Posts filed as “Leadership”
Beat Your Own Awesomeness, Lead by Doing
First ask yourself, “Do I behave with high integrity?” The majority of us would respond that yes, we do. Now ask yourself, “Do my colleagues share my same high level of integrity?” A far fewer number of people would agree that their colleagues and peers possess our own elevated level of integrity. Why? Because we…
Turkeys, Flash Freezing and Cafeteria Trays
In late 1953 the Swanson brothers had a glut of turkey. Swanson were turkey wholesalers and had overestimated the market. They thought they would make a killing that year on Christmas turkeys sales. Not so much. So now they had 235 metric tons of turkey riding around the U.S. in refrigerated rail cars and the…
Labels, mazes and stupefying change
Francis Hesselbein was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America’s highest civilian honor by President Clinton, in 1998. She is founder of the Hesselbein Leadership Institute. Her books have been translated into 29 languages, and she is the recipient of 22 honorary doctorate degrees. She has been awarded nearly every prestigous…
The Gap Between Knowing and Doing
Yes, but what’s remarkable is that he is doing it. He is actually practicing these behaviors, while many leaders are simply talking about them.” – Jill Klein, Melbourne Business School I had a conversation recently with Campbell Jones, COO of a large Australian company. He had risen steadily in the organization after years of dedicated…
Can’t hurt to ask
Recently Annie (then 6, now 7) and I were at the store picking out a card to for her to send to a friend. In the card display was a big section dedicated to Taylor Swift. We examined each card – Taylor Swift looking dreamy, sassy, alluring, or even defiant. Taylor can certainly strike a…
Taking the long view
In October of 2003 in Atlanta at a global company meeting, as the new CEO of Schering-Plough, Fred Hassan stood on stage before thousands of sales professionals from around the world and said: If you are in a position of making a sale and doing something you are not comfortable with – something you won’t…
The risk is in your head
Our twelve year old son walked into the lunchroom at Sugarloaf ski resort a couple weeks ago and said quietly, “I learned how to do a 360.” I said, “Awesome! That’s pretty cool. How did you learn that?” He said he just decided to do it. Within 24 hours our ten year old and his…
Only Do What Only You Can Do
Your focus needs more focus – Mr. Han Part of what makes us feel valuable, important and useful is getting things done. We fill the quiet spaces with activity and busyness, and it makes us feel like we’re getting things accomplished. And maybe we are, and maybe sometimes we’re just running the same gerbil wheel…
Innovation = Meaning + Seeing + Leading
I had an interview with Venkatesh Valluri, President of Ingersoll Rand India. In our conversation, he spoke of the qualities of successful emerging leaders as possessing three distinct qualities: The ability to scan a constantly moving stream of technologies and information and pick out the meaningful trends in their businesses The ability to conceptualize these…
Create Value Before You Create Risk
It can be an exciting time when we decide to initiate a project, build an application, or design a compelling solution. The idea may look brilliant and compelling in our minds and we may feel the urge to tell the world about our latest endeavor. Hang on a minute. Telling people we intend to do…
About Shawn
Shawn Hunter is currently Executive Producer & Vice President for Skillsoft's leadership video learning collections. For over a decade Shawn has engaged, collaborated with, and filmed, hundreds of business authors, executives, and business school faculty in an effort to produce video learning solutions, as both an entrepreneur and later as a product developer for Skillsoft.
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