Servant Leadership: Character and Competence = Credibility

“Character without capacity usually means weakness in a leader, but capacity without character means danger,” says David Gergen. Servant leadership development and character formation go hand-in-hand. Who a leader is is just as important as what a leader does. Street Cred When describing the core elements of how to persuade and influence others to a particular way of thinking, Aristotle said that influential leaders must possess three things: ethos (character), logos (logic), and pathos (emotion). Ethos was foundational to the other two qualities as it served as the “credibility-factor” of the speaker-leader. The Ethos Factor Today we call this the [...]

2022-11-23T18:26:04+00:00May 6th, 2016|Leadership, Personal Growth, Professional Development, Servant Leadership|
Read More

Problem-Solving: Lessons From Pac-Man and Harry Houdini

  Lesson From Pac-Man It was in the 1980s that the immensely popular video arcade game Pac- Man hit the market. Constantly being chased by his enemies Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, Pac-Man tried to elude his captors while moving end­lessly through the maze eating pac-dots. His reward for successfully eating all of the pellets, was being promoted to the next level to start the process all over again! Increase Our Value-Add As leaders, when we get good at solving problems, our reward is that we get to handle bigger problems…and more of them. I’ve often thought that senior leaders could [...]

2022-11-23T18:16:57+00:00December 28th, 2015|Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Personal Growth, Problem Solving, Professional Development|
Read More

Problems + Disruption = Opportunity

Increase From The Ox One of my favorite metaphors from the ancient agrarian world is encapsulated in the saying, “Without oxen a stall is clean, but great is the increase by the power of the ox.” The sage explains a choice every farmer had to make (and we do too). If they wanted a full harvest, abundant fruitfulness, large profit, and a steady increase from the efforts of their hard-working ox, then they had to feed the ox and keep its stall clean. Those were the pros. The cons? Lots of poop had to be cleaned up each day out of [...]

2018-05-02T14:54:51+00:00December 20th, 2015|Leadership, Personal Growth, Problem Solving, Professional Development|
Read More

Overcoming The Pitfall of One-Dimensional Thinking

Getting Beyond The First Right Answer Leaders who are open to new perspectives are often able to arrive at better and more complete solutions to the problems they encounter in life and work. Yes, the answers to some questions are black and white, yes and no, plain and simple. But for many other questions, quick fixes, memorized sound byte responses, and one-dimensional conclusions don’t always fix systemic and multi-layered issues and problems. Bottom line: Multi-dimensional problems can’t be solved long-term with one-dimensional solutions. One-Dimensional thinking As a kid, I remember when I thought I had the world of one-dimension­al mathematics figured [...]

2022-11-23T17:03:34+00:00November 29th, 2015|Leadership, Personal Growth, Professional Development, Team Building|
Read More