Like a spotlight cutting through darkness, courage shines brightest in the presence of fear. It’s easy to boldly march forward when we’re filled with confidence, and the way forward is fairly smooth. It takes real courage — and strong leadership — to navigate our way when we’re full of negative fantasies and everything seems to […]
Read post »That we are drawn by the future rather than just driven by the past is extremely important and directly contrary to the heritage of social science and the history of psychology. It is, nevertheless, a basic and implicit premise of positive psychology. Martin Seligman, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being When I […]
Read post »My last blog linked to Zenger Folkman’s May 25 webinar on Execution – The KEY to How Leaders Get Things Done with a discussion of knowing versus doing. Common sense often isn’t common practice. “With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know but we must try to have and use […]
Read post »“Research on the Dramatic Impact of Extraordinary Coaching Skills” shows that leaders who are the most effective at coaching have three times more employees that “go the extra mile.” When leaders add coaching to their existing strengths they are ten times more likely to become a top-tier leader. But as Aristotle observed, “with regard to […]
Read post »My last blog “How Leaders Cause Their Direct Reports to Sink or Soar” gave examples and research on the power of expectations. The impact of teachers, coaches, parents, or manager’s expectations of the people they were leading on their performance has been well documented. “Leaders Have Great Expectations” reports on the pioneering work of Robert […]
Read post »….when it comes to goal pursuit, it really is the journey that counts, not the destination. Set for yourself any goal you want. Most of the pleasure will be had along the way, with every step that takes you closer… we can call this ‘the progress principle’: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals […]
Read post »Insights and inspiration as I attend Zenger Folkman’s Extraordinary Leadership Summit this week in Utah and the world watches the London Olympics: “The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he ‘gets for it,’ but what he ‘becomes by it'” – John Ruskin, 19th century English social thinker, philanthropist, artist, and writer We were […]
Read post »“What we expect, that we find.” – Aristotle, Greek philosopher, student of Plato, and teacher of Alexander the Great “Much of life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think the worst of people and show it, they will often prove you right. If the systems we design are based on the principle that people cannot […]
Read post »Recently I was working with a group of managers in a large, complex organization that was going through big changes. There was lots of learned helplessness, victim thinking, and riding the Bitter Bus into Pity City. As we challenged each other and explored our fundamental choice to lead, follow, or wallow we discussed the implications […]
Read post »I just participated in a conference call with a small group of professional speakers and workshop leaders debating the worldwide societal and organizational changes we’re currently experiencing. It was a continuation of the discussion from my April blog posting (“What in the World is Happening Today”) at https://www.clemmergroup.com/blog/?p=697. I have the scars from starting in […]
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