This morning my 16-year-old informed me that tomorrow is “Senior Day” for Homecoming week and as part of the SGA leadership team, he has to dress up as a senior citizen. The immediate image in my head was that of an old man with a branded t-shirt, khaki pants held up by wide suspenders, and clunky white tennis shoes. So that’s what we went with. Why that’s the image that popped into my mind, I don’t know. My dad is 71, he’s a senior citizen, and he’s never dressed like that. My uncles don’t dress like that. In fact, no
Over the past few months, we’ve had several requests to facilitate training for boards of directors. Just last week, I met with a relatively newly formed board. They were receptive, attentive, and appreciative of the nuggets of information I shared. Source: National Council of Nonprofits Board governance is the primary purpose of a board. They aren’t tasked with handling the day-to-day activities, such as staffing. Every training I’ve done has been organized by a competent, engaged director hired by the board. Boards should focus on the mission of the organization, be transparent and make financial decisions that are in
David Letterman most likely had it right when he said, “Life experience is the best teacher.” But I’d add a word and say that BAD life experiences are probably the best teacher, at least when you’re trying to grow in leadership and you’re willing to learn from them. Our Horizon Point team had a discussion about something related to this concept in a meeting based on some client experience that I can’t even recall now. This led to the idea of using this theme for a blog post. My team encouraged me to write about the lessons learned from difficult
I recently helped a top security government employee with developing a resume. His leadership philosophy centered around supporting his employees (as opposed to the other way around); he believes in empowering subordinates with authority, as opposed to responsibility. His view of leadership embodies serving which is what great leaders do. Servant leaders are a revolutionary bunch—they take the traditional power leadership model and turn it completely upside down. This new hierarchy puts the people—or employees, in a business context—at the very top and the leader at the bottom, charged with serving the employees above
In an ever-changing world, it’s more important than ever for leaders to have the tools to be able to navigate change and innovate. It’s also important for leaders to have opportunities to spur creative thinking in a world that is cluttered with a lot of noise and distractions. Most importantly, though, leaders need support in connecting with people and building empathy. When frameworks are provided to help spur innovation and build valuable people skills, we find that leaders are better equipped to move forward. It seems counterintuitive to use a process to try to break away from routine thinking and/or