It could be said that the term ‘leadership’ has been, and continues to be, misunderstood and overused by ‘experts’ in the business, organizational and political worlds to a point where the concept has simply ceased to have any real meaning.
A ‘consultant’ who has never seriously studied, or understood leadership can call himself a leadership expert. [...]
Archive for the ‘Life skills’ Category
Leadership: Not that Word Again?
Posted in Business, Leadership, Life skills, Sustainability, learning, management, philosophy on April 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Leadership in Action
Posted in Leadership, Life skills, Shared Learning, World peace, learning, management on April 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
For the 100th post let us see what the exercise of leadership means in relation to the real world.
An example of leadership in action was seen in this week’s debut in New York’s Carnegie Hall of the very first appearance of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
In today’s ‘The Independent’ newspaper, London, quoting Associated Press, we read that already the [...]
How Can You Make 2009 A Happier Year?
Posted in Leadership, Life skills, learning, philosophy on January 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The simple answer is:
Truly knowing what makes most of us genuinely happy and doing something about it in 2009.
What many psychologists and researchers are now finding – indeed, what many philosophers throughout history have been saying - and that is: Your actions can indeed have a significant effect on your happiness and well-being in life, as [...]
To Ignore the Unpredictable is a Risky Business
Posted in Business, Leadership, Life skills, management, philosophy on December 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
As promised in LLPathways previous post this post returns to the ‘unpredictable’. Now, it could be argued that with regards to our social and organizational worlds the current situation is the result of innumerable causes, and for this reason their futures cannot be fully predicted.
Thus, the question is: Can we fully predict, less manage, the [...]
The Purpose of Leadership: 4
Posted in Business, Human conflict, Leadership, Life skills, Shared Learning, management on December 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Conflict Resolution
A very important aspect of the exercise of leadership is to address conflict. Indeed, the exercise of leadership acknowledges that within every social, or organizational, context you will find the seeds of conflict. Why? Because in such context differences of opinion, along with conflicts of interest, are often present.
Even within one’s own personality conflict [...]
Can Leadership Fail?
Posted in Government, Leadership, Life skills, Shared Learning, Sustainability, management on August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In relation to the question: Can leadership fail? The simple answer is ‘No’. Can leaders and governments fail? Of course they can, and all too often do so.
Leadership is not a concept that can fail, just as you cannot say that gravity fails.
It is the degree of leadership present that is the crucial factor in [...]
Leadership: Lessons from Our Ancestors
Posted in Education, Leadership, Life skills, Shared Learning, Sustainability on August 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Somewhat recent findings referred to by Woods et al (1) and Bryant (2) point to the fact that in relation to Native Americans perceptions ‘leadership’ is not located in a person, but in a community, and ‘the leader’ is a transient role. Here everyone plays a leading role at different times. Authority is specific to [...]
Leadership: The Problem of Definition.
Posted in Business, Education, Leadership, Life skills, Shared Learning, management, philosophy on August 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It could be said that the inherent confusion surrounding the idea of leadership itself tends to place barriers in the way of understanding and adopting leadership as a guiding principle in establishing and maintaining a culture of shared learning, successful and inclusive organizational and social development.
Nevertheless, the removal of such barriers will no doubt prove to [...]
The Purpose of Leadership
Posted in Education, Leadership, Life skills, Shared Learning, Sustainability, learning on July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Leadership provides us with a sense of direction, a focus. It permeates the entire enterprise with values, principles and integrity.
It provides the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘now’ of improvement.
In relation to the life of our hunter-gatherer ancestors the inherent exercise of leadership allowed them to develop the social skills of cooperation, along with the sense of the [...]
Our Search for Meaning
Posted in Life skills, Shared Learning, learning, psychology on June 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today’s somewhat longer post revisits the world of humanistic psychology, and particularly the work of Erich Fromme (1900-1980). One of the most challenging of Fromm’s search for human motivation was his conviction that human beings are driven either consciously, or unconsciously, by the need to find answers to one’s existence. For Fromm the answers to [...]
