Leadership

We can’t speak about leadership legacy today without mentioning Steve Jobs. He was a genius when it came to product innovations and he created an environment at Apple that allowed his impact to be felt long after his death. However, it is important to separate Jobs’ innovation legacy from his actual leadership legacy. That is …

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses, or self-awareness, is one of the most critical leadership competencies and considered by many to be the single most important predictor of leadership success. However, when it comes to assessing how we come across to others, most of us have blind spots. We tend to assess ourselves based on our …

This is the third article in a series covering use of the nine-box performance and potential matrix. For an overview of the nine-box, including why and how to use it for succession planning and leadership development/ When using the performance and potential (nine-box) matrix, leaders are assessed on two dimensions: leadership performance and potential. Managers …

What exactly is a leader? Is it a title, just another name for what used to be called a manager or supervisor, a role or a description or a set of qualities? The answer is a little of each, but mostly the later. “Leader” can be found in plenty of job titles these days. All …

When it comes to the clothes we wear, we all have a style that we are comfortable with and suits us for the majority of the places we go and people with whom we interact. For some, it’s an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. For others, it’s an expensive tailor made suit. Most …

When it comes to learning about the qualities of great leaders, there are endless lists, articles, books, research studies, and competency models to reference. So many, in fact, that it has to be overwhelming to anyone aspiring to learn about leadership and how to become a better leader. To complicate things even further, leadership has …

Leadership has always been an elusive concept to define. Perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to learn and great leaders are in such short supply. There really is no one “right” definition of leadership – so instead, here is a collection of my favorite definitions, from both the famous and not-so-famous. Read them all, reflect …

Readers Respond: There are many important skills any leader needs to have and many traits that good leaders display. I’ve listed what I consider the most important leadership skills and traits in my article What Is A Leader. Which skill or trait do you think is most important? Is it one I listed or one …

I get a lot of emails from readers telling me about their horrible bosses and asking for advice on how to fix them. Unfortunately, the advice and coaching that I’ve been offering for more than 20 years is for managers that want to become better leaders. There’s not a lot you can do to fix a bad boss …