Leadership has many definitions. At Leadership Beyond Limits, we subscribe to the efficacy of transformational leadership as presented by Bass and Avolio (1994). This leadership definition implies that leaders lead followers to levels of higher morals. In addition, transformational leadership implies that the followers are better off with the four I's of: 1. Idealized influence [...]
Nurturing the innovators within an organization is key to growth. An article in the December 2008, Harvard Business Review, Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators, by Cohen, Katzenbach and Vlak explores corporate America's inability to identify and utilize people in the workplace with these vital skills. The authors sum up the problem, "Most companies do a [...]
Think about your current leader or supervisor. What thoughts or feelings immediately surface for you? Does this person inspire you? Are you excited to spend time with her sharing new ideas and working toward a common vision; or do you dread every interaction? Does she give you energy or suck the life out of you; [...]
In case you missed it, I thought I would pass on the invitation to the Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism event that came from John Mackey, CEO at Whole Foods. Here it is: I am writing to invite you to a special event that I am hosting in November. The event is called Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism. It's [...]
Humanity is in crisis. This Friday we saw the largest US government bailout of business in history. The very next day, European leaders met in Paris to deal with the newly acknowledged global economic crisis. Setting aside the larger societal problems of global warming, pollution, drinking water shortages, terrorism, war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, poverty and [...]
Like millions around the world, I have been watching in amazement as Olympic and world records are shattered one after the other in Beijing. Watching US television coverage, we have all been given a glimpse into the life of the greatest Olympic athlete of all time. I am speaking, of course, about Michael Phelps. His [...]
The recent passing of George Carlin has meant the loss of one of our generation's sharpest observational critics. Many people mainly remember Carlin for his more notorious comedy bits, but I often found his jokes as insightful as they were funny. I was recently reminded that he is credited with coining a term that has [...]
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her best selling book Eat,Pray,Love describes a discussion with friends about the vibe of different cities. The friends suggested that each city has a word that defines it and identifies most of the people who live there. Whatever the majority "thought" might be is the word for the city. If you've read this [...]
This story has mainly been told in the Midwest, where a motivational speaker V.J. Smith was so touched by a Wal-Mart cashier that it ended up changing his life, and the lives of thousands of others. Smith was so impressed by the warmth and genuine personality of Aaron "Marty" Martinson that he began to talk [...]
Norman Plate remembers sitting in his first-grade class, appreciating the gifts of his teacher and knowing that he was called to teach. Yet subtle messages throughout his early years led him to believe that the field of medicine would be a more appropriate career choice. Finding himself with less aptitude for the sciences than liberal [...]
