The impetus for change leadership: Check the insularity at the door & learn to lead with an outward facing agenda (conclusion)

Building and leading a team is one of the most challenging aspects of business life. To build a team from different individuals requires a lot of effort since it’s sometimes a long distance between Storming and Performing. And that effort to build an esprit de corps requires a certain amount [...]

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10 tips to greatness from Jim Collins

If you enjoyed reading Peter’s and John’s posts about the Jim Collins presentation at The Premier Business leadership series, you’ll really enjoy this list of ten things you can start doing today to become great. Whether you are just staring your first business or a seasoned business leader, you can [...]

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General Colin Powell: "Everyone is valuable"

Former Secretary of State General Colin Powell might have a distinguished set of credentials – former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, four-star general, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – but at his core, he’s a great storyteller. As the keynote speaker for The Premier Business [...]

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The impetus for change leadership: Rigidity to flexibility (part 3)

I have a particular issue with the rigid leadership style – not just because it can cost the organization in lost opportunities, but also because it is like a fast-moving virus that can infect quite a few of the people who work for a rigid leader. After all, rigid leaders [...]

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The impetus for change: Why soft knowledge matters just as much as the hard stuff (part 2)

In my last blog post, I highlighted the importance of competence, flexibility, and a team orientation as key building blocks of change leadership. These are fundamental for a leader to create the environment for positive change and to lead the organization in sustained effective action. It’s not easy to reach [...]

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The impetus for change leadership (part 1)

Change is hard. Let’s face it – we all have a comfort zone and moving out of it can be difficult to say the least. The change process is hard because it forces us to create and/or adjust to something that is different from our current – in effect, we [...]

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Seven qualities of a great data miner (or, a great anything, for that matter)

Dan Thorpe’s session at the M2010 data mining conference was not what I expected to find at a gathering of data analysts, statisticians and data mining professionals. No mentions of second order polynomial response functions, no mathematical formulas, just a straightforward discussion with a seasoned leader about how data mining [...]

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Madeleine Albright on critical thinking, confidence and hope

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was this morning’s keynote presenter at the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference in Washington, DC. The theme of the conference is, “Leading with Confidence in an Era of Uncertainty,” which can certainly apply to the commercial sector as well as political leaders. She [...]

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Primal leadership and me

I recently re-read Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence by Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, and was struck by how much of my time I get caught between the poles of trying to be a “Commanding leader” or a “Democratic leader” (or, sometimes, any kind of leader at all). [...]

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