As strategic plans and thoughts turn toward a new year, words like “crushing,” “disruption,” and “drive” often appear. Hard-charging and brash leadership attributes from people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Larry Ellison can fuel a competitive, winner-take-all focus. Assertiveness and...Read More
In a world of transformational shifts and organization-busting chaos, high-impact effective leadership is more important than ever. Here we write of the aspirational beyond-the-barricade kind of leadership. That’s the kind of referent power that doesn’t need authority. That’s leadership fueled...Read More
When everything’s on the line, what makes the decisive difference? State-of-the-art weapons systems and cutting-edge technology play a role, but one element is absolute. In their wide-ranging book Conflict – The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, General David Petraeus and historian Andrew...Read More
Love him or loathe him, Coach Jim Harbaugh’s superpower turnaround proficiency officially entered the stuff of iconoclastic legend January 8, 2024. How does he do it? Now returning to the NFL as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers (after another legendary streak at Michigan), Harbaugh was once known...Read More
As the ancient saying goes, “Of making many books there is no end.” Happily, a companion truism tells us: “one can never have too many books.” But alas, constraints of time comprise the foible. As an annual solution, many august publications (like the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the...Read More
Leadership and organizational success today – bearing up under repeated shocks and facing what McKinsey calls “the most challenging environment management teams have ever faced” – requires courageous insight, commitment, and execution to create truly fresh opportunities in a disruptive age of...Read More
While trying to hastily deal with some emails, something just went terribly wrong on your laptop. Your screen just went blank, followed by a message in large type: “Your computer has been encrypted.” As anxiety begins to swell, you think: “This can’t be happening to me – I’m the CEO!” A...Read More
McKinsey summed it up: “The world is undergoing increasingly rapid, unpredictable, and unprecedented change” — how’s that make you feel if you’re exhausted already? Did that just wear you out reading it? The word “resilience” has to be one of the most over-used words published...Read More
