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Dealing with Active Resisters and Apathetic Loafers at Work, School or in Workshops

Dec 1, 2010

There are those that are eager to learn, inquisitive, participative and genuinely excited to hear something that challenges their pre-conceived ideas or that expands their thinking. These Active Learners bring energy to the situation and they raise the quality of the engagement for everyone involved. Unfortunately, it’s common in many settings to meet the alter egos of the Active Learner. They come in several shapes and sizes, ranging from Aggressive Resisters to Apathetic Loafers. What’s a manager, educator or facilitator to do?

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Art Guest Posts on Leadership at Tanveer Naseer’s Blog

Nov 30, 2010

My guest post at Tanveer Naseer’s blog, The Great and Perilous Leadership Journey Ahead, reflects my perspective on the rapidly and radically changing nature of leadership in our emerging environment. Perhaps my subhead says it best: “Welcome to the Leadership Blender.”

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A Leader’s List for Giving Thanks

Nov 24, 2010

As we take a momentary time-out in America from our significant challenges as a professionals, citizens and family members and give thanks for what’s good and right in our world and lives, those of us that serve as leaders owe a few additional toasts and thoughts for the privilege that we have in working with others. The Leader’s List for Giving Thanks, includes…

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Leadership Caffeine™: Mistakes are the Raw Ingredients of Leadership Courage

Nov 21, 2010

’ve made a number of mistakes over the course of my leadership career that make my head spin and my stomach turn just thinking about them. No life or death or business impacting mistakes, but, definitely some people and team impacting issues that created ill will and most definitely didn’t show me off at my leadership best. Learning from those mistakes helped me evolve my thinking on the role of a leader and on my true priorities in supporting my business, my peers and my team members.

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Leadership Lessons from Sherlock Holmes: Watch and Learn

Nov 19, 2010

Most great leaders that I’ve encountered are astute observers of their environment. They are good at reading people and situations, and they apply the insights gained through observing to improving their performance as leaders and to navigating the ever-present corporate politics. We spend a great deal of time helping individuals develop their skills as speakers, but when was the last time that you attended a workshop on improving your observation skills?

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At Least 3 Reasons We’re Still Raving About Lousy Leaders

Nov 16, 2010

I’ll wager a month’s worth of coffee that if you asked everyone that you know to generate a list on what makes an effective leader, the output would be nearly identical. So if this construct of an effective leader is so readily apparent, why is there a nearly endless supply of disgruntled workers capable of describing lousy leader horror stories to anyone that will listen?

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Leadership Caffeine™: The “I’s” Have It

Nov 15, 2010

The short, important and seemingly harmless word, “I,” is a potentially lethal weapon of morale and credibility destruction when used for evil or ego instead of for good. It’s so powerful in fact, that I envision a future world where leaders wear the equivalent of a dosimeter badge to warn leader and followers when the use of “I” is in danger of creating a toxic event…most likely a spillover of b.s. into the workplace.

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The Leader’s Role in Promoting Innovation

Nov 13, 2010

If the role of a leader wasn’t challenging enough, let’s pile on one more abstract but critical challenge to the heavy lifting already required by leaders in this fast-changing world: promoting a culture of innovation.

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“Hey, What if One of Our Ships Gets Stranded?”

Nov 10, 2010

By now, most of us have seen or heard news footage of the Carnival Splendor stranded at sea after suffering an engine room fire and a subsequent loss of core systems including most power and importantly, the plumbing. Thankfully, no one was reported injured, but that’s about as good as the news gets in this situation. The fact that something went wrong at sea on one of those floating Mall of Americas is not surprising to me. What is surprising and disconcerting about the situation, is the apparent complete and utter lack of a risk response plan.

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