Leadership - A discussion of traits, characteristics, and current news of leaders.

Last week, Amish leaders brought us all to our knees with sorrow … when gut-wrenching violence struck their strong, peaceful community. We mourn with them… we see who they are to any community … and we want to know more about how they operate so peacefully.

We also wonder how violence and war images weave naturally through the brains of the rest of us… while Amish brains wire differently for peace and reconciliation. These new questions rise up as a phoenix from ashes in the seemingly ridiculous response to violence that we observed in the face of their tragedy and sadness last week.

That image of Amish leaders at a killer’s funeral will continue to project colors and shapes of forgiveness onto screens at the back of our minds.  Its lesson will not fall out of focus, unseen, anytime soon.

To some business heads ... Amish leaders projected a ridiculous and illogical lesson on forgiveness last week. Forgiveness appears ridiculous beside business structures we tend to champion in the West. Its contrasts to images of revenge ... harsh words ... or anger, mock common responses. I’ve been asking a key question - since the powerful story of Amish leaders who attended their family’s killer at his funeral. How can we forgive in ways that prosper business and community in our broken firms?

Two things struck me about leaders, the brain and the amazing Amish lesson of peace to the rest of us. Amish leaders model and help people to:

1.   Rewire their brain’s plasticity for forgiveness and this state existed long before violence struck their caring community.

2. Make learning and peace and forgiveness an adventure that hardwires their daily lives.

We continue to reel in sorrow for the Amish people’s loss… and for their leaders' role to hold up courage, and run from fear. We support our Amish neighbors in any way we can. We also take the ridiculous lesson of forgiveness and consider the possibility of brain based peace plans that could reboot our minds from violence that shadows us daily, to the innovation of peace through forgiveness.

Next to business structures that sue, compete unfairly, abuse others, or backstab … forgiveness looks ridiculous. Life sucks at times and the unfairness gets you in the gut when you expect it least. If you wait to try out forgiveness until life kicks you in the shins … though …your brain cannot rewire that fast for noble choices … because forgiveness will not exist in your basal ganglia. Surprisingly, forgiveness, the brain and the Amish lesson at a funeral last week,  has more to do with business leaders than most people realize.

What would a business structure look like when forgiveness fits into a leader's mental schemata … like it did at a funeral where the victims blessed a killer’s family? I feel curious about that possibility in my own life today.  Could a new mental framework help business leaders to rewire for a new vision… one that would bring mind-bending profitability in new ways? I already have ideas about the brain's role in that change.....  What do you think?

Is Yahoo Chairman and CEO Terry Semel screaming Yahoo?

Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) announced yesterday that its board of directors has reduced Semel's annual salary from $600,000 to $1. Yes, rub your eyes and do a double take - it says $1, one, uno, one hundred pennies. Semel trades his cash for an increase in his overall future compensation through grants of stock options.

This isn’t some publicity stunt (well maybe). Yahoo’s long-term executive retention plan has Semel sticking to this plan of $1 per year for the next three years through 2008. Before the tears start, let me add that Semel received an option to purchase 6 million shares of Yahoo.  So an increase in Yahoo's share price of a few dollars and the Yahoo executive will be back flying first class.

In 2004, Google Inc. (GOOG), Yahoo's biggest rival instituted this same deal in 2004 for its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt (all billionaires).

Post Enron, maybe we will see more Boards actually provide leadership, hold executives accountable and align their compensation with that of other stakeholders.

Read more at the Washington Post and the Truth on the Market.

For the last 15 years…it’s been my privilege to know and be encouraged personally by Dr. Howard Gardner. He’s currently Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Chairman of the Steering Committee of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine. Author of over twenty books, he recently co-authored  Good Work and Making Good. Awarded the MacArthur "Genius" award, the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award and twenty honorary doctorates, Dr. Gardner identified a multiplicity of intelligences discussed at Brain Based Business as distinctive…each rather independent of the others… and he showed the malleability of the brain to develop throughout an entire lifetime. 

Dr. Gardner has recently turned his attention and ours to consider how an ethical mind works and how good works can work in your favor…He calls for a return to work that is excellent, ethical  and meaningful… Gardner ’s life and works have helped me again and again to reconsider these habits of the mind… to reflect on what it means to be a "good worker," as he lives and teaches it.... His new book helps us to hire ethical workers and helps employees to rethink…  “How do young workers become good workers?” What do you think?

To see ethics…for Gardner is also to question, ”What are the early experiences and habits of mind that have led some idealistic young workers to become jaded, unethical veterans?” Similar questions and concerns in the field of journalism ... led Hal Halladay, CEO...and Tim Stay, Chief Innovation Officer... to co-found Know More Media. Perhaps  these three leaders will stop by ... and share how these urgent questions could help us all to move business practices toward more ethical "habits of the mind"….Now there's a challenge....

For Gardner “Every worker has both the right and the responsibility to be a professional who produces work that is good, both in the technical sense of being performed with skill and in the moral sense of responding to the needs of society. People can more likely attain good work, if the field in which they work is "well aligned" in that all stakeholders want more or less the same thing… For those of us who feel concerned with news of more moral decay… or who wish to encourage more ethics, excellence and meaning at work… Dr. Howard Gardner is truly a genius of our time… on the habits of the mind that lead to moral leadership…and on how workers can achieve moral leadership in any organization… What do you think?

I was at a community event last night. The topic of discussion was emergency preparedness and response. Since 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina, this has been a frequently discussed topic among government, education and business.

One of the speakers offered a simple recipe for emergency preparedness and response. It is..........

Plan, Prepare, Practice

This concept resonated with me as I thought about my own personal preparedness. It also seemed like excellent advice for leadership of any organization, activity or event. I also thought of the words of John C. Maxwell who noted that “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

Leadership is rarely successful by adhering to a set of strict rules. Leaders tend to be creative and flexible, capable of balancing many competing forces. This holds true for planning, preparing and practicing. There is no secret formula. Rather, what follows are concepts that require you to think, act and assess – and use your unique experience and expertise to lead.

It takes a lot to be a leader. I have written about leader characteristics often. One characteristic I have never written about is the importance of a leader’s appearance. Is there a certain "leader look"?

According to Successful Blog, there is. And Business Week agrees.


An article in BusinessWeekOnline entitled, Dress the Part of a Leader notes


The article is written by Carmine Gallo, a corporate communications coach. He states,


Apparently not only how you dress is important but also how you look – that is, the eye contact you use when you meet someone. While I believe, how a leader acts is most important, how you look may also make a difference in your leadership.

If you are interested in learning more about this topic, check Gallo’s new book 10 Simple Secrets of the World's Greatest Business Communicators.

This morning, a group of women business leaders gathered in Chicago to discuss strategies and opportunities for women business executives. The symposium is sponsored by EmployeeROI and co-hosted by Boardroom Bound and Diversity Pipeline Alliance.

The symposium’s mission is to:


Linda K. Bolliger, Founder and CEO of conference partner Boardroom Bound described further the purpose of the conference, "Instead of having to wait for doors to open, we are creating our own pathways to the top. This is an ideal venue to showcase developing women leaders alongside prospective mentors who are currently serving on corporate boards and other notables who are in a position to help them attain the visibility, access and support they might not otherwise have as easily.”

Valerie Jarrett, Chairman, Chicago Stock Exchange Board was the keynote speaker.

A great source for keeping track of news on women leaders is News on Women.

This just in from the folks at Anecdote


I took the bait and checked this out.  McKinsey requires you to register to access these articles (not all bad but still....).  The articles are not written by Drucker but the very smart folks at McKinsey.  They all reference Drucker and are influenced by his writings and thinking.  Topics offered are below: Druckers influence is profound.  Worthwhile reading indeed. 

I discussed Unitus and an interview with its Chairman, Mike Murray by Robert Scoble in a post yesterday. While the interview with Mike was enlightening for many, based on some comments it also raised several questions about micro-credit. What I think the interview communicates best, and why I mentioned it, is the leadership and innovation that Unitus is providing in addressing this important cause.

Unitus, as Mike suggests, is applying proven business principles such as “Innovation, best practices, good IT thinking, good management thinking” to the non-profit space. These are principles that Mike and others developed as executives at Microsoft, Apple, etc. They know from which they speak.

He calls Unitus a micro-credit accelerator because they are taking the principles of microfinance that have been around for several decades and are as he says “stepping on the gas pedal.” Their goals are ambitious but based on some excellent and proven data.

Micro-credit is all about economic self-reliance and empowering an individual to lift herself out of poverty. This principle of sustainable self-reliance, more than any amount of money, changes people. It applies the laws of capitalism and free-market economics to the problem of third-world poverty where some form of socialism has been the norm. In the case of micro-credit, debt acts as a strict taskmaster that extracts fiscal discipline of this new entrepreneur. The lenders can’t be there to monitor the borrower like in traditional credit markets that we are familiar with in the U.S. 

“Isn’t an interest rate of 20% to 30% excessive?  Why doesn’t micro-credit charge interest rates at lower rates like those we see in traditional banks?”