Last week, a few of the leadership bloggers who I enjoy reading and conversing with were invited to the 2010 World Business Forum in New York City to share with their readers some of the ideas presented by such renowned business leaders and thinkers as Jack Welsh, Joseph Grenny, and A.G. Lafley. Among the many interesting insights and points presented during this leadership forum, there was one comment regarding social media I found particularly interesting and worth more examination.

Charlene Li, the founder of Altimeter Group and author of the book “Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform The Way You Lead”, gave a presentation on developing effective social media strategies during which she made the following comment about how businesses should approach social media:

Social media is about giving up control yet remaining in command.”

Upon reading this quote, I couldn’t help but notice that in addition to being an accurate assessment of social media, this statement can also be easily applied to the field of leadership. To help illustrate this connection, let’s look at two examples of social media blunders made by companies this year, and what these mistakes can teach us about effective leadership. Click here to continue reading »”Social Media and the True Meaning of Leadership”

As with most kids on summer break, my girls have been spending part of their days taking swimming lessons to help advance their skills in this particular sport. While attending one of their lessons, I noticed something that was reminiscent of what many companies go through when managing the growth of their organization.

For one of their lessons, my daughter’s swim teacher asked the students in her class to swim the length of the pool and then toss a ball into the basketball net. One by one, the kids took their turn swimming across the pool and attempting to varying degrees of success in getting the ball into the net.

When it was my daughter’s turn, she swam toward the basketball net and stopped to one side to take her shot. On her first try, she bounced the ball off the rim of the net. In her next shot, she tried to throw the ball with more force, which ended up sending the ball past the net and over to the other side. Although she tried and missed another two times to get that ball into the net, she never once showed any sign of wavering in trying to succeed, even though she was clearly having no luck with this exercise.

After her class, I applauded her for being so determined to get that ball in the net, but I also had a question for her – why didn’t she just swim to the front of the net where she could have had an easier time shooting the ball? As soon as I asked her this, she gave me this sheepish smile, now realizing how she had made the task harder for herself simply because of where she chose to take the shot.

Watching her single-minded focus in performing this task reminded me of how many organizations and their leaders can also Click here to continue reading »”Learning From Your Mistakes – 4 Steps To Turn Failure Into Success”