his moves to best advantage. When asking can I influence the action?” he could thus envision a far greater range of responses than if he had simply been thinking in terms of action and counteraction.”

Source: Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America’s Army

II.

Fred Kofman on transcendent leadership:

“Transcendent leaders work to align the individual purposes of those under them into a larger collective purpose that makes each individual larger as well. They align their best efforts with the organization’s in natural ways that other systems can’t lead them to do. It is the difference between rowing and sailing. A boat moved by mere muscle is no match for one moved by wind. A boat propelled the wind flows in harmony with the natural forces. An organization that moves forward by formal authority is like a rowboat. One moved by a transcendent purpose is like a sailboat with the wind behind it, filling its sails.”

Source: The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:07 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 28, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Executive coach Daniel Harkavy on the core coaching competency of discernment:

“Discernment refers to the ability to see what is not visible, to understand what is not being said. Discernment enables a coach to ask effective questions, unearthing roadblocks, fears, and doubts that keep a team member from reaching his or her goals. And where do you get discernment? It comes with time in the coach’s seat. The more you invest in people and the more focused and intentional you become about helping people overcome obstacles, the more you will develop your discernment muscle.”

Source: Becoming a Coaching Leader: The Proven System for Building Your Own Team of Champions

II.

Pete Davis on democracy and commitment:

“In many ways, our whole democracy is an exercise in intertwining commitments and change. Democracy is all about the institutionalization of constant change. Even at the smallest level of democracy—a simple political conversation with someone with whom you disagree—we need commitment. Both people have to come to the table in good faith. If you’re not committed to a deliberative process, it has no chance of transforming you. A conversation you can easily exit is one where there will be none of the reconciliation, transformation, discovery of commonality, or higher synthesis—none of the development of a shared culture—needed to make democracy work. In a democracy, we’re working on something together, so the tension that comes with association must be held by everyone. If there’s no commitment to that tension, there can be no democracy.”

Source: Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 21, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Sport executive Scott O’Neil on keeping what’s most important front and center:

“What matters more than anything else to you? These are your guideposts, and any moment spent away from them is likely not a good use of time, a wasted effort, or, worse yet, just noise. This applies to work, home, faith, family, health, friends, and community. Your WMI might change, and it might be different for you today than three years from now, and it might be different for home with your spouse or with good friends or coaching a team. But you’ve got to figure out what the main thing is and transfer the time, energy, resources, and mindshare there. Put the emphasis where it belongs, in your WMI, and the rewards you will reap are hard to put into words.”

Source: Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving

II.

Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis on the need for both/and thinking:

“Uncertainty alone does not trigger a defensive reaction. Uncertainty can be beneficial or detrimental. It can spark curiosity and open-mindedness, it can also lead to more defensive closed-mindedness. The different reactions to uncertainty depend on our level of threat. Greater threat drives us to respond to uncertainty with a more closed, narrow focus. We avoid the information or ideas that raised the uncertainty in the first place. That is, we turn to either/or thinking seeking to minimize the uncertainty, and thereby the threat.”

Source: Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:49 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 14, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Jason Jennings on having a clear destination:

“Not having a clear destination means never knowing the steps you need to take to get to where you want to go, never knowing if you’ve arrived or if you’ve achieved what you set out to accomplish. But if you have your destination in sight, those things that need to be reinvented will become obvious.”

Source: The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change

II.

Alan Weiss on how powerlessness corrupts:

“Psychologically, people cannot comfortably live with the perception that they are powerless. So they make it up. That’s right, they create artificial power. And there is a name for that: bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the triumph of means over ends.”

Source: Thrive! Stop Wishing Your Life Away

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:13 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 7, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Umberto Eco on leading by example:

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

Source: Foucault’s Pendulum

II.

Jenifer Goldman-Wetzler on using our emotions to break our conflict habits:

“Putting your emotions to work for you does not involve tamping them down, getting rid of them, or scrutinizing why you feel the way you feel. Instead, it includes identifying, acknowledging, and using your emotions as a catalyst for constructive, pattern-breaking action. You simply cannot free yourself from the conflict loop if you are unable to use your own emotions toward constructive change.”

Source: Optimal Outcomes: Free Yourself from Conflict at Work, at Home, and in Life / Blog Post

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 29, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Kevin Roberts on the nature of leadership:

“Where should people start with “leadership” in a VUCA world? Leadership is both art and science. There are all kinds of leadership. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach. But the essence of leadership doesn’t change. In the last 50 years, production, distribution, and communication have been reset by technology. Leadership hasn’t changed much in 5,000 years. Technology doesn’t alter leadership. It lets leaders reach more people, quicker, more emotionally—that’s all. Leadership resists change because it’s about human nature. Leaders take people to a better place.”

Source: 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World

II.

Douglas Rushkoff on swallowing the storyteller’s pill to experience relief:

“If a storyteller wants us to believe in a religion, then his god will be responsible for our relief. If he wants us to believe in a politician or product, then one of these will be the solution.”

Source: Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:41 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 22, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter on the source of burnout:

“We believe burnout is the result of a mismatch between employee and workplace. Burnout is best conceptualized as a relationship problem—an issue with the fit, or match, between the person and the job. When there is a good match, the worker is likely to be engaged with the job and happy, energetic, confident, and ready to commit to a productive long-term relationship. But when there is a mismatch, the employee is more likely unhappy, exhausted, and cynical. A person in this situation may be unwilling to do more than the bare minimum, and ready to quit the relationship and leave for another job. In short, a worker experiencing a major mismatch is likely to experience burnout.”

Source: The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships with Their Jobs

II.

Professor Moshik Temkin asks if you would fight back against a fascist power?

“We should not ascribe everything that happened in Vichy France to ideology or anti-Semitism. Probably a much more important reason for why certain French citizens acted the way they did was one of the strongest human desires—the desire for normality, which often just equates to conformity. The ideal scenario in 1940, at least for those who were able to, was to abide by the new status quo in an effort to keep life as normal as possible.

Life under tyranny can be banal, even pleasant, for most people. If you yourself are not the target of such a regime, you might not feel any difference at all between a fascist government and a liberal one. Indeed, your personal situation might be quite good. That was the case under the Vichy regime for many Frenchmen, who saw no reason to resist.”

Source: Warriors, Rebels, and Saints: The Art of Leadership from Machiavelli to Malcolm X

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 15, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Talia Fox on listening:

“Many of us remain confident in our ability to listen, insisting that we’ve been doing so all our lives. We believe we should focus our leadership efforts on other, less common skills, gravitating to things that seem newer and more innovative.

Listening is the single most important way to improve our relationships, build community, and achieve our goals. Conscious and connected listening is more complex than it may seem—often, when we think we’re listening, we’re actually just waiting for the chance to share the voices in our heads. The difference is crucial—and it changes everything.”

Source: The Power of Conscious Connection: 4 Habits to Transform How You Live and Lead

II.

Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson on leading with questions:

“If you want to focus on improving relationships, lead with a question. Instead of “How are you doing?” try asking, “What’s something exciting You‘re working on?” or “What do you recommend we do?” Watch people smile and light up when they feel connected. Next time you see someone is struggling, ask, “What’s on your mind?” This could make the difference in their day. It could free up their emotional constraints, even if just for a moment.”

Source: Brave Together: Lead by Design, Spark Creativity, and Shape the Future with the Power of Co-Creation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:24 PM
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Leading Thoughts for February 8, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Scott Shigeoka on other-directed curiosity:

“If we don’t direct our curiosity toward what’s outside of us, we can—become insular and overly self-focused. This can breed narcissistic or egotistical behaviors, decaying our ability to be sensitive and empathetic to the wants and needs of others. When we spend time and energy directing our curiosity outward, we reduce the risk of clinging on to a more individualistic mindset (such as the self-help trope that your only priority is for you to show up fully rather than to also consider how others are feeling). When we practice outward curiosity, we adopt a more collective and harmonic mindset that recognizes the inherent truth that we are all interconnected—to each other and to the planet.”

Source: Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World

II.

Entrepreneur Liz Elting on fine is not fine:

“This experience reinforced to me the importance of one-on-ones and taught me that as we grew, we needed to institute skip-level meetings so that our employees knew they were welcome to speak with their boss’s boss. These are also crucial because it can be difficult for an employee to open up about issues with the manager when speaking to that manager. When not allowed the opportunity to skip a level, the employee is more likely to say everything is fine. Fine is not fine. Fine is a deceptively bad term because it’s not definitive. Fine is what we say when we’d rather say something else but aren’t comfortable – it’s not worth it to do so. Fine doesn’t help anyone grow or improve. I’d much prefer an employee have a higher-level outlet who’s empowered to help them, rather than leaving them to their own devices, which may include bad-mouthing their boss to their coworkers and bringing down morale.”

Source: Dream Big and Win: Translating Passion into Purpose and Creating a Billion-Dollar Business

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:43 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 1, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Matthew Syed on giving failure a makeover:

“Self-justification is insidious. Lying to oneself destroys the very possibility of learning. When a plane has crashed, it’s difficult to pretend the system worked just fine. The failure is too stark, too dramatic. Most failure is not like that. Most failure can be given a makeover. You latch on to any number of justifications: ‘it was a one-off,’ ‘it was a unique case,’ ‘we did everything we could.’”

Source: Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes—But Some Do

II.

Sam Walker on finding leaders:

“I started to suspect that the real reason we can’t agree on the formula for elite team leadership is that we’ve overcomplicated things. We’ve been so busy scanning the horizon for transformational knights in shining armor that we’ve ignored the likelier truth: there are hundreds upon thousands of potentially transformative leaders right in our midst. We just lack the ability to recognize them.”

Source: The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World's Greatest Teams

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:22 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 25, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Shayne Hughes on the toxic habit of being right:

“For our ego, the sensation of being right is like electricity to a lightbulb. It fuels us with energy and vigor. We sit straighter, our voice sharpens, and our language hardens. We face an issue or a conflict, and we see the answer clearly. With this certainty comes a feeling of power and righteousness, as captivating as a drug rush. This is the way it is. Being right sweeps us so automatically into an aggressive mental stance that any collateral damage seems just a necessary evil.”

Source: Ego Free Leadership: Ending the Unconscious Habits That Hijack Your Business

II.

Chris Westfall on the danger of hanging our identity on an outcome:

“Human beings are really good at making stuff up. We create plans and projections and proclamations — stories inside our minds about perfect statues and how high expectations are a requirement for high performance. I’m not saying that having goals is completely useless. It’s not. What I’m talking about is our relationship with our goals. We build up all these ‘if/then’ statements: ‘if the doesn’t go for this idea, then I’m a failure. If she doesn’t love me back, I’m a loser. If this doesn’t go exactly the way I’ve scripted and sculpted it out, I’m a disaster.’ Hanging your identity on an outcome is a recipe for defeat. Because the expectation is based on a misunderstanding. Yet we do it all the time!”

Source: Easier: 60 Ways to Make Your Work Life Work for You

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:15 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 18, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Brianna Wiest on growth through struggle:

“Often, our most intense discomfort is what precedes and necessitates thinking in a way we have never conceived of before. That new awareness creates possibilities that would never exist had we not been forced to learn something new.”

Source: 101 Essays that Will Change the Way You Think

II.

Entrepreneur Brad Jacobs on leaving judgement at the door:

“With non-judgmental concentration, you’re fully present in the moment, putting all your attention on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. Non-judgmental concentration trains your brain to realize that the people and things in your life don’t exist relative to you; they simply exist. If you can take yourself out of the equation, you’ll have a much clearer view. Uncluttered by judgmentalism, you can work more efficiently, because you won’t be as distracted, and you can think more objectively, too.”

Source: How to Make a Few Billion Dollars

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:44 PM
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Leading Thoughts for January 11, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Professor Nigel Nicholson on the challenge of the other perspective:

“Leaders need to remember the risks of the self-centered perspective, and the insights that can be gleaned by getting into a mental helicopter to rise above this view to understand the relativity of where people’s views emanate from. Every stakeholder has a point of view that identifies their position, and an accompanying wish list for the leader. The incoming leader needs to ask, listen, watch, wait, and then … think for themselves.”

Source: The "I" of Leadership: Strategies for Seeing, Being and Doing

II.

Donald Miller on finding meaning in life:

“To experience meaning, you have to accept the fact of your own agency and move into your life with intention. The point is that life feels like it has meaning if you structure your life so that you experience it. If we don’t want something, face our challenges, and try hard things, our life stories don’t work, either.”

Source: Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:46 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 4, 2024

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Use these ideas to spark your own leadership development. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Lance Secretan on projecting:

“When we project, we attribute certain personal traits or feelings to someone else to protect our own ego from accepting the reality that we own the very same traits or feelings—that they reside and flourish in our own shadow. It is especially likely to occur when we lack insight into our own impulses and traits. The behavior we dislike or find uninspiring in others is very often the behavior that exists in our shadow and which we project onto others, and this becomes their experience of us. If we are having trouble getting along with others, we may project this behavior onto them, and this may cause others to have difficulty in getting along with us.”

Source: Inspire! What Great Leaders Do

II.

Rose Patten on being more adaptable:

“A point of concern is how one reconciles adaptability with authenticity. Leaders are expected to do both. Authenticity is not a static, unwavering identity, nor is it an excuse for sticking to what’s most comfortable. Better leaders combine the two, which leads to earning trust. Being authentic cannot survive without an open mind. Nor can an open mind blossom without authenticity. Better leaders view adaptability as a true form of continuous learning and a means to embrace change.”

Source: Intentional Leadership: The Big 8 Capabilities Setting Leaders Apart

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:07 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 28, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Scott Weiss on straight talk:

“Uncertainty has yet to emerge as a higher-order value or behavior that organizations eagerly reward. It’s much easier to throw up an obfuscating cloud of doublespeak, to offer a glib, condescending sound bite, or even to lie outright than to admit that we simply don’t have the answer. But these are tactics that devalue both the question and the questioner. They may temporarily protect our image, but they are not ethical communications, and they don’t engender trust.”

Source: Dare: Accepting the Challenge of Trusting Leadership

II.

Michael Marquardt on the value of questions:

“A questioning culture encourages reflection. When we are immersed in a culture that encourages questions, it helps us become more self-aware, more conscious of choices we have made, more deliberate about our decisions. When a non-threatening environment for questions is a daily reality, people become ever more comfortable with themselves, know their strengths better, and are more self-assured.”

Source: Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:08 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 21, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

John Mattone on getting it right:

“Leaders generally derail not because of a character flaw but rather because they respond immaturely to mounting stress and change.”

Source: Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential

II.

KUSI CEO Talia Fox with an observation regarding organizations:

“Organizations have hierarchies, but rather than mere levels of power, they operate more as levels of understanding and observation.”

Source: The Power of Conscious Connection: 4 Habits to Transform How You Live and Lead

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:21 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 14, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Glenn Llopis on the opportunities that you see and grow will determine your success:

“The significance and impact of your work has more to do with the momentum of opportunities you pursue than anything else. The quantity of opportunities is a smaller matter. The quality of opportunities is everything. This explains why a green twentysomething can birth Facebook while fortysomethings everywhere struggle to make ends meet—or why more people became millionaires during the Great Depression than during any other era of American history, including the dot-com boom.”

Source: Earning Serendipity: 4 Skills for Creating and Sustaining Good Fortune in Your Work

II.

Richard (Craze) Templer on flexible thinking:

“If you want to know how flexible your thinking is, here are a couple of tests. Are the books by the side of your bed the same sorts of books you’ve always read? Have you found yourself saying anything like, “I don’t know any people like that” or “I don’t go to those kind of places?” If so, then perhaps it’s time to broaden your mind and take the shackles off your thinking.”

Source: The Rules of Life: A Personal Code for Living A Better, Happier, More Successful Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:35 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 7, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Consultant Robert "Dusty" Staub on the courage to face our current reality:

“Why do so many intelligent people miss the obvious, focusing on what they wish to be true versus what is currently true and staring them in the face? The answer lies in how our minds distort reality to protect us from doubts or to protect our cherished assumptions and beliefs. For many of us, we simply do not wish to see something that indicates we might have to change our lives and our ways of doing things. Current reality can be inconvenient and downright unpleasant. It often challenges conventional wisdom. Courageously facing current reality means we may upset people who are unwilling to see it, and they will, in turn, pressure us to back down or subscribe to their viewpoint.”

Source: The 7 Acts of Courage : Bold Leadership for a Wholehearted Life

II.

Henry Kissinger on the leader’s challenge:

“Whatever their personal characteristics or modes of action, leaders inevitably confront an unrelenting challenge: preventing the demands of the present from overwhelming the future. Ordinary leaders seek to manage the immediate; great ones attempt to raise their society to their visions.”

Source: Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 30, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia on stewardship:

“People come into this world with gifts and talents, full of possibilities and unrealized potential. Our responsibility as leaders is to help them realize those possibilities by looking for the talents and goodness that exist in them and inspiring them to become what they are meant to be. Leaders are called to help people become what they were put on this earth to be as individuals and as part of a team or community.”

Source: Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family

II.

Barbara Kellerman on the context of leadership:

“We need to think of leadership as a creative act for which leaders and followers both are educated, for which leaders and followers both are prepared over a lifetime of learning.”

Source: The End of Leadership

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 23, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Anthony Iannarino on how to start practicing gratitude:

“One way to start a gratitude practice is to take an inventory of all things for which You should be grateful. Include every good thing you have now and good things you have had in the past, including the experiences you’ve had throughout your life. It is sometimes easier to make a list, as it challenges your mind to fill in the blanks. This list should include the people who have had a profound impact on your life. Or negativity bias has us constantly looking for what is wrong. An inventory of what you are grateful for can help you recognize what you have that is positive and worth being grateful for.”

Source: The Negativity Fast: Proven Techniques to Increase Positivity, Reduce Fear, and Boost Success

II.

Brian Johnson on gratitude:

“As Tal Ben-Shahar tells us: “The word appreciate has tw0 meanings. The first meaning is to be thankful,’ the opposite of taking something for granted. The second meaning is ‘to increase in value’ (as money appreciates in the bank). Combined, these two meanings point to a truth that has been proved repeatedly in research on gratitude: when we appreciate the good in our lives, the good grows and we have more of it. The opposite, sadly, is also true: when we fail to appreciate the good—when we take the good in our lives for granted—the good depreciates.”

Source: Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:08 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 16, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Brad Stulberg on getting comfortable with change:

“If we cannot get comfortable (or at least comfortable enough) with the fact that everything changes, we risk going through life at an arm’s length from its most poignant offerings. In trying to protect ourselves from the experience of change, we end up limiting the depth of our lives.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

II.

William Vanderbloemen on self-awareness:

“Being self-aware makes you better at finding solutions. Knowing yourself comes with a guaranteed pinch: (or more) of humility, so when a self-aware person is faced with a challenge, they can decenter themselves from the issue. Being self-aware is knowing all about you while knowing that it’s not all about you. Whatever the crisis, the Self-Aware remain even-keeled and committed to the goal.”

Source: Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:33 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 2, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Prasad Kaipa and Navi Radjou on wisdom:

“Wisdom itself grounds us, helping us to shift from using our smartness for our own benefit—and often with a zero-sum mindset—to using it for creating new value for a higher purpose.”

Source: From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom

II.

Amy Jen Su on boundaries:

“Boundaries are not about putting on a suit of armor and assuming a defensive posture in trying to protect your time, energy, or emotions like a soldier stationed at the top of a fortress keeping enemies at bay. They’re also not about opening your door so wide that everyone and anything can get in. They’re about finding that middle ground that honors and protects your needs while remaining judiciously available to others.”

Source: The Leader You Want to Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self—Every Day

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:52 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 26, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Paul Schmitz on the idea that everyone leads:

“This does not mean that everyone can lead any effort, organization, or institution, or that one who is a good leader in one context is a good leader in other contexts. It does mean that a great leader can come from anywhere, and that unless more people believe in themselves, take responsibility, and work with others to make a difference, we all lose out from the lost potential.”

Source: Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up

II.

Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer on the need for a clear hierarchy:

“Co-leadership can kill both ideas and people, because it creates uncertainty over who is really in charge. Of course, co-led teams are not always ineffective and dangerous. But when there is not clear division of labor among these leaders, coordination becomes difficult, patterns of deference can disappear, and conflict can erupt.”

Source: Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:13 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 19, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Richard Winters on collaborative decision-making:

“A top-down process for decision-making by edict may work fine in predictable situations or during times of crisis. But when it comes to making strategic decisions in complex and unpredictable environments, the all-too-familiar method of reflexive decision-making breaks down and delivers poor results. Our expertise and our power to decide get in the way of optimal outcomes. This occurs not only when we lead groups of people, but also when we have one-to-one conversations with colleagues.”

Source: You're the Leader. Now What? Leadership Lessons from Mayo Clinic

II.

Mark Sanborn on pulling others to achieve their potential:

“Nobody likes to be driven by someone else; it feels like being pushed. But when someone can show us how to be bigger on the inside—in our attitude and mindset—that can help attract or pull us toward what we can become.”

Source: The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:39 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 12, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter on how careers evolve:

“Nobody knows what they’re doing at first. You have to find something you are interested in, throw yourself at it, do the best you can, and pick things up as you go along. I never saw myself as having a career path. I’ve sort of muddled through from one thing to the next and, for most people, that’s just the way careers evolve.”

Source: Getting There: A Book of Mentors by Gillian Zoe Segal

II.

Fashion designer Rachel Zoe on career goals:

“I never made a blueprint for my future, and I don’t believe in setting rigid career goals. Career paths usually require a lot of trial and error, and you have to allow yourself the freedom to go with the flow. Sometimes, you think you should go in one direction, but it doesn’t work out or feel right. Occasionally, a better opportunity presents itself and you start over in a different area. If you set a goal that isn’t fairly realistic, you could be setting yourself up for failure—which can really set you back emotionally.”

Source: Getting There: A Book of Mentors by Gillian Zoe Segal

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:49 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 5, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Brian Tracy on how to test the validity of your excuses:

“There is a way that you can test your excuses to see if they are valid. It is simply to ask yourself, ‘is there anyone else who has my same excuse but who is moving ahead and succeeding nonetheless?’

“If you are honest with yourself, you will immediately realize that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who have it worse than you could ever imagine but are succeeding anyway. If this is the case, your excuse is invalid. Don’t let it hold you back anymore.”

Source: Crunch Point: The 21 Secrets to Succeeding When It Matters Most

II.

Google’s former Jolly Good Fellow Chade-Meng Tan on self-confidence:

“The type of deep self-knowledge and blatant self-honesty needed for sustainable self-confidence means having nothing to hide from oneself. It comes from accurate self-assessment. If we can assess ourselves accurately, we can clearly and objectively see our greatest strengths and our biggest weaknesses. We become honest to ourselves about our most sacred aspirations and darkest desires. We learn about our deepest priorities in life, what is important to us, and what is not important that we can let go. Eventually, we reach a point where we are comfortable in our own skins. There are no skeletons in our closets we do not already know about. There is nothing about ourselves we cannot deal with. This is the basis of self-confidence.”

Source: Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 28, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Bill Taylor on humility and ambition:

“Exceptional performance begins with extraordinary insights. But that doesn’t mean it’s your job to come up with those insights. In businesses built on new ideas, generating and evaluating ideas is everybody’s business. That’s why humility and ambition need not be at odds. Indeed, humility in the service of ambition is the most effective mind-set for leaders who aspire to do nig things in a world with huge unknowns.”

Source: Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways

II.

Andy Cohen on assuming people think just like you do:

“It’s quite common to get frustrated with another person in your group for not thinking the same way as you do or to become angry when the person acts differently than you would have under the same conditions. There is no right or wrong in these types of situations because each party assumes he or she understands what to do. Yet when things don’t turn out as expected, each party is convinced that the other ‘didn’t listen’ or ‘should have known.’ The ability to create division between people so quickly is what makes [assuming people think like you do] so dangerous.”

Source: Challenge Your Assumptions, Change Your World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:44 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 21, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

John Tierney and Roy Baumeister on it’s what you don’t do:

“Being able to hold your tongue rather than say something nasty or spiteful will do much more for your relationship than a good word or deed.

“Remember the Negative Golden Rule—it’s what you don’t do unto others that matters most—you can avoid grief and save energy.”

Source: The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It

II.

Sean Glaze on complacency:

“Being uncoachable is really about being stuck in a comfort zone that a person refuses to acknowledge or leave.

“Turns out most people want to get better, but they want to do it their way. That usually means doing what they already know, which is just repeating the same stuff that got them stuck. ”

Source: Staying Coachable

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:53 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 14, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Brad Stulberg on diversifying your identity:

“One of the most important parts of developing an identity that can thrive, persist, and endure change is to diversify your sense of self. You can think of identity like a house. You want the house to have multiple rooms. Perhaps there is a ‘parent’ room; an ‘athlete’ room; an ‘employee,’ ‘entrepreneur,’ or ‘executive’ room; a ‘community member’ room, and so on. It’s okay to spend a lot of time in just one room, but you’ve got to ensure you keep the others in good enough shape. This way, when you experience a massive change or disorder event in one area of your life, in one room of your identity, you can step into other areas to gain your footing and stability. Like a diversified portfolio in investing, diversifying your sense of self makes you more rugged and flexible in the face of change.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

II.

Peter Block on freedom and accountability:

“The search for freedom—freedom being the choice to be a creator of our own experience and accept the unbearable responsibility that goes with that. Out of this insight grows the idea that perhaps the real task of leadership is to confront people with their freedom. This may be the ultimate act of love that is called for from those who hold power over others.

Choosing freedom is also a source of our willingness to choose to be accountable. The insight is that freedom is what creates accountability. Freedom is not an escape from accountability, as the popular culture so often misunderstands.”

Source: Community: The Structure of Belonging

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:22 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 7, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Carey Nieuwhof on character:

“If you don’t nurture your character daily, you can be most admired by the people you know least, while the people who know you best struggle with you the most.

Character development for the most part doesn’t happen in some monastery with stone walls and dank cellars. It happens in the grind of everyday life. It has to because that’s where your character gets challenged the most: in parking lots, during meetings, amid marital conflict, and at home when you’re exhausted and the garbage still needs to be taken out and you trip over the kids’ shoes.

If you don’t have a day-to-day strategy, you’ll never win the battle for your soul.”

Source: Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Greatest Challenges That No One Expects and Everyone Experiences

II.

Jeffrey Pfeffer on not deceiving yourself into getting complacent:

“Once people believe they are better leaders—possibly because they have given talks or written about positive leadership, have attended lots of leadership trainings, or because they were once acknowledged for their good leadership—they are less likely to be as vigilant about their subsequent behavior, having already demonstrated their leadership credentials.

It is perhaps not that surprising, then, that some of the most harmful and hypocritical leaders are those who enjoy the most favorable leadership reputations and do a lot of teaching and writing about leadership—actions that then provide them the discretion to not actually live up to those reputations in their real behavior.”

Source: Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 31, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Associate Professor Tod Bolsinger on leading change:

“Groups are hardwired to believe that survival usually means reinforcing the way things have always been. So when an organization feels stress, the default behavior of most organizational leaders is to solve the problems for our organizations rather than change our organizations for meeting the needs of the world. The result is that instead of undergoing transformation to be more effective in our mission to serve the world, organizations unconsciously reinforce the very status quo that is not working.”

Source: Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change

II.

Science journalist Mark Buchanan on great individuals:

“What makes an individual notable and ‘great’ is his or her ability to unleash pent-up forces—the will of an age—and so enable those immeasurably greater forces to have their effect.”

Source: Ubiquity: The Science of History . . . or Why the World Is Simpler Than We Think

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 17, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Martin Moore on why leadership is hard:

“Leadership is hard because, more than anything else, it’s about people. Most of us struggle to manage ourselves: our subconscious drivers, our relationships, our emotions, our mental health, our habits. Leadership demands not only that we master ourselves, but also that we become strong enough and capable enough to help others do the same.”

Source: No Bullsh!t Leadership

II.

Steven Kotler on achieving the art of the impossible:

“Motivation is what gets you into the game; learning is what helps you continue to play; creativity is how you steer; and flow is how you turbo-boost the results beyond all rational standards and reasonable expectations.”

Source: The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:43 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 10, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

John W. Gardner on building meaning into your life:

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like an answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure—as the world measures success or failure—is of less account.”

Source: Living, Leading, and the American Dream

II.

Molecular biologist John Medina on work and family:

“There is no such thing as a firewall between personal issues and work productivity. That’s because we can’t have two brains we can interchange depending on whether we are in our office or in our bedroom. Stress in the workplace affects family life, causing more stress in the family. More stress in the family causes more stress at work, which in turn gets brought home again. It’s a deadly, self-feeding spiral, and researchers call it “work-family conflict.” So you may have the most wonderful feelings about autonomy at work, and you may have tremendous problem-solving opportunities with your colleagues. But if your home life is a wreck, you can still suffer the negative effects of stress, and so can your employer.”

Source: Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:00 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 3, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Ray Dalio on embracing reality as indispensable to making good choices:

“People who confuse what they wish were true with what is really true create distorted pictures of reality that make it impossible for them to make the best choices.”

Source: Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

II.

Timothy Keiningham and Lerzan Aksoy on the art of loyalty:

“Loyalty by its very nature demands that we commit ourselves to a person, group, or cause. We suppress our short-term self-interests to maintain our bond. In its most noble form, we serve a cause greater than ourselves, designed to unite with another. Therefore, in our training to be loyal, we need to learn the real meaning of service to something greater than oneself.”

Source: Why Loyalty Matters: The Groundbreaking Approach to Rediscovering Happiness, Meaning and Lasting Fulfillment in Your Life and Work

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:28 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 27, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Gary Hoover on the need for leaders with a renaissance mind:

“The more specialized we become, the greater our need for leaders who can help bring unity to our efforts. We need people who can think, write, and speak with clarity and conviction, people who can relate to and motivate accountants and salespeople, nurses and electrical engineers, systems analysts and social workers.”

Source: Hoover's Vision: Original Thinking for Business Success

II.

Jen Goldman-Wetzler on acknowledging feedback:

“Because humans have an innate need to maintain a positive view of ourselves, we tend to be threatened by, and therefore ignore, reject, or become defensive or even aggressive, in reaction to information that does not confirm this view.”

Source: Optimal Outcomes: Free Yourself from Conflict at Work, at Home, and in Life (Blog Post)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 20, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Siimon Reynolds on how vagueness leads to failure:

“The average person has no clear purpose, and that’s why people end up average. It’s not unusual to see people working 12 hours a day and still not getting anything substantial done. Why? At the heart of it, their lack of clarity about the best use of their time leads them to work on what’s urgent, not what’s important. Foggy purpose always leads to mediocre results, no matter how intelligent you are.”

Source: Why People Fail: The 16 Obstacles to Success and How You Can Overcome Them

II.

Kobe Bryant on the focus necessary to become a champion:

“Basketball, for me, was the most important thing. So everything I saw, whether it was TV shows, whether it was books I read, people I talked to—everything was done to learn how to become a better basketball player. Everything. Everything. So when you have that point of view, the world becomes your library to help you become better at your craft.

“What I found in the NBA is a lot of guys played for financial stability. When it came to the NBA, they got that financial stability, so therefore the passion, the work ethic, and the obsessiveness was gone. I’m looking at that, and I’m like, ‘This is going to be like taking candy from a baby. No wonder Michael Jordan wins all these championships.’ This is crazy. And then you had the players that had that passion but weren’t willing to commit their entire lives to doing that. It’s a choice. You have other things. You have family, and you have all these other things you have to do. The game really can’t be your number-one priority. I’m looking at that, and I’m like, this is going to be fun.”

Source: Valuetainment, Kobe Bryant’s Last Great Interview

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:01 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 13, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

John Mattone on the importance of critical thinking:

“Much of your natural thinking as a leader, when left unchecked, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced. Your effectiveness as a leader, however, depends precisely on the quality of your thoughts. Critical thinking is that mode of thinking, about any given subject, in which you, the thinker, improve the quality of your thinking by skillfully taking charge of its very structures and imposing intellectual standards upon them. Effective critical thinking, however, involves consideration of the full range of possibilities to a problem, including emotional, cognitive, intellectual, and psychological factors.”

Source: Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential

II.

Tiffani Bova on the need to focus on input metrics to get at the source of problems:

“When businesses realize they are falling short in delivering great employee and customer experiences, they tend to make the same mistake: they set out to fix the problems without really knowing why they are coming up in the first place. Without data, companies don’t have the ability to determine causes. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop many of them from moving forward with important strategic decisions. By focusing on symptoms before diagnosing causes, they overlook the actual problems that, inevitably, continue to cause trouble in measurable or, worse, hidden ways.”

Source: The Experience Mindset: Changing the Way You Think About Growth

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:57 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 6, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

John Bogle asks us what rabbit we are chasing:

“[We need to] ask ourselves whether we’re chasing the fake rabbit of success or the real rabbit or meaning, defined by the contributions to our society that stem from principle, virtue, and character.

“While our best and brightest are exquisitely trained to pursue the false rabbis of success, on the whole they are being poorly trained in the intangible qualities that become the virtues that bring real success.”

Source: Enough. True Measures of Money, Business, and Life

II.

Noel M. Tichy on the need to produce leaders at all levels:

“Leadership is the whole game. No institution—religious, military, educational, political or business—can be great unless it has a great leader at the top who develops leaders at all levels of the organization. The goal is leaders at all levels who all teach and develop other leaders.”

Source: The Cycle of Leadership: How Great Leaders Teach Their Companies to Win

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:34 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 29, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Jon Gordon on our connectedness:

“In Los Angeles—home to some of the worst traffic in the United States—a brilliant sign read, ‘You are the traffic.’ In essence, since we are all one, we are all the traffic. When you realize this truth, you stop seeing others as separate and part of the problem. In fact, the circumstance is not even a problem. The lie that you are separate is the problem. Remember the truth and enbjoy the ride.”

Source: The One Truth: Elevate Your Mind, Unlock Your Power, Heal Your Soul

II.

Robert Waterman on bureaucracies:

“Bureaucracy gets us through the day; it deals efficiently with everyday problems. The trouble is, change ignores conventional bureaucratic lines. The real action in organizations occurs outside ‘the proper channels.’”

Source: Adhocracy

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:16 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 22, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire on mindful daydreaming:

“It may be wise to question whether we should always be living in the moment and whether this is the best way to foster creative thinking. Finding this ‘middle way’ between mindfulness and mind wandering can help us enjoy the optimal benefits of both ways of thinking. Mindfulness helps us truly see what’s around us—a skill of paramount importance in life and art—but it must be balanced with giving the mind space to dream, fantasize, and simply roam free.”

Source: Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind

II.

Martyn Newman on how your self-confidence determines your success:

“If you grew up in an environment in which you were continually criticized, you probably learned to focus on your faults and inadequacies. You may do a number of things really well, but when you make a simple mistake, you enlarge it out of proportion. It’s like your attention is conditioned to ignore the things you have done well; instead, it is drawn like a magnet to focus on the negative parts of your performance. And there is a direct relationship between your performance in any area and your level of self-confidence.”

Source: Emotional Capitalists: The New Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 15, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Boyd Clark and Ron Crossland on how leaders need to fill in the blanks:

“When leaders communicate facts alone, constituents fill in the emotional and symbolic blanks. The same is true for the other channels. We always fill in the blanks. Remember your brain works this way. When constituents fill in the blanks left by leaders, they construct a different message than the leader sent. Leaders, believing they have communicated completely, not fall into the fatal assumptions trap. What results is one of four things: a lack of understanding, a lack of agreement, a lack of caring, or a lack of appropriate action.”

Source: The Leader’s Voice: How Your Communication Can Inspire Action and Get Results!

II.

Scott Adams on knowing where to start:

“When you do something the wrong way, the people who know how to do things the right way will generally jump in to tell you what you are doing wrong. Take advantage of all that free advice.

“If you don’t know how to do something the right way, and Googling doesn’t help, the only alternative to doing things the wrong way is to do nothing at all. That’s loserthink. Waiting until you know how to do something exactly right is a poor strategy. You could be waiting forever. Better to jump in, make your mistakes, and see what kind of free assistance that attracts.”

Source: Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 8, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

John Daly on the importance of repetition:

“There is a wonderful story of a man who was so in love with a woman who lived far from him that every day, for 500 days, he mailed a love letter to her. On the 500th day, she married the postman. Exposure works. Up to a point, it can enhance decision-maker’s feelings toward an idea.”

Source: Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others | (Blog Post)

II.

Neen James on deliberate attention:

“I think paying attention means listening with our eyes and our ears, thinking with our brains, understanding with our hearts, and giving with our souls. Deliberate attention means identifying the people, priorities, and passions that matter most in our lives and then purposefully and proactively focusing our conscious attention on them.

“Conscious attention is stopping what we are doing on the computer to give our full attention to a team member who comes into our office to talk.

“Deliberate attention is organizing your attention toward a particular purpose. It’s saying no to some things so you can say yes to the important things that deserve your time and focus.”

Source: Attention Pays: How to Drive Profitability, Productivity, and Accountability

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:40 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 1, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

T.D. Jakes on disruptive thinking:

“Every period of chaos brings with it a gift—an opportunity to disrupt the chaos by providing a solution rather than joining the debate. Disruptive thinking isn’t about picking a side in the argument; it’s about stepping past the argument toward a solution.”

Source: Disruptive Thinking: A Daring Strategy to Change How We Live, Lead, and Love

II.

Retired Navy SEAL commander Rich Diviney on dynamic subordination:

“In a high-performance team, leadership shifts to wherever, and whomever, the leader needs to be at any given moment. Those teams understand that information, challenges, and obstacles can come from any angle at any time. And they’re effective because the teammate closest to the problem is able to step up and lead, while the rest of the group defers to that temporary leader.”

Source: The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:50 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 25, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Schoolteacher Alice Moore Hubbard, on how to teach:

“Teaching is successful only as it causes people to think for themselves. What the teacher thinks matters little; what he makes the child think matters much.”

Source: Life Lessons: Truths Concerning People Who Have Lived

II.

Ray Bradbury on the lost art of contemplation and real connection:

“Across the street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts. What was it Clarisse had said one afternoon? ‘No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn’t want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turning things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs anymore. They're too comfortable. Get people up and running around.’”

Source: Fahrenheit 451

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:22 PM
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Leading Thoughts for May 18, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Daphne Jones on looking beyond the distractions:

“Focus on the outcomes. You need to be like a football team that is focused on getting that ball in the end zone. You can’t be distracted by the people who seem to be ‘coming after you.’ Even though you will be aware of the naysayers, the haters, those who will try to drag you down, don’t focus on them, but merely calculate how you will go around them or through them to get to your outcome and goal.”

Source: Win When They Say You Won't: Break Through Barriers and Keep Leveling Up Your Success

II.

William Dawson on the value of limitations:

“The thing that is least perceived about wealth is that all pleasure in money ends at the point where economy becomes unnecessary. The man who can buy anything he covets values nothing that he buys. There is a subtle pleasure in the extravagance that contests with prudence; in the anxious debates which we hold with ourselves whether we can or cannot afford a certain thing; in our attempts to justify our wisdom; in the risk and recklessness of our operations; in the long deferred and final joy of our possession; but this is a kind of pleasure which the man of boundless means never knows.”

Source: The Quest of the Simple Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:52 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 11, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Morra Aarons-Mele on labeling:

“Such an error in thinking gets you off the hook when it comes to improving a situation. If you think you’re inherently bad (I am a failure), rather than a normal person who makes mistakes or bad decisions (I occasionally fail), you’ve essentially given up before even trying. The same thing occurs when you label other people. ‘You see them as totally bad,’ David Burns writes. ‘This makes you feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves little room for constructive communication.’ Labeling makes it difficult to create a workplace culture with constructive communication and teams committed to improving performance.”

Source: The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower

II.

Douglas McGregor on motivation:

“The motivation, the potential for development, the capacity for assuming responsibility, the readiness to direct behavior toward organizational goals are all present in people. Management does not put them there. It is a responsibility of management to make it possible for people to recognize and develop these human characteristics for themselves.”

Source: Leadership & Motivation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 4, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Susan Fowler on letting go of the notion that you can and should motivate people:

“Attempting to motivate people is a losing proposition, no matter your resources. Why? Because people are already motivated—but maybe not in the way you want. When you assume people aren’t motivated, you tend to fall back to strategies proven ineffective, wrongheaded, or even counter to what you intended. You incentivize, and when that doesn’t work, you add more carrots (rewards, incentives, bribes). When you run out of carrots, you may try wielding a thicker stick (threats, fearmongering, and punishment). At some point, you realize your attempts to motivate people are fruitless or, even worse, more harmful than beneficial.”

Source: Why Motivating People Doesn't Work...and What Does, Second Edition: More Breakthroughs for Leading, Energizing, and Engaging

II.

Former NASA engineer-project manager and launch director at SpaceX John Muratore on the importance of purpose:

“Tom Holloway, a very famous Program Manager, and head of Flight Directors for a long time, told me something very interesting. He said, ‘People ask us what our greatest resource is, and we always say, ‘our people.’ We have some bright people, but the truth of the matter is we don’t have any better people than anybody else has. Our people aren’t our greatest resource. Our sense of mission is our greatest resource. When we lose our sense of mission, we are in the most jeopardy. When we have a high sense of mission, we can overcome any obstacle. Where we get in trouble is where we lose the sense of mission. We get wrapped up in politics, we get wrapped up in budget and schedule. We get wrapped up in personal issues. If we want the best for NASA, we’ve got to keep our mission, focus on what’s our mission.’ If our activity is not clearly, demonstrably, absolutely, most effectively supporting that mission, we’ve got to change what we’re doing. No matter how painful or how difficult. Because our people sense it, and then we no longer get the best out of them.

“Finding what the mission was and instilling that sense of mission in our people has always been the difficult challenge, and it’s probably the most difficult challenge today because I think people are confused beyond all shadow of a doubt right now about our mission. They don’t understand what the mission is, and that’s the biggest challenge. I think the cool thing about it is that’s something we can do something about it. It’s something totally within our control. ”

Source: NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Interview, May 14, 2008

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:46 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 27, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

INSEAD professor Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries on wisdom:

“Wise people recognize that life moves with an ebb and a flow. There will be highs and lows and there will be peaks and valleys. Life is never going to be an easy ride, but during this journey that is your life there can be discovery, change and growth if that is what you seek. During this journey, you can have a choice: you can acquire wisdom or you can remain blinded. What you decide to do is all up to you. This journey towards wisdom very much implies living in the present, planning for the future, and profiting from the past.”

Source: Leading Wisely: Becoming a Reflective Leader in Turbulent Times

II.

Adam Markel on what’s worth fighting for:

“Part of keeping calm is just doing the thing that’s I front of you and not getting your emotions lost in fighting battles about what is fair or unfair. That’s a losing proposition. Even when we’re correct and we’re fighting over what is fair or unfair, we’re losing. There’s right and there’s wrong. That’s different. That’s worth fighting for.”

Source: Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-term Resilience

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:41 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 20, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

As the new CEO of United Airlines, Oscar Munoz on listening:

“Perhaps it wasn’t as important that I proved to employees that I had all the answers to every problem. If I simply demonstrated that, before I intended to lead, I wanted to listen and learn from them, perhaps that would be enough to generate goodwill.

If I could just break down this wall of distrust, it would be more important than getting every decision right. The only way to do that was to speak honestly about where I came from, how I was raised, and the values my experiences in life had instilled in me.”

Source: Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies

II.

Bertrand Russell on how to grow old:

“Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one’s mind more keen. If this is true, it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.”

Source: Portraits from Memory and Other Essays

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:38 AM
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Leading Thoughts for April 13, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Laura Gassner Otting on just taking action:

“When struggling to make big life choices—leaving a job, ending a relationship, seeking more education, quitting smoking—studies show people who flip a coin and ‘go for it’ regardless of the outcome are more satisfied with their decisions and much happier six months later than those whose coin toss instructed them to maintain the status quo. Action beats stagnation. When you’re unsure about what to do, you’ll be happiest if you just choose something to do.”

Source: Wonderhell: Why Success Doesn't Feel Like It Should . . . and What to Do About It

II.

Admiral William H. McRaven on death before dishonor:

“Leadership is difficult because it is a human interaction, and nothing is more daunting, more frustrating, more complex than trying to lead men and women in tough times.

To live life above the common level of life: to be noble when others may be unprincipled, to be honorable when others may be shameless, to be men and women of integrity when others may resort to dishonesty. What I found in leading and being led by great officers from all branches of service was the importance of character and having a personal code of honor to help guide you through the difficult times. ”

Source: The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:56 PM
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Leading Thoughts for April 6, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Dave Ramsey on momentum:

“Momentum is an interesting and somewhat elusive thing. When you have momentum in any area of your life you look better than you are. When your star is shining everyone thinks you are smarter and prettier than you really are. Conversely when you don’t have momentum you are better than you look. What we discovered is that momentum is not a random lightning strike, but on the contrary, it is actually created.”

Source: EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches

II.

Associate professor Mark de Rond on lovable fools and competent jerks:

“The analysis suggests that if someone is strongly disliked, it is almost irrelevant whether or not he is competent. By contrast, if someone is liked, her colleagues will seek out every bit of competence she has to offer, meaning that a little likeability has far more mileage than competence in making someone a desirable team player.”

Source: There Is an I in Team: What Elite Athletes and Coaches Really Know About High Performance

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 30, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Will Marré on making choices based on our outer identity:

“Instead of making authentic choices, we make choices based on the part we’re playing. Our lives are dictated, to a large degree, by what we think we must do to remain members in good standing of whatever club we have decided to join.”

Source: Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner

II.

John Baird and Ed Sullivan on what could derail you:

“It is crucial for leaders to be very clear about what their values mean in practice. Transparency can be conflated with having no privacy. Honesty can be conflated with oversharing. And inclusion can be conflated with consensus.”

Source: Leading with Heart: Five Conversations That Unlock Creativity, Purpose, and Results

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:59 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 23, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Bob Chapman, Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, on developing human potential:

“When somebody comes into our organization and agrees to join us, when we invite them into our organization, we become stewards of that life, just as we are when a child comes into our life. A different level of intensity but the same concept. And the way we treat that person who joins our organization will profoundly affect that person’s marriage and the way that person raises their children and interacts with our community.”

Source: The Lean CEO: Leading the Way to World-Class Excellence

II.

Former president of Florida Hospital’s Central Region, Brian Paradis on the hero leader:

“Our society has a case of the hero leader. We admire a strong leader. Even if we fear them, we believe they will get things done. He or she will have a direction and we won’t flounder. The responsibility for success rests with them, not us, so we don’t have to be accountable. This is seductive but it does not hold up under scrutiny. There is a long list of organizational and personal failure under this brand of leader.”

Source: Lead with Imagination

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:19 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 16, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Ritch Eich on natural born leaders:

“Too often we hear things such as ‘he (or she) is a natural-born leader.’ A person may, indeed, have the make-up, temperament, patience, and vision to lead, but without the right attitude, experience, approach, and training, that individual’s ‘knack’ for leadership doesn’t translate into real leadership.”

Source: Real Leaders Don't Boss: Inspire, Motivate, and Earn Respect from Employees and Watch Your Organization Soar

II.

NFL Offensive tackle Rayfield Wright on leading our youth:

“Parents, teach your children well. Encourage them with your faith and leadership. Remember that you are the windows through which your children see this world. Take notice of yourself and the things that you do in hopes that your example will stir their hearts and souls.”

Source: Speech, Don’t Be Afraid to Travel the Road Less Traveled, August 5, 2006, NFL Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:12 AM
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Leading Thoughts for March 9, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Matt Higgins on why you need to go all in:

“Backup plans can make you feel safer and help you cope with uncertainty, but they also reduce the likelihood that your primary goal will ever be achieved. The mere act of contemplating a Plan B sets in motion a feedback loop that dramatically lessens the probability that Plan A will come to fruition. You spend too much of your emotional energy on contingency planning instead of on success.”

Source: Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential

II.

Robert E. Quinn on the courage to change ourselves:

“One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change. Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment. Personal change is the way to avoid slow death. When we are continually growing, we have an internal sense of meaning and impact. We are full of energy and radiate a successful demeanor. To have such feelings in a continually changing environment, we must continually realign ourselves with our environment.”

Source: Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within  

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 23, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Matt Mayberry on avoiding slogans and no action when transforming your culture:

“Culture is not just about turning values into behaviors. It’s about turning values into repeatable behaviors, into actions that become daily habits that are shared across the organization.

Doing something most of the time, especially in the context of exchanging a negative behavior for a new and more positive behavior, is a good first step in the right direction, but it’s still just a step. Doing something repeatedly, to the point where it becomes ingrained into what an organization does daily and becomes common practice, is where cultural excellence lies.”

Source: Culture Is the Way: How Leaders at Every Level Build an Organization for Speed, Impact, and Excellence

II.

Abraham Lincoln on the requirements for facing new challenges:

“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country”

Source: Annual Message to Congress – Concluding Remarks, December 1, 1862

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:29 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 16, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Nine-time Grammy-winning producer Rick Rubin on awareness:

“Awareness is not a state you force. There is little effort involved, though persistence is key. It’s something you actively allow to happen. It is a presence with, and acceptance of, what is happening in the eternal now.

As soon as you label an aspect of Source, you’re no longer noticing, you’re studying. This holds true of any thought that takes you out of presence with the object of your awareness, whether analysis or simply becoming aware that you’re aware. Analysis is a secondary function. The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention. If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.”

Source: The Creative Act: A Way of Being

II.

Professor Robert Mayerovitch on teachability:

“Curiosity doesn’t negate what you know and treasure. Instead, it offers the promise of even more: more richness, more depth, and breadth, more opportunities to be amazed and troubled and challenged and stimulated and ultimately uplifted by what you find.”

Source: Speech, The Challenge of Otherness, May 7, 2006

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:46 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 9, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Robin Sharma on leadership roles:

“Know your role. Everyone needs to behave like a leader—no matter what they do. Everyone needs to demonstrate leadership traits—regardless of their position. That means everyone needs to take responsibility for getting results that they generate. Everyone needs to do their part to shape culture. Everyone needs to be positive and inspirational. Everyone needs to keep customers happy and protect the brand. Everyone is a leader. But not everyone is the same.”

Source: The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class

II.

Rose Patten on true collaboration:

“Spirited collaboration – enabling and encouraging dissent, with the ultimate objective of arriving at a better outcome. A harmonious group of like minds becomes an echo chamber of agreement. A leader who doesn’t allow diverse opinions and ideas for improvement will perform suboptimally. Today’s leadership challenges – a more complex and diverse workplace, digitalization, far-reaching stakeholder expectations – will push the need for inclusive and dissenting (“spirited”) collaboration.”

Source: Intentional Leadership: The Big 8 Capabilities Setting Leaders Apart

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:13 AM
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Leading Thoughts for February 2, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Robert Kaplan on learning to ask the right questions:

“Fortunately, the key to managing and leading your organization and your career does not lie in ‘having all the answers.’ The key lies in making a conscious effort to regularly step back to reflect, and then identify and frame the issues that are central to leading your organization effectively into the future.”

Source: What to Ask the Person in the Mirror: Critical Questions for Becoming a More Effective Leader and Reaching Your Potential

II.

Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn on creativity:

“Regardless of exactly how you define creativity, the key thing is that we never create out of whole cloth. Instead, we connect what we have, bringing together two or more elements in a new way. Abundant ideaflow requires enormous amounts of raw material to make more of these unexpected combinations.”

Source: Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:54 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 26, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Niccolò Machiavelli on resistance to change:

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”

Source: The Prince Translated by Thomas G. Bergin (1947)

II.

George Steele and Paul Kircher on innovation:

“Picture a man in charge of weapons for a medieval king. If he is scientific minded, he will try to improve his bows and arrows by working on different parts of the product. The searcher may be assigned to study the properties of feathers. He will try to improve the breed of birds, study feather selection, and storage, investigate whether they should be trimmed ½- or ¾-inch wide, and so on. This man will conduct what many call ‘scientific research’ for years. He may achieve many improvements, giving arrows better stability and accuracy; but what is the chance that such a man will ever invent a gun? If he should hear about one, the chances are he will do his best to point out how unstable and dangerous it is to carry a powder horn, how inaccurate the new guns are, and how many families depend for their livelihood on the chicken feather business.”

Source: The Crisis We Face: Automation and the Cold War

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Leading Thoughts for January 19, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Susan Scott on being with someone prepared to be nowhere else:

“It’s amazing how this seemingly small thing—simply paying fierce attention to another, really asking, really listening, even during a brief conversation—can evoke such a wholehearted response. A Chinese proverb says, ‘When a question is posed ceremoniously, the universe responds.’ When someone really asks, we really answer.”

Source: Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time

II.

Ray Bradbury on the power of always taking the next step:

“Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad—you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year.”

Source: Interview: The Art of Fiction No. 203

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Leading Thoughts for January 12, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Nathan and Susannah Furr on uncertainty:

“Behind every uncertainty you are facing—even the unwanted and unpromising varieties—insight, growth, and possibility are waiting in the wings. We are all wired to fear the downsides of uncertainty, but we forget that change, creation, transformation, and innovation rarely show up without some measure of it.”

Source: The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown / (Blog Post)

II.

Scott Sonenshein on pushing ourselves into action:

“The wait for the ‘right’ resources can be long or even never-ending, but acting immediately teaches us to appreciate and work with what we do have.”

Source: Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less—and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined / (Blog Post)

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for January 5, 2023

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Ed O’Malley and Julia McBride on asking, “What’s my part of this mess?”:

“One person can see a problem, get more curious about it, and use their influence to make things better. But real change begins when lots of people get curious about what’s really going on with a problem or challenge.”

Source: When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved

II.

Journalist and essayist Pico Iyer on uncertainty:

“We’re always living in a state of uncertainty — two years ago, two years from now — and that therefore, part of our challenge as I see it is to make uncertainty our church in New Jersey — to make it our home. This is where we’re living, every day of our lives. And so, as you said, let’s rejoice in it, furnish it, close the door, rearrange the books, and say, Make this as beautiful as it can, given that forest fire, earthquake, or who knows what will be coming tomorrow — or tremendous beauty and love may be coming in the door tomorrow.”

Source: Pico Iyer interviews with Elizabeth Gilbert, The Future of Hope Series

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:34 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 29, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Charles Handy on the nature of vision:

“A plan or a strategy which is a projection of the present or a replica of what everyone else is doing is not a vision. A vision has to reframe the known scene, to reconceptualize the obvious, connect the previously unconnected dream.”

Source: The Age of Unreason

II.

Korn Ferry CEO Gary Burnison on failure:

“The most important aspect of failure is not the moment of defeat or loss. Rather, it is what happens the moment after failure occurs and a choice is presented: to allow fear to rule or to shift from setback to lesson learned. Henry Ford said, ‘Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.’ I don’t know a CEO who can’t identify with that sentiment, knowing that it takes both success and failure to shape one’s ability to lead. Success may instill confidence, but it is failure that imparts wisdom. With wisdom comes the inner serenity needed to change a bridge between failure and success.”

Source: No Fear of Failure: Real Stories of How Leaders Deal with Risk and Change

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 22, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Erica Ariel Fox on developing an internal Lookout so you can see your reactions rather than just acting on them:

“When life hands you a situation, your Lookout sees where you’re headed. Before you do or say anything, the Lookout lets you know. With that information, you might or might not choose to change course. If you do, you’ll get a different outcome than what you’ve gotten before. Developing your Lookout skills over time will create the lasting change you want, in your leadership and in your life.”

Source: Winning from Within: A Breakthrough Method for Leading, Living, and Lasting Change

II.

Gary Hamel on the need for leaders to be stewards:

“If you are a leader at any level in any organization, you are a steward—of careers, capabilities, resources, the environment, and organizational values. ... What matters now, more than ever, is that managers embrace the responsibilities of stewardship. ... If you’re a manager or an executive, your stewardship obligations extend far beyond yourself and your family. Yet in recent years many business leaders have blithely dodged those responsibilities. So, ask yourself, am I really a steward?”

Source: What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 15, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Theologian Richard Foster on the need for deeper thinking:

“Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or a gifted people, but for a deep people.”

Source: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

II.

Science writer Stephen Johnson on the mental routines that you typically experience in unison:

“The more you learn about the brain’s architecture, the more you recognize that what happens in your head is more like an orchestra than a soloist, with dozens of players contributing to the overall mix. You can hear the symphony as a unified wash of sound, but you can also distinguish the trombones from the timpani, the violins from the cellos.”

Source: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:02 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 8, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Jim Wallis on moving forward after a crisis:

“Not all of our old habits, behaviors, and institutions are bad, just as not all new ones are good. We need to uncover some forgotten lessons that have served us well in the past and make sure the baby of our better choices doesn’t get thrown out with the bathwater of our mistakes.”

Source: Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street by Jim Wallis

II.

Alan Stein Jr. on character:

“Character means you understand that there are more things beyond winning and losing. The workplace and the business world are not all zero-sum games. There can be more than one winner, and a workplace of battling egos inevitably suffers in productivity.”

Source: Raise Your Game: High-Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 1, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Designer Mauro Porcini on getting the question right:

“The quality of the question is fundamental: far too often, people generate a whole set of correct answers for a whole set of wrong questions. And too often, people forget to question the validity of their questions, finding comfort instead in the correctness of their answers.”

Source: The Human Side of Innovation: The Power of People in Love with People

 

II.

Crisis management consultant James Lukaszewski on integrity:

“Each scenario begins with and is made worse by breakdowns in integrity. Before somebody breaks the rules, before somebody breaks the law, before some executive gets into deep difficulty and becomes highly visible, there is a systemic fracture, sometimes even collapse, of integrity. I define integrity as the inherent tendency in individuals and organizations to do the right thing at every opportunity when confronted with choices, options, or dilemmas.”

Source: Speech, Avoiding Integrity, March 2, 2007

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:53 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 24, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Ryan Hawk on the quality of gratitude that you find in transformational relationships and people:

“They compliment people behind their backs. When you’re talking with these types of people, they are constantly shining a light on the goodness of others. When something goes well in their life, they are quick to point out how it couldn’t have been done without the great work of other people.”

Source: The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World’s Most Productive Achievers

II.

Jonathan Sacks on the benefits of gratitude:

“When individuals focus on and express thankfulness, they experience more positive emotions. Gratitude encourages the savoring of positive experiences. It bolsters feelings of self-worth. It helps people cope with stress. It inhibits invidious comparisons with others. It encourages moral behavior—grateful people are more likely to help others. It tends to dissipate negative emotions such as anger. And it counteracts the hedonic treadmill. Gratitude is the opposite of the mindset of the market-led, consumer society. It is about satisfaction with what we have, not hunger for what we do not have.”

Source: Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:51 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 17, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Computer scientist and venture capitalist Paul Graham on the tendency to go with the crowd:

“Let’s start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you’re supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn’t. Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.”

Source: Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

II.

Consultant Anish Batlaw on building a pipeline of talent inside the company:

“Companies will need systematic programs for identifying people inside the company and grooming them so they are ready when important opportunities open. And this talent cannot be a carbon copy of the leaders who came before. In the knowledge economy impacting all areas of our lives, business leaders need a broader range of skills than previously required to deliver multiples in value creation. In the globally networked world, organizations must collaborate more than ever, internally as with other organizations and partners, across boundaries, and across disciplines. Future generations of leaders must be more agile and comfortable with ambiguity and be able to anticipate and build capabilities ahead of the curve. They are going to need to learn at a much faster pace than ever before and be the drivers of innovation and change.”

Source: Talent: The Market Cap Multiplier

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:47 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 10, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

David Abshire on trust:

“Trust, in its fullest sense, extends beyond simply having great confidence in a person, of faith that a task will be performed. Trust manifests itself when one becomes committed to the protection and care of someone else—he is entrusted to that person who holds his faith in trust.”

Source: Speech, “Trust and General Hal Moore,” June 11, 2006

 

II.

Peter Drucker on the responsibility dictated by choice:

“In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time—literally—substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”

Source: Leader to Leader, Spring 2000, “Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself”

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:57 AM
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Leading Thoughts for November 3, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Political commentator Walter Lippmann claims that when the press exists primarily for its own purposes and agenda, it threatens democracy whenever it has an agenda other than the free flow of ideas:

“We shall advance when we have learned humility; when we have learned to seek the truth, to reveal it and publish it; when we care more for that than for the privilege of arguing about ideas in a fog of uncertainty.”

Source: Liberty and the News

 

II.

Sociologist and educator David Stanley Eitzen on avoiding trends that deprive us of humanity:

“Modern technology often encourages isolation. Because of computers and telecommunications, there is a growing trend for workers to work from home. At last count, 28 million Americans worked out of their homes, using computers or telephony instead of face-to-face interaction. While home-based work allows flexibility and independence not found in most jobs, these workers are separated from the rich social networks that often give rise to numerous friendships and make working life enjoyable or at least tolerable.”

Source: Speech, “Avoiding Trends That Deprive Us of Humanity,” October 16, 2003

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 27, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Conductor Benjamin Zander and family therapist Rosamund Zander on the power of perspective:

“Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.”

Source: The Art of Possibility : Transforming Professional and Personal Life

 

II.

Founder of Catalyst for Peace, Libby Hoffman on listening with:

“Not a passive or one-way listening, that way of asking for and receiving someone else’s one-directional offering. There is a special kind of listening that can only happen over time, and I have come to think of it as one of the great untapped social change resources available to us, if we cultivate the commitment and the sensibilities to utilize it. It is both a listening to and a listening with another. Listening with implies a common standpoint and/or a common vision or purpose calling you forward. With ongoing presence and engagement, this kind of listening can be generative and creative—co-creative.”

Source: Answers Are There: Building Peace from the Inside Out

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:09 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 20, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Computer programmer Ward Cunningham on the learning experience of decision-making:

“I can't tell you how much time is spent worrying about decisions that don't matter. To just be able to make a decision and see what happens is tremendously empowering, but that means you have to set up the situation such that when something does go wrong, you can fix it. When something does go wrong, it doesn't cost you or your customer an exorbitant amount. It isn't ridiculously expensive. When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you're trying to do the right thing, the right thing might be to eliminate the cost of making a mistake rather than try to guess what's right.”

Source: Interview, Collective Ownership of Code and Text

 

II.

James MacGregor Burns on the changing context of leadership:

“American leadership went into decline after the revolution. The leaders were generally the same men, many far-famed and even venerated, but they were projected now into a different situation. They had been united behind transcending goals. Now they were divided over mundane policies. They had offered a striking example of bold, collective—even transforming—leadership. Now they were expected to practice piecemeal, transactional leadership.”

Source: Fire and Light: How the Enlightenment Transformed Our World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:33 AM
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Leading Thoughts for October 13, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Consultants Kevin and Jackie Freiberg on finding the right fit when hiring:

“Consultants Kevin and Jackie Freiberg on finding the right fit when hiring: Have you defined what it takes to be a great employee in your company? Identify people who already work for you who fit the description. Then ask their customers, employees, peers, and managers what makes them so effective and easy to do business with.

Take the answers and make a list of the relevant attributes, such as establishes great rapport with customers; works efficiently; knows the technology better than anyone; has a special knack for helping staff develop; can find humor in difficult situations. From this list, create a profile of a great employee and see to it that new hires match it. ”

Source: Guts: Companies that Blow the Doors Off Business-As-Usual

 

II.

Mike Myatt on the leadership gap:

“When leadership is perceived as little more than a title granting access to a platform for personal gain, rather than a privilege resulting in an opportunity to serve, we’ll continue to find ourselves in a crisis of leadership.”

Source: Hacking Leadership: The 11 Gaps Every Business Needs to Close and the Secrets to Closing Them Quickly

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:34 PM
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Leading Thoughts for October 6, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsk on why leadership is dangerous:

“Each day brings you opportunities to raise important questions, speak to higher values, and surface unresolved conflicts. Every day you have the chance to make a difference in the lives of people around you.

And every day, you must decide whether to push your contribution out there, or keep it to yourself to avoid upsetting anyone, and get through another day.

The hope of leadership lies in the capacity to deliver disturbing news and raise difficult questions in a way that people can absorb, prodding them to take up the message rather than ignore it or kill the messenger.”

Source: Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading

 

II.

Anthropologist Grant McCrackenon the need to move things outside of the gravitational field of the corporation:

“If you ideate in the same space as you work in, you are going to come up with the same solutions.”

Source: Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football...Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough Ideas

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:45 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 29, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Paul Magnone, Christopher Frank and Oded Netzer on how we consider data in decision-making without taking the time to ask for context:

“Humans tend to claim they know the absolute truth about something without appreciating the whole picture. They rely heavily on their own subjective experience to draw generalized conclusions, and they ignore other people’s limited subjective experience, even though combining their own experience with that of others would produce the most comprehensive and objectively accurate picture of something.”

Source: Decisions Over Decimals: Striking the Balance between Intuition and Information

 

II.

Saj-Nicole Joni and Damon Beyer on the need for leaders to create a certain amount of healthy struggle and positive change by fighting the right fights … right:

“You cannot win with a team that is badly aligned. The problem is, it’s not sufficient. Achieving perfect or near-perfect alignment is not the end of the road. It’s merely the beginning

In an environment where alignment is the only goal, alignment robs us of necessary dissent, of the checks and balances that mitigate risk, and of the tensions that create innovation and sustainable value. People and organizations perform optimally when they are under the right kinds and amounts of stress.”

Source: The Right Fight: How Great Leaders Use Healthy Conflict to Drive Performance, Innovation, and Value

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:35 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 22, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Richard Feynman on regret:

“If you want to live a regret-free life, you need to stop thinking about what others think about you and your life. We spend our entire lives thinking, and in fact overthinking about people, society, teachers, and others think, who do not know our paths, our struggles, our good and bad, and unfortunately, we allow them to control our lives. It’s you who has to decide what makes you happy and pursue it accordingly. It would be stupid of you to try and stand by someone else’s expectations. Do what you feel is good for you, and right for you, In doing so, it is very obvious that you will come across failures and disappointments, but that will teach you a great deal and the best part would you, it would you and only you responsible for that.. Prof. Feynman”

Source: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

 

II.

Journalist Ferris Jabr on why walking helps us think:

“Perhaps the most profound relationship between walking, thinking, and writing reveals itself at the end of a stroll, back at the desk. There, it becomes apparent that writing and walking are extremely similar feats, equal parts physical and mental. When we choose a path through a city or forest, our brain must survey the surrounding environment, construct a mental map of the world, settle on a way forward, and translate that plan into a series of footsteps. Likewise, writing forces the brain to review its own landscape, plot a course through that mental terrain, and transcribe the resulting trail of thoughts by guiding the hands. Walking organizes the world around us; writing organizes our thoughts. Ultimately, maps like the one that Nabokov drew are recursive: they are maps of maps.”

Source: Why Walking Helps Us Think, The New Yorker, September 3, 2014

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:11 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 15, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Military strategist Sun Tzu on preparation:

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”

Source: The Art of War

 

II.

American novelist Mary Flannery O’Connor on growth:

“Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.”

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:59 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 8, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Queen Elizabeth II on the value of stepping back and reflecting:

“We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock. Be it through contemplation, prayer, or even keeping a diary, many have found the practice of quiet personal reflection surprisingly rewarding, even discovering greater spiritual depth to their lives.”

Source: Queen's Christmas message, December 25, 2013

 

II.

Queen Elizabeth II on courage:

“Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future.”

Source: 1957 Christmas Broadcast

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:56 AM
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Leading Thoughts for September 1, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Jon Gordon on the ultimate rule of positive energy:

“Your positive energy and vision must be greater than anyone’s and everyone’s negativity. Your certainty must be greater than everyone’s doubt. There will always be people who don’t share your vision. There will always be the doubters who doubt, doubt, and doubt and tell you you can’t do this and you won’t be able to accomplish that. They think that dreams were meant for others but not for people like you and them. And there will even be people who don’t want you to succeed because it makes them see their own weaknesses and failures. Rather than driving their own bus they are trying to ruin everyone else’s ride.”

Source: The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy

 

II.

Wally Amos on facing your problems:

“One of the realities of existence is this: If you don’t get it right the first time, life will give you another chance to master that aspect of things. And if you miss your next chance, that same challenge will again present itself to you. The process continues until you get it right. The inevitable cycle is a curse if you are running away from your problems, and a blessing if you are seeking to grow through them. In every challenge lies an opportunity.”

Source: Man With No Name: Turn Lemons into Lemonade

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:02 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 25, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Fred Harmon on the value of self-restraint:

“Situational rather than habitual self-restraint is always a strain. Self-mastery lets us relax and focus on results even in tense situations. The world-famous tennis star does not lose her concentration because she is behind in the deciding set. Long practice in controlling her emotions permits her to continue playing at her peak. The practice of self-restraint in making common everyday acts more perfect builds up a similar inner calm on which one can rely in any crisis.”

Source: The Executive Odyssey: Secrets for A Career Without Limits

 

II.

Andrew and Nada Kakabadse and Linda Lee-Davies on staying forever refreshed as a leader::

“Successful leadership is never truly mastered as it is an organic service which must be ever refreshed and refined. The changing nature and demands of the follower and the changing nature and demands of the external environment mean that even once the leader has reached a point of maximum provision for their troops in their current state, they must put some serious planning into the next likely situation they will face. There is no rest, learning to lead never stops and the truly successful, the truly great leader knows that they are leading to learn.”

Source: Leading for Success: The Seven Sides to Great Leaders

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:48 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 18, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Former Blue Shield of California CEO Bruce Bodaken and Robert Fritz on opinion dumps:

“Telling someone your opinion is not the same as exploring reality. Groups that really tell each other the truth are the ones that ask each other questions, seriously seek to understand opinions that are different from their own. They strive to comprehend rather than simply impose their ideas on others, and they engage in a collective dialogue in which people together seek understanding.”

Source: The Managerial Moment of Truth: The Essential Step in Helping People Improve Performance

 

II.

Ram Charan on the roadblocks to moving forward:

“Today transformational change is the norm. Every company has to be able to perceive what will make their best-laid plans obsolete tomorrow and change direction quickly. Dissatisfaction with the status quo and a search for what’s next is a universal human endeavor. It does not reside in one person, department, or organizational layer. The flow of ideas cannot be blocked by bureaucratic layers. Do the people at traditional companies welcome change? What happens to the good ideas that emerge? How quickly do they get converted into action?”

Source: Rethinking Competitive Advantage: New Rules for the Digital Age

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:20 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 11, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Historian John Lukacs on turning points:

“A turning point is not a milestone; the latter is a numerically fixable place, foreseeable, linear, and sequential. A turning point may occur in a person’s mind; it may mean a change of direction; it has consequences that are multiple and unpredictable, consequences that are more multiple and unpredictable, consequences that are more often than not recognizable only in retrospect. A turning point may sometimes be foreseeable, but not with certainty.”

Source: Five Days in London: May 1940

 

II.

Professor Emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary Eddie Gibbs on what we find in the absence of good leadership:

“Feedback is no longer oriented to how people can succeed but to how they have failed—not just in their work but as human beings.”

Source: Leadership Next: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:40 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 4, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Performance coach Jason Selk on the need to heat up your performance:

“All day long, the thermostat governs the temperature in the room and won’t allow the room temperature to rise or drop from the desired temperature for long. Human beings are the same way: we neither outperform nor underperform our self-image for very long. That’s why it is so important to set your self-image gauge high enough to achieve your life goals. Set your self-image gauge too low, and by definition, you’ll underachieve because your mind won’t call for the motivation to achieve more.”

Source: Executive Toughness: The Mental-Training Program to Increase Your Leadership Performance

 

II.

Jim Loehr explaining that the key to mental recovery is to give the conscious, thinking mind intermittent rest explaining that the key to mental recovery is to give the conscious, thinking mind intermittent rest:

“Much like the body, the brain needs time to recover from exertion. After we have learned new information or had new experiences, it takes time for the brain to consolidate and encode what it has learned. In the absence of downtime, or recovery, that learning cannot take place as efficiently.”

Source: The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 28, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Betsy Myers on how leadership is about how you make people feel not only about the work but themselves:

“The truth of life is that it doesn’t unfold through lofty mission statements or happen in broad strokes. It is a personal, everyday experience for every one of us.”

Source: Take the Lead: Motivate, Inspire, and Bring Out the Best in Yourself and Everyone Around You

 

II.

Mike Thompson on becoming a discerning leader:

“Being a discerning leader isn’t about making a good decision, but rather about forming the habit of making good decision after good decision. To become a discerning leader, you need to immerse yourself in a constant state of evaluation. It means continuously gathering and analyzing information, seeking various points of view, and scanning the horizon for coming shifts. Because these leaders never view their decisions as static, they aren’t consumed by trying to make the perfect call. They can confidently move forward, knowing that they can, and will, make adjustments as they go.”

Source: The Anywhere Leader: How to Lead and Succeed in Any Business Environment

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:23 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 21, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Jack Zenger, Joe Folkman, and Scott Edinger on how clarity tells people what not to do:

“Clarity of vision helps all members of the group to be vigilant about not attempting to serve everyone who wants to be a customer, or to embark on any project about which someone becomes enthused, or to create a new product because one prospect or client expresses interest in it. These are hard decisions to make, especially for newly created organizations that are scratching out their existence. But given limited resources, it is especially crucial for those companies to stay focused.”

Source: The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate

 

II.

Musician and speaker David Usher on the opportunities to apply creative principles to all areas of our lives:

“Once you start to look at the world through the lens of creativity, everything looks different. Creative thinking is an integral part of everything we make, but also every relationship we have and every interaction in our lives. It’s not just about the world of things. It exists in the connections we make, how we formulate sentences, the way we negotiate with our bosses, and how we choose to look at the world. Once you see the creative process as the underpinning of all these connections and interactions, then the world really is different. Instead of just acting by instinct and routine, repeating the same patterns over and over, you begin to view interactions as possibilities, and you become an active participant. Every moment and interaction becomes an opportunity to apply the principles of creative thinking.”

Source: Let the Elephants Run: Unlock Your Creativity and Change Everything

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:32 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 14, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Former president of Chick-fil-A, James Collins, on the correlation between authority and responsibility:

“Authority properly used comes packaged with responsibility. Therefore, as I discovered over the years, more authority can be gained in bits and pieces. I gained more authority without having it given to me; all I had to do was figure out what the boss didn’t like to do, take responsibility, and do it.”

Source: Creative Followership: In the shadow of Greatness

 

II.

Bill George on why leaders lose their way:

“Leaders whose goal is having power over others, maximizing their wealth, or becoming famous tend to look to other people for fulfillment and acknowledgment of their status.

Before you take on a leadership role, ask yourself, “What motivates me to lead this organization?” If the honest answers are simply power, prestige, and money, you are at risk of being trapped by external gratification as your source of fulfillment. There is nothing wrong with desiring these outward symbols if, and only if they are balanced by a deeper desire to serve something greater than yourself. Extrinsic rewards exert a force that can pull you away from your True North if not counterbalanced by a deeper purpose or calling that gives you a passion to lead.”

Source: Discover Your True North

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:52 AM
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Leading Thoughts for July 7, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Henry Kissinger on the need for leadership:

“Any society, whatever its political system, is perpetually in transit between a past that forms its memory and a vision of the future that inspires its evolution. Along this route, leadership is indispensable: decisions must be made, trust earned, promises kept, a way forward proposed. Within human institutions—states, religions, armies, companies, schools—leadership is needed to help people reach from where they are to where they have never been and, sometimes, can scarcely imagine going. Without leadership, institutions drift, and nations court growing irrelevance and, ultimately, disaster.”

Source: Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy

 

II.

In a caution to all leaders, Professor Ngaire Woods at the University of Oxford on why Vladimir Putin would turn Russia into a pariah state without achieving any of the goals of his invasion:

“Why would such a powerful leader make such a major blunder? The answer lies in the very nature of power itself. Leaders in positions of tremendous authority often wear blinders that can cause them to make profound mistakes. Power can mislead insofar as it prevents the powerful from taking full stock of the consequences of their actions.

“But these blind spots are not inevitable, nor are democracies doomed to them. The leaders of powerful countries can protect themselves from the pitfalls of power and make sure that short-term expediency doesn’t get in the way of the big picture.

“A first line of defense from error lies in the group around a leader. Beyond the cabinet, other institutions need to be fully functioning. Public officials and technocrats, the courts, legislatures, the media, and public opinion each play a role in making sure the leader is not blinded by power.”

Source: Foreign Affairs, July/August 2022, “What the Mighty Miss: The Blind Spots of Power”

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:50 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 30, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Scientist Marie Curie on the importance of self-improvement for the betterment of self and others:

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Source: Pierre Curie (Autobiographical Notes)

 

II.

Thomas Mitchell, a farmer, on productivity:

“It is wonderful how much work can be got through in a day, if we go by the rule—map out our time, divide it off, and take up one thing regularly after another. To drift through our work, or to rush through it in a helter-skelter fashion, ends in comparatively little being done. ‘One thing at a time’ will always perform a better day’s work than doing two or three things at a time. By following this rule, one person will do more in a day than another does in a week.”

Source: Essays on Life by Thomas Mitchell, Farmer

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:03 PM
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Leading Thoughts for June 23, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Engineer, designer, entrepreneur, and investor, Tony Fadell on becoming a manager:

“Remember that once you become a manager, you’ll stop doing the thing that made you successful in the first place. You will no longer be doing the things you do really well—instead you’ll be digging into how others do them, helping them improve. Your job will now be communication, communication, communication, recruiting, hiring and firing, setting budgets, reviews, one-on-one meetings (1:1s), meetings with your team and other teams and leadership, representing your team in those meetings, setting goals, and keeping people on track, conflict resolution, helping to find creative solutions to intractable problems, blocking and tackling political BS, mentoring your team, and asking ‘how can I help you?’ all the time.”

Source: Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

 

II.

Former Nike Chief Marketing Officer Greg Hoffman on passion:

“Passion is a risk-taking emotion because it demands that we reveal so much of ourselves to others. If you’ve ever found yourself in a conversation with someone about their passion, then you know what I mean. You can feel it; they get carried away. And when they finally stop talking, they can be a little embarrassed. But that’s good. Show that to your audience. Imbue your brand, your stories, your spaces with passion unbridled. Start talking about what you love and don’t ever stop.”

Source: Emotion By Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 16, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Amor Towles’ character Count Alexander Rostov on withholding judgement:

“The Count had to acknowledge once again the virtues of withholding judgment. After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of the hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration--and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”

Source: A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

 

II.

Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter on rights and civility:

“If we fail to distinguish desire from right, we will not understand that rights are sensible and wise only within particular contexts that give them meaning. The Constitution protects a variety of rights, but our moral norms provide the discipline in their exercise. Sometimes what the moral norm of civility demands is that we restrain our self-expression for the sake of our community.”

Source: Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:44 PM
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Leading Thoughts for June 9, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

INSEAD professor Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries on the importance of being kind:

“Quite often, when people are hurting others, it is because they are hurting themselves. This does not mean that you should try to explain it away, that you should try to justify and rationalize inappropriate behavior. The decision to set boundaries concerning certain behavioral patterns is part of being morally responsible. Still, in trying to understand why these people are doing what they are doing, you could also keep in mind the words of Carl Jung: ‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’ It may give you additional insights about what is happening as we all have a tendency to project unwanted parts of ourselves on to the other. It is far too easy to deposit on the other aspects of our shadow side—to use the other as some kind of ‘garbage can.’”

Source: Leading Wisely: Becoming a Reflective Leader in Turbulent Times

II.

Darryl Stickel on the growing cynicism surrounding leadership:

“As the world evolves, our expectations of leaders seem to be getting broader and increasingly contradictory. Ultimately, we tend to trust those who have strong abilities and demonstrate excellence in their field. Are leaders supposed to give us decisive direction? Be consensus builders? Inspire us? The answer to all of these is yes, but how are they supposed to do that in environments where those judging leadership qualities appear to agree on so little? Also, our definition of leadership excellence changes with different situations. The challenge we have is that if we don’t clearly define excellence for leaders, it is almost impossible for them to strive for it.”

Source: Building Trust: Exceptional Leadership in an Uncertain World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:57 AM
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Leading Thoughts for June 2, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Professor emeritus of medicine Jon Kabat-Zion on problem-solving:

“In general, if you feel you’ve got a problem to solve that is ‘out there’ and you don’t necessarily see or want to see any possible relationship between the ‘you’ who is trying to solve the problem and what the problem actually is, you may wind up not being able to see the problem accurately, in its fullness. You therefore may unwittingly be contributing to maintaining the undesired situation rather than allowing it to evolve and perhaps dissolve.”

Source: Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future

II.

Writer David Chapman on how to improve your thinking:

“Learn from fields very different from your own. They each have ways of thinking that can be useful at surprising times. Just learning to think like an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a philosopher will beneficially stretch your mind.”

Source: How to Think Real Good

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:36 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 26, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Former president, CEO, and chairman of Procter & Gamble, John Pepper on values:

“Over the years, I’ve seen that the strongest leaders are those who have enough confidence to seek input from others without losing the direction provided by their own internal compass. They understand that the objective of learning is not comfortable consensus. It is to make wiser, more informed choices.”

Source: What Really Matters: Service, Leadership, People, and Values

II.

Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsk on having compassion when leading change:

“The people who fight the hardest also have the most to lose; and therefore, they deserve the most time, attention, care, and skill.”

Source: Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:32 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 19, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

London Business School professors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones on conforming yet remaining authentic:

“Leaders must conform enough if they are to make the connections necessary to deliver change. Leaders who succeed in changing organizations challenge the norms—but rarely all of them, all at once. They do not seek out instant head-on confrontation without understanding the organizational context. To change an organization, the leader must first gain at least minimal acceptance as a member.”

Source: Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? What It Takes to Be an Authentic Leader

II.

Harvard Professor Joseph Badaracco on quiet leadership:

“The most effective leaders are rarely public heroes. These men and women aren’t high-profile champions of causes, and don’t want to be. They don’t spearhead ethical crusades. They move patiently, carefully, and incrementally. They do what is right—for their organizations, for the people around them, and for themselves—inconspicuously and without casualties.”

Source: Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:17 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 12, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Anthropologist Grant McCracken on inspiring innovation and creativity:

“People who escape familiar groups and make contact with unfamiliar ones become smarter and more creative.

“The trick is to invent our own serendipity to establish a cloud of possibilities in which we can spot the telling pattern.

“We need ideas we can’t guess we need. We must canvass concepts that are entirely unrelated to our present problem set. Only thus do we give our deeper powers of pattern recognition a chance to work.”

Source: Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football . . . Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough Ideas

II.

Former Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens on servant leadership:

“Do you want to be around somebody who lifts you up, or somebody that breaks you down? That’s why whenever people ask me what’s your leadership style, my answer is, ‘It should be you.’ There’s an authenticity that is needed for leadership. If it’s not real, then it’s not going to work.

“You have to be empathetic in knowing that everybody has their own lives, and everybody has something tough going on. You need to make sure you understand that before you coach them.”

Source: Getting to Us: How Great Coaches Make Great Teams by Seth Davis

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:03 AM
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Leading Thoughts for May 5, 2022

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Professor Scott Galloway on the worst advice given to young people:

“Your job is to find something you’re good at. And then spend thousands of hours and apply the grit and the sacrifice and the willingness to break through hard things to become great at it. Because once you’re great at something, the economic accouterments of being great at something, the prestige, the relevance, the camaraderie, the self-worth of being great … will make you passionate about whatever it is. Here’s the problem with believing you should follow your passion: Work is hard. And when you run into obstacles and you face injustice, which is a common guaranteed attribute of the workplace, you’ll start thinking, ‘I’m not loving this. This is upsetting and hard. It must not be my passion.’ That is not the right litmus test.’”

Source: The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World’s Most Productive Achievers by Ryan Hawk

II.

Stephen M. R. Covey on command and control:

“Command & Control is about getting things done, but it misses the potential power of the people who get those things done. Command & Control is about being efficient with people, trying to motivate them instead of inspiring them. It’s about self-interest and competing rather than serving and caring. And if all else fails, it’s about barking out the orders so everyone does exactly what they’re supposed to do—not because they want to, but because they have to. In short, it’s about controlling people instead of unleashing their potential.”

Source: Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:27 AM
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