CategoryLeadership

Management Since 1800

1 Min read

I’m a proponent of leadership over management as the primary course of study to improve one’s ability to influence people.  Management, however, seems to have reigned as a subject in books since the 1800s.  The google Ngram below charts the usage of the keywords “manager,” “leader,” “management”, and “leadership” in books since 1800.

I notice a couple of interesting things about these trends:

  1. Leadership subjects did not appear until the mid 1800s (perhaps as a result of the American Civil War)
  2. Management subjects decreased during the America’s Great Depression
  3. Management subjects skyrocketed during 1970-1990  (the rise in the economies of industrialized countries)
  4. All of the keywords dropped in usage after 2001 (Influenced by the attacks on September 11?)
Read later

Gratitude Unlocks the Fullness of Life

1 Min read

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. – Melody Beattie

Read later

Real Life

1 Min read

Real life isn’t always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgment of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties – Sarah Ban Breathnach

Read later

Your Real Life

1 Min read

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all unpleasant things as interruptions of ones “own” or “real” life.  The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day. – C.S. Lewis

Read later

Team Leadership

1 Min read

My philosophy of leadership is that four or five of us can come up with a much better decision than just I can alone.  And if you follow that philosophy, you’ll probably have a very good, talented management group around you.  People can always perform a whole lot better than how you think they’re going to perform.  You need to really give them the opportunity to do that.

 Shivan S. Subramaniam, chairman and CEO of FM Global

Read later

Humility, the Basic Leadership Virtue

1 Min read

Benedict believed the basic leadership virtue was humility. Leaders had to demonstrate competence and ambition, but their passion was to derive from a desire to improve and contribute to the health of the organization, not from individual ego. He believed that true humility was a skill one had to learn and practice.

John Mount, in a Forbes.com review of the book The Benedictine Rule of Leadership: Classic Management Secrets You Can Use Today by Craig and Oliver Galbraith

Read later

Leaders Doing the Wrong Things Well

1 Min read

“Leadership guru Warren Bennis spent years researching leaders.  He wrote in Why Leaders Can’t Lead:  ‘Leaders do the right thing; managers do things right.  Both roles are crucial, but differ profoundly.  I often observe people in top positions doing the wrong thing well.'”

Harvey Mackey, “Uncommon Leadership:  It Has Common Traits,”Leadership Excellence,” July 2010

Read later

The Best Executive

1 Min read

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. – Theodore Roosevelt

Read later

Kotter: Great Leaders Have Emotional Impact

1 Min read

Great leaders tell stories that create pictures in our minds and have emotional impact.  Martin Luther King Jr., had a dream, not a strategy or a goal, and he showed us his dream, his picture of the future.  People change when they see something visual (the vision) that touches their feelings, challenges their thinking, and incites actions.  People may realize the need for change, but not do anything differently because they lack the passion to break out of the routines or habit patterns.  The momentum of ‘how we’ve done things’ tends to make our future look like our past.

The ability to move people emotionally is a special gift.  Few of us are born with it, but we can learn it.  John P. Kotter

Read later

Calendar

January 2025
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031