leadership is...

Leadership is the ability to articulate a vision and get others to carry it out.

Jack Welch

Lead with Humility: 12 Leadership Lessons from Pope Francis by Jeffrey A. Krames. 2014.

a noble vocation

Business is a vocation, and a noble vocation, provided that those engaged in it see themselves challenged by a greater meaning in life; this will enable them truly to serve the common good by striving to increase the goods of this world and to make them more accessible to all…. I am convinced of one thing: the great changes in history were realized when reality was seen not from the center but rather from the periphery.

Pope Francis

Message of Pope Francis to the Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum on the Occasion of the Annual Meeting at Davos-Klosters (Switzerland). 1/17/2014. As quoted in Lead with Humility: 12 Leadership Lessons from Pope Francis by Jeffrey A. Krames. 2014.

actively noticing new things

Mindfulness is the process of actively noticing new things. When you do that, it puts you in the present. It makes you more sensitive to context and perspective. It’s the essence of engagement. And it’s energy-begetting, not energy-consuming. The mistake most people make is to assume it’s stressful and exhausting—all this thinking. But what’s stressful is all the mindless negative evaluations we make and the worry that we’ll find problems and not be able to solve them.

We all seek stability. We want to hold things still, thinking that if we do, we can control them. But since everything is always changing, that doesn’t work. Actually, it causes you to lose control.

Take work processes. When people say, “This is the way to do it,” that’s not true. There are always many ways, and the way you choose should depend on the current context. You can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. So when someone says, “Learn this so it’s second nature,” let a bell go off in your head, because that means mindlessness. The rules you were given were the rules that worked for the person who created them, and the more different you are from that person, the worse they’re going to work for you. When you’re mindful, rules, routines, and goals guide you; they don’t govern you.

Ellen Langer

"Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity." Harvard Business Review. March 2014.

character increases bottom-line results

Tom Fox: What are the traits of leaders who have high character?

Fred Kiel: The leaders who attained the greatest financial bottom-line results had strong character habits that involve four basic principles: integrity, responsibility, forgiveness and compassion. They almost always tell the truth, keep their promises, are willing to own up to their mistakes and take responsibility for their choices. They are very forgiving of others. They are all about learning from mistakes rather than punishing. And finally, they care about people.

When employees say that leaders show these character habits, in contrast to those who show them about half the time, there was an amazing difference in bottom-line financial results—almost five times more.

Tom Fox and Fred Kiel

"Good people make good leaders." The Washington Post. 9/21/2015

can anyone be a leader?

Leadership is a skill, and I believe like all skills, can be mastered with practice and coaching. That does not mean that there aren’t individual differences, but that people can improve on their current capabilities.

One of the reasons why leadership training so often fails—Bill Gentry of the Center for Creative Leadership estimates that about half of all leaders are ineffective in their roles—is that leadership education insufficiently focuses on building the influence skills and acumen in managing organizational dynamics—organizational politics, if you will—that are so essential to getting things done on the one hand and surviving and succeeding in workplaces on the other.

Jeffrey Pfeffer

"Jeffrey Pfeffer: What Most People Don't Know About Leadership." Forbes. 9/15/2015