Category Archives: Leadership

Virtuous Business Practices – an interview with Dr. Kim Cameron

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  Dr. Kim Cameron is the William Russell Professor of Management & Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and the co-founder of a field called Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS).  POS was separate in its origins from Positive Psychology (and pre-dates positive psychology).  I had the honor of having him as my advisor for my MAPP capstone at the University of Pennsylvania.  Louisa Jewell and I couldn’t ask for a fairer or tougher advisor.  I decided to interview him to see what he’s been working on. What subjects are businesses are most attracted to? Bottom line is the driver, of course.  All business executives say “If I don’t achieve profit, return to share, then I’m not doing my job and I will not last and nor will the organization.”  Their interest is:  ‘Is there any pay… …

Can Appreciative Inquiry Transform Cincinnati into a Strengths-Based City?

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I didn’t think much about going to Cincinnati, to be honest with you.  I went because David Cooperrider (the creator of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and a Zen-like figure in Organizational Development) is a vanguard in the organizational development world.  I went because I wanted to see Appreciative Inquiry on a large scale.  I did not go because I wanted to be moved to tears (or singing, as the case may be).  But Cincinnati moved me.  The AI process moved me…and I’ve been through it before. For those of you dictionary lovers here is a recap of what the name means: Appreciate: Recognize the quality, significance or magnitude of; To be fully aware of or sensitive to; To raise in value or price Inquiry: The process of gathering information for the purpose of learning and changing; A close examination in a quest for truth I’ve written… …

Empathy: Leadership Strength Or Weakness?

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Last week, Arlington Economic Development’s Business Investment Group sponsored Empathy in Business, a panel discussion with Ángel Cabrera, President of George Mason University, Bill Drayton, CEO of Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Carly Fiorina, CEO of Carly Fiorina Enterprises (and former CEO of HP), and Julie Rogers, President and CEO of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation. Jonathan Aberman, Managing Director and Chairman of Amplifier Ventures, moderated the discussion. If you can find the discipline and energy to listen, you may learn why things failed and then make better decisions. — Ángel Cabrera It appears as if there are two camps when it comes to empathy as it relates to leadership: 1) those who think it’s a “squishy” emotion that makes a leader weak; or 2) those who think it’s a quality required to lead people effectively. For the… …

Cognitive Bias: Negativity Bias

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On our December 10, 2012 blog, we gave an overview of cognitive bias (our tendency to filter information through our own past experiences, likes, and dislikes) and surmised that it can lead to judgments that are faulty. So much of leadership is about good decision making so we really wanted to expand on different biases. In the second of our series, I am going to talk about Negativity Bias – the tendency to give more weight to negative information than positive information. Continue reading →

Interesting Conversations on LinkedIn

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If you’re somewhere in the management chain and not yet a member of either the Leadership Think Tank or Harvard Business Review groups on LinkedIn, you’re missing out on some very interesting conversations that get to the core of well-being in the workplace… or perhaps lack thereof in many American companies. One of the questions being debated on LinkedIn this week is as follows: If your employee makes a mistake, do you accept responsibility? Fascinated by the discussion thread, I scrolled through all of the comments and got a good sense for what people had to say about responsibility, accountability, and throwing subordinates under the bus. While I didn’t do a tally, it struck me that a rather large percentage of the comments had a strong authoritarian flavor, many with advice on the process and education needed to avoid mistakes… …

Cognitive Bias and Leadership Introduction and Overview

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Part 1 of our “Cognitive Bias and Leadership” Series What is cognitive bias and what the heck does it have to do with leadership? A cognitive bias is our tendency to filter information through our own past experiences, likes, and dislikes. This means we have a tendency to make judgments that are faulty…and faulty in predictable ways. Of course anything that affects our judgments and decision making will ultimately affect our ability to effectively lead. In this blog, I am going to give a quick definition of some of the cognitive biases to be aware of in the workplace. The following could significantly impact on your organization: Negativity Bias – the tendency to give more weight to negative information than positive information. Confirmation Bias – the tendency to search for or interpret information that confirms what we already think or… …

Focus, Discipline, And Grit: Hallmarks of Great Leaders

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That successful entrepreneurs have to be gritty is not news. Tenacity and perseverance enable founders to accomplish goals that may take years to achieve. People who start businesses that endure surmount a host of challenges (like wondering how to generate enough cash to keep the doors open and also feed themselves) along the way. Focus, discipline, and tenacity are also hallmarks of great leaders. Little demonstrates a leader’s grittiness more than the ability to effectively navigate a disaster. The movie, Apollo 13, demonstrates crisis management and gritty leadership at their best. Leadership Lessons from Apollo 13 Remember the scenes where disaster after disaster happen? The life-threatening drama begins when Jack Swigert replaces Ken Mattingly as pilot a few days before Apollo 13’s scheduled lift off. Bringing Swigert on disrupts the team’s chemistry, cohesion, and levels of trust. Then, the oxygen… …

Why We’re Stuck in An Authoritarian Rut

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Friday night I went to the Washington West Film Festival to see I AM, a documentary by Tom Shadyac. You know… the guy who directed Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar, Patch Adams, and a host of other popular comedies. After an accident that left him suffering with Post Concussion Syndrome and facing the possibility death, Shadyac came to grips with how his values and the way he lived his life differed. Vastly. The discomfort spurred Shaydac to make a movie about his journey to reconcile core values with personal actions. Ultimately, I AM seeks to answer two fundamental questions: 1. What’s wrong with our world? 2. What can we do about it? The movie just may have answered one of the burning questions I’ve been pondering for some time now: Why do American business leaders continue to fail to… …

Why 70% of Employees Dream of Leaving Their Jobs

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Much of workplace unhappiness stems from a controlling, or authoritarian management style… the default setting for a significant number of today’s business “leaders.” These managers use their authority to gain compliance rather than treating employees in a manner they’d prefer. Continue reading →

Positively Profitable– Be Happy, Work Better

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If you want to increase profits, you might want to check out the field of positive psychology. Continue reading →