Recent Posts
Slow Leadership
Return To Blog Listing
Articles on returning humanity to working life and helping leaders think more clearly and make better choices, free from today's constant obsession with meeting unrealistic, short-term expectations. Our aim is to provide interesting and challenging a
Recent Posts Tagged With 'attitudes'
How Are You Feeling?
Surviving in a culture obsessed with emotions Have you noticed that the ‘appropriate’ question to ask someone today about a proposal is, “How do you feel about that?” Not, “What do you think of that?” or “Do you have any ideas on ...
Is ‘Mean’ the New ‘Nice’?
We have lived through the age of ‘nice’: the phony smile, the smarmy front hiding the crook within, the welcome into the crocodile‘s lair of cheap credit and ‘can’t fail’ investments. Now, says Jonathan Littman, we’re about to enter an ...
What’s Your Label?
Just as the labels we apply to others can prevent us from seeing them clearly or appreciating their strengths and value, so the labels you learn to apply to yourself will limit and block your understanding of your own strengths and potential. Read t...
How You Live Matters, Not What You Do For a Living
“Leadership is mostly a matter of perspective,” writes Richard E. Goldman. “Are you always looking up the ladder to see who's above you? Instead of worrying where everyone else is, try to reconcile yourself with the possibility that you are in ...
In Praise of Non-conformity
The evidence that conformity has brought us nearly to economic and financial ruin is overwhelming. Yet people still do it. Why, since the benefits of making your own decisions and choosing your own path through life are both obvious and logical? Rea...
Eternity’s Sunrise
Our tendency to grab and hold on—to acquire for the sake of acquisition—virtually ensures that we kill what we most desire. Once you give up the need to ‘own’ what you love, the world is infinite. Stop clinging, even to the best of it. Leave...
A Question of Patience
“There’s plenty of evidence impatience causes us to spend inordinate amounts of time and energy repairing, re-working and re-doing what we did when we were impatient,” Peter Vajda writes. “Sadly, we live in a culture of ‘hurry up’. We act...
Salvation, Sabotage or Suicide?
“We cannot persist with ‘business as usual’ and avoid sabotaging our future and risking corporate suicide,” writes read Bay Jordan. “Only getting away from the old-fashioned, accountants' attitude to people as costs can offer salvation.”...
It’s 7:45 am. Do You Know Where Your Character Is?
“One definition of character is who you are at 4:00 am in the dark when no one is watching,” writes Peter Vajda. “Once you start taking ethical short-cuts, even when no one is watching, you twist your character out of true.” Read the full te...
The Circle of Care
“Caring is a good thing,” says Karen Senteio, “but only if it is done by degrees to preserve your sanity, your marriage or your job. There is a point where caring too much can cause you to create unnecessary angst for yourself and others. That...
Dealing with your anger
“Whenever we give in to anger, we misuse our ‘fire energy’ to ignite anger in place of courageous action,” writes Peter Vajda. “In place of strength and power, we are caught up in fear and bitterness. All that energy goes within, until we b...
‘Hopetimism’
‘Hopetimism’ is a word made up just for you by Karen Senteio. She defines it as a tendency to believe or desire the best possible outcome. “Opt for Hopetimism,” she writes. “It will sit comfortably in your heart and keep the doors of opport...
Delusional Optimism
Many people love to think of themselves as ‘can do’ types. They revel in the notion that—somehow—thinking positively will automatically produce a life of ease and plenty. Yet, if you truly want success, it’s better to set out expecting plen...
Surviving the Recession
How you handle the bad stuff will determine how you (and your career) come out of this recession. Never mind whose fault it is. To survive the bad times, the trick is to modify the responses and attitudes in your mind and heart, regardless of what th...
Supervision: Take the Time for Proper Job Instruction
Michael Taplin explains the real difference between leadership and supervision. Both are necessary, but they have to be done in the right order. Read the full text of this article on the blog's website. ...
When ‘Moving on’ is All We Have Left
“I believe we must all start where we are—in pain and beset with grief, anger, and fear,” writes Helen Major. “From there, we must confront the voices in our head that tell us some deficit in us alone, some lack or hidden misdemeanor, is the ...
Pay It Forward
“In these tough times,” writes Nina Simosko, ”‘paying it forward’ could make all the difference for many people. We should all be sure to take every opportunity, when helping others, to ask them to do the same for those in need within their...
In Praise of Curiosity
"When was the last time you re-invented your career, your business or yourself?" asks Peter Vajda. It's so easy to stay on the well-worn path of the ‘tried and true’, the familiar, the comfortable, the safe. Maybe that's why our culture is rife w...
Opportunity is Knocking. Are You Coming Out to Play?
Many of us adults have stopped inventing, playing, dreaming, doing and taking action on the things that caught their fancy them. They were silly childhood things that no longer have a place in our lives. Karen Senteio begs to differ. Those are the ...
The Language of Leadership
What we call things tells the world the hidden truth about how we think. In the world of work, the language leaders use to describe their subordinates reveals the true nature of the relationship—the hidden dynamic underneath any surface politeness....
The Economy and the Quality of Life
For millions, writes Peter Vajda, navigating this crisis will be a life-changing experience. As such, two important questions need answers: “How will this change my life?” and “How will I choose to face this journey?” Read the full text of t...
Have They No Shame?
My attention was caught recently by an article by John Baldoni from the Harvard Business Publishing blog, titled “Accountability Begins at the Top”. Commenting on the swift resignation of Britain’s top terrorism expert, Bob Quick, over an embar...
Reasons to Be Cheerful
Here’s something different from The Financial Times: columnist Stefan Stern proposing “Four reasons to be cheerful.” Spring is certainly the right time to feel more up-beat and try putting on a smile, rather than that grim, winter frown. His re...
What’s the Answer?
Mental laziness, narrow-mindedness and glorification of ignorance, wrapped up as gut-feel, got us into this mess. Only thinking for ourselves again stands any chance of getting us out. Read the full text of this article on the blog's website. ...
Attitudes Drive Behavior
Here’s one of the best and simplest explanations I’ve yet seen of what has been going on in the business world, written by Bob Sutton (“Do Economists Breed Greed and Guile?”) for Harvard Business Publishing’s blog. If you want to understand...
Why You Need to Keep Asking “What if . . .”
Macho management leads to a deterministic view of life: a notion that everything that happens can be explained in terms of simple ‘laws’ and known causes; that we already know nearly all the answers to the problems we face. It's high time we gave...
On Moving On
It’s time to move on. You can’t hide behind your remaining ‘walls’ for long and still have any sense of things getting better. Sometime you have to venture out again, take what still works and begin to use it to rebuild. Read the full text o...
Ways to Unearth Your People’s Creativity
Nina Simosko points us to an article that suggests we can all learn from the ‘creative’ industries when it comes to unearthing the talent for innovation and fresh thinking hidden within our organizations. Read the full text of this article on th...
The Super Bowl – but not the game
Peter Vajda reflects on the advertisements during the Super Bowl game and wonders why we casually accept the preponderance of abuse—physical, emotional and verbal—that runs through them. Read the full text of this article on the blog's website. ...
Lies, Damned Lies and Management Statements
For an organization, or a management team, to lose the trust of its workforce, its customers or its employees is the kiss of death. So why do so many today seem careless of the truth and casual with their peoples’ trust? Read the full text of this...
