Learning leadership and people skills is necessary to function properly within a team.  A team of people has tremendous power and potential if the participants are aligned in common purpose and dedicated to working toward the collective benefit of the group.  Something wonderful happens as individuals strive together for common achievement and accomplishment: camaraderie.  As…

Class, character, honor, integrity, discipline, consistency, dependability, selflessness, and servanthood are watchwords for anyone serious about being a leader.  The conduct of a leader springs from the character of the leader.  In other words, what's inside eventually comes out. In the area of dealing with people, it is a short-term proposition, at best, and dishonest,…

In the novel Ireland, the wise woman told Ronan that: "What a poem needs by way of a good home is a heart of fire and a spirit of honor.  Poems won’t come to rest in a place of baseness.  No self-respecting poem would think of entering a soul of perfidy." While this may be…

Do you ever get run ragged?  Ever grow weary in well doing? One of the key concepts author Stephen Covey talks about in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is that of sharpening the saw.  Everybody needs to build a little time into their busy schedules to refresh and restore frayed nerve endings. I…

Leadership is with, for, and about people.  One of the most important things for a leader to learn is how to deal with people. I am amazed at the vast veriety of people in our world.  From different cultures, races, creeds, geographical locations, and a whole host of other orientations, the range of people out…

One of the most important things to understand about leadership is that it is not about YOU.  People who crave what leadership can provide, thinking that this entails perks, power, position and status, are really not fit for the position.  Reluctant leaders, a term that at first seems like an oxymoron (as opposed to the…

After talking about this topic at a Men’s Leadership meeting last evening in Flint, Michigan, several men asked if I could post these points.  Here they are! Inspired by the statement, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going!" Principles of Leadership Toughness 1. It’s not going to be fair (leaders often carry an…

It is an interesting study to find out why people stick with a certain organization, company, business plan, etc.  In recent corporate-speak, this concept has come to be know as "community."  Building communities is one of the most spectacular, rewarding, fun, frustrating, interesting, mysterious, heart-warming, infuriating, pleasurable experiences.  This is because people are people, and…

One thing that is a common temptation for leaders is to lose patience with higher-level forms of influence and instead resort to an authoritarian style.  After all, isn’t it easier to bark out orders and make demands, flexing one’s "authority" muscles and showing subordinates your "stripes?"  I ran across a great paragraph by author Dan…

Bullies are a very controversial subject.  Any casual research into the topic reveals the deep level of emotional scarring that can occur in the lives of youth struggling to make their way in a difficult world.  Most of the readers of this blog can probably recall moments of terror in their lives when they were…