Month: July 2017

The most difficult leadership position I've ever been in has actually happened twice.  Both were large department directors.  They were 14 years apart, but in both cases, the challenges, frustrations and angst were remarkably similar.  Working for a cowardly leader, on a day-to-day basis, can, and does, cause ulcers, stress anxiety, and other health issues. In the first scenario, I lost about 15 pounds in two years due to the stress, so I suppose that is a silver lining.  The second time I wasn't there long enough to lose any weight, but the stress was definitely the same.  Many of you have worked for cowardly leaders, or do so now, and you know that sick feeling in your stomach you have every morning when you have to go to work and face the boss…

If you’ve worked for a cowardly leader, you know the challenges.  How do you disagree respectfully?  How do you point out decisions that violate long-standing policies?  Are there ways to suggest alternative courses of action and scenarios that may accomplish the task?  Often, any disagreement with a cowardly leader is taken as a personal challenge to his/her status, power, and authority. Some possible workarounds I’m not going to promise that all of these will always work, or that any of them will always work, but I would suggest at least considering them.  I’ve worked for two power-tripping “my way or the highway” cowardly leaders, and they were both remarkably alike in how they reacted to any challenges to their edicts.  It’s likely other insecure cowardly leaders have the same traits. …

  Someone once said, "To a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Cowardly Leaders are hammers As we have explored over the past several months, cowardly leaders have very little actual Leadership talent.  To a cowardly leader, their employees are nails.  All of them.  Everyone is there for one purpose- to be beaten down, driven down, pushed back, and shown that the "hammer" has the power.  Sometimes, if the nail-I mean, employee- is lucky, the "hammer" reconsiders.   He actually pulls the nail up and straightens it out. Employees are hammers too? As you know, I'm a fan of James Altucher  In a recent blog, he had a twist on the hammer/nail theory:  "Employees aren't hammers. You pick up a hammer when you need to pound a nail and then you put it down…

Happy Independence Day! Today's blog could be about historical leaders in our country's history that showed courage in the face of fear and serious personal jeopardy.  Since so many examples are readily available, I wanted to keep that theme, but write from a different perspective. Who is the real Cowardly Leader? I enjoy reading books about leadership.  I have twenty or so on the bookshelf (and it being our Independence Day, a few of those include 1776 and John Adams, both by David McCullough, and Team of Rivals, about the Lincoln administration, by Doris Kearns Goodwin).   Between those and the many magazine articles and discussion blogs about leadership, I am confident that I know at least as much as the average bear about what constitutes a good leader.  Based on the research I’ve…