CONNECTIONS AND DISCONNECTIONS The problem with leadership is at its core a story of disconnections: • the disconnect between what leaders say and what they do; • the disconnect between the leadership industry’s prescriptions and the reality of many leaders’ behaviors and traits; • the disconnect between the multidimensional nature of leadership pe

the employment relationship engenders similar moral obligations. Yes, employees may have worked hard for their employers, investing their careers for years in helping to build the organization’s success. But the employees got paid for that work, and so it would seem that the act of being paid for one’s labor means that the employer owes its people

Keith Ferrazzi, a consultant and management speaker, related that a talk on how companies can accomplish cultural change prompted a manager in the audience to note the similarities in Ferrazzi’s prescriptions to elements of addiction programs.30 For good reason: Successful efforts at change at the individual or the organizational level have many el

“What were you thinking? If you need to work to support yourself, you need to (a) always, and I mean always, be looking for new jobs both within your current employer and ones on the outside so you have options available to you at all times, and (b) be constantly working on your relationship with your new boss. No one can count on stability in comp

Machiavelli teaches that in a world where so many are not good, you must learn to be able to not be good. The virtues taught in our secular and religious schools are incompatible with the virtues one must practice to safeguard those same institutions. . . . Machiavelli has long been called a teacher of evil. The author of “The Prince” never urged e

Leaders who have come up through the ranks and have done many if not most of the organization’s jobs are much more likely to look out for the interests of those they lead because they have been there themselves. That is one plausible explanation for why, in general, leadership in the military is not just better but why senior military officers typi

The most fundamental principle of learning theory is that behavior is a function of its consequences. When behavior is rewarded, that behavior gets repeated with even greater frequency. When behavior is ignored or punished, the frequency of the behavior diminishes.37 In the world of leadership, and particularly the world of senior leadership, what

Goldsmith’s and Godtfredsen’s programs require a daily question process whereby at the same time each day (in the morning or evening, for example), individuals rate themselves on how well they have progressed on the five or six questions that have the greatest impact on their personal and professional objectives. Systematically and regularly reflec

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Much