In his book Linchpin Seth Godin draws a distinction between the words fearless and reckless. Fearless people, he says, are “unafraid of things one shouldn’t be afraid of.” They push through any imagined “threat” to make a presentation to a difficult customer or conduct a challenging conversation with an underperforming employee. On the other hand,…
Courage
It’s Only “No”
When I was a kid, struggling about going for a new opportunity my mom would say, “What’s it hurt to ask? The worst they can say is ‘no’.” Same message by Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership in his post Career Advice Part 4: You Have to Ask for It. . . . . ….
Awesomely Simple
Book Review: Awesomely Simple: Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action By John Spence In the introduction to his book Awesomely Simple, author John Spence declares: “everything in this book is from real life: you’ll find no fluff, no grand theories, no intellectual back-flips.” Readers who want complex organizational theories or a rigorously annotated…
Office Politics: It’s Personal
Our 5-part series on positive office politics, (The P Quotient) is drawing to a close. In this final installment, Jane Perdue looks at personal influence, one of four key behaviors needed for a person to be considered politically savvy in a productive way. Just tuning in to this fascinating topic? Start here for the…
Stepping Into the Abyss
It’s great when a fellow blogger inspires me to get revved up on a topic. And so it is with Mary Jo Asmus’ series on the role that employees should play in helping their leaders improve. Last week, in response to her post “Bad Manager or Flawed Human?” the discussion on her blog was lively. …