One of the key points in the Launching a Leadership Revolution book is that there are different levels of influence in a leader’s journey.  The five levels are: 1. Learning 2. Performing 3. Leading 4. Developing Other Leaders 5. Developing Leaders that Develop Other Leaders Every leader must start at the first level of becoming…

The concept that leadership is service to others has gotten much coverage in leadership literature lately, but it is still a concept that seems foreign to many people.  When I get into discussions about leadership with people, they automatically think of the perks of leadership, power, prestige, and status.  But these things are not the…

Henry David Thoreau said, "It is not enough to be busy, so too are the ants.  The question is, ‘What are we busy about?’"  We live in busy times.  Our technology makes everything much easier, but it also tends to make things more hectic, too.  Sometimes it seems that everybody is busy, busy, busy, that…

Carl Sandburg said, "Nothing happens unless first a dream."  A dream is the root of vision.  A leader has a concept of a better future, situation, or outcome, and dreams of the day when it becomes reality.  The vision of the dream creates a tension on today, and that tension produces the hunger that drives…

The leadership principle, "Focus only upon what you can control," is critical to success.  Often, people get bogged down worrying or concerning themselves with things they cannot change.  As the saying goes, if you aren't part of the problem or solution, than it shouldn't be your concern.  Worry, fear, and anxiety often come from being…

Self perception and reality are often miles apart.  The result is what we might call self-deception.  Author Jim Collins, in Good to Great, discusses the importance of a leader being willing to confront brutal reality and take stock of it as it actually is.  Nowhere is this more difficult than when looking at ourselves! There…

My sons and I were leaving a used book store this morning (one of my favorite south Florida haunts) and one of them, arms loaded with a stack of books, said, "I wish I didn't have math to do today (he is home schooled) so I could read all these."  The cashier laughed, then I…

We don't always get what we want (for instance, I never made it as an NFL quarterback), nor do we always get what we deserve (I haven't been struck down by lightening yet), but we do generally get what we expect. This thinking becomes critical to success.  Our actions tend to line up with the…

One thing that strikes me as I read biographies of the great contributors to our history is a certain trait they all seemed to have in common: an urgent awareness of the press of time.  It seems that most people who wind up doing great things are a little impatient about getting them done.  When…

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  It is customary to speak of thankfulness on this holiday, and I thought it an appropriate time to discuss the part that thankfulness plays in a leader’s life.  Leaders deal in complexity, and to a large extent, they are asked to carry an unfair load.  Leaders are often trapped in an organizational…