A few days ago, I decided to change a photograph that’s been on display for the last several years in one of the picture frames which currently grace my desk. The photograph was a picture I had taken of my girls several years ago on one of those days from summer which we tend to look back on fondly through a soft-focus lens. Of course, in the time since that photograph was taken, my girls have grown up and it seemed overdue for this photograph be replaced by a more recent memory of our time together.

Although the act of replacing this photograph was fairly mundane, I still found myself being much more aware of this picture frame’s presence on my desk. Naturally, my first assumption was that this was simply a result of the new image staring out at me from that frame. However, what I realized was that this greater sense of awareness regarding this picture frame on my desk had less to do with the image itself and more to do with the fact that it had changed from something familiar and consistent, to something new and different.

What’s also interesting is how Click here to continue reading »”Taking Another Look at Leadership and Change”

While doing some research for a presentation I’ll be giving later this summer, I came upon a study which looked at determining which trait plays a key role in the achievement of long-term goals. After reading a few more studies that dealt with this subject, I noticed that there were some interesting correlations which could be drawn to the field of leadership.

Dr. Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent the last few years looking at what unlocks the potential in some of us to become high achievers. In a recent study, Duckworth looked at how different approaches used by students to prepare for a national spelling bee competition impacted the degree of success they achieved, as well as the common trait it revealed amongst the high achievers.

Duckworth et al surveyed 190 finalists in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and categorized the techniques they used to improve their spelling skills into one of the following three categories – leisure reading, being quizzed by others, or engaging in deliberate practice by studying vocabulary on their own.

Among the three techniques surveyed for this study, deliberate practice was ranked by the students as being the least enjoyable and requiring the most effort when compared to being quizzed or reading for fun. However, this didn’t stop some students from using deliberate practice as their key approach for preparing for the spelling bee. In terms of the competition results, it was found that the students who used deliberate practice to develop their spelling skills performed far better than the others.

The researchers analyzed their results to find out why some of these students chose deliberate practice to prepare for the competition and found that they all shared Click here to continue reading »”Is Grit the Key to Being a Successful Leader?”

Over the weekend, I read this article which compiled a list of unusual laws that are found in countries all around the world. Among the various laws that were featured in this piece, there was one in particular that caught my attention – a law found in the city of Monza, Italy which makes it illegal for people to keep goldfish in curved bowls. The rationale behind this law is that because curved glass bends light, the fish would be getting a distorted view of the world around them.

Now there’s little doubt that this is an absurd law, as goldfish lack the knowledge and awareness to comprehend the reality that lies outside of their water-filled habitat, regardless of whether it’s subjected to any visual distortion or not. But this got me thinking about how leaders, on the other hand, are in fact very much susceptible to operating within a distorted reality.

As we all know, there’s much that’s being made about the importance of ‘thinking outside of the box’ in today’s increasingly competitive market. But how many leaders are openly questioning whether they’re thinking about – or even seeing – Click here to continue reading »”Are You Leading From Inside A Fishbowl?”

Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of tensions building in the United States between groups of various beliefs and Muslims, something which unfortunately grew even worse last week over plans by Pastor Frank* to burn copies of the Qu’ran, the holy book for Muslims.

As the days drew closer to when Pastor Frank was going to burn copies of the Qu’ran, I watched with interest as more and more diverse groups and individuals began to speak out against his planned event. In the course of just a few days, representatives from opposing political parties, as well as coalitions of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders from across the United States, held press conferences and released statements indicating why they were against Pastor Frank’s plans while offering their support to American-Muslim citizens. Even leaders from countries around the world took to the public stage to condemn Pastor Frank’s actions, if not encourage understanding for the pain and harm such a stunt would create not just in the US, but around the world.

Following Pastor Frank’s decision last Friday to cancel his event, most of us have dismissed the whole thing as a stunt to draw attention to his small congregation, if not his overt messages of hatred and intolerance. Of course, while there has been ample discussion about the inappropriateness and insensitivity demonstrated by Pastor Frank’s, what I’d like to discuss here is some of the interesting insights this incident provided on how leaders can manage confrontations within their organization.

Granted, most leaders will never face a situation that creates as much controversy, or as much emotional responses, as last week’s planned book-burning event.  However, there are still some valuable points here for leaders to learn on how to view and manage situations where a potential dispute might be brewing between their employees.

Watching this story unfold, I noticed three lessons in particular that leaders can benefit from on how to deal with confrontations in their organization. Click here to continue reading »”Lessons on Managing Confrontations in the Workplace From a Book-Burning Controversy”