Leadership Mistakes

Customer service when hell freezes over

March 12, 2010

During a lull between monster snowstorms on the East Coast in February, with snowplow operators already in their ninth shift of 12 hours on, 12 hours off, we witnessed a breathtaking performance of how not to lead. It came during a delivery of snow shovels and ice melt to a neighborhood hardware store in Virginia:

Tips for talking like a leader

February 12, 2010

Without knowing it, you may be saying things that make you sound less leader-like. Here, courtesy of the editors at Reader’s Digest and Business Management Daily, are some tips that can help you come across better:

6 risk management mistakes

January 11, 2010

Here are six ways to guard against “black swan events,” those rare but catastrophic disasters that can take everything down with them, adapted from “The Six Mistakes Executives Make in Risk Management.”

Leadership lesson: Why lead when you can slink away?

January 11, 2010

Nobody said managing poor performers would be easy. So don’t manage them. Try these stranger-than-fiction methods of the truly cowardly. Example: Try “team-building.” Instead of working one-on-one with the source of trouble, drag the whole group into “team-building” in hopes that your poor performer will improve.

Why it’s hard to admit you’re off track

April 1, 2007

Leadership consultant Antony Bell tells this story to show the stubbornness of our assumptions: what psychologists and scientists call our “paradigms.”

These 6 career missteps await

June 1, 2006

Executive coach Debra Benton, author of How to Think Like a CEO, identifies these six common behaviors as career-killers.