“As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?” That’s the Dodecahedron, from the absolutely delightful book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, with illustrations by the inimitable, and sadly recently deceased, Jules Feiffer. I’m rereading it for the gazillionth time, having just given a copy to a friend to read to his seven-year-old daughter. There’s …
Are you sturdy?
Sturdy. It is – in my opinion – a woefully under-used word. And as someone who frequently rants about over-used words, a.k.a. buzzwords, I’m delighted to find an under-used word that’s so useful. Sturdy. Are you sturdy? According to various online dictionaries, “sturdy” is usually applied to someone’s – or something’s – physical qualities: strong, unlikely to break, solid. Let’s …
Whose advice?
Whose advice do you trust? A common interview question for leaders and entrepreneurs is, “What’s the worst career advice you’ve ever gotten?” The followup question, of course, is, “What’s the best?” I’m not here to weigh in on what’s good advice and what’s not. What I do want you to think about is – how do you decide? Whether you’ve …
Leadership is an individual choice
Leadership – humane, strong, forthright leadership – has always been important. It’s how companies succeed, communities grow, and families thrive. We’ve generally looked at leadership as something done at the head of a group – a team, a department, a company, a community. But there’s a lot more to leadership than that – and a lot of leadership happens quietly. …
If at first you don’t succeed…
Practice. It’s a word everyone loves to hate. Because it means we can’t just intellectually understand something. We have to do the thing, and in the beginning, we’ll do it badly – because that’s what it means to learn how to do it well. And leadership skills – practicing leadership – it’s scary. It’s vulnerable, and those who deeply want to …
Culture as Perpetual Soup
I heard a great metaphor the other day about culture: “You cannot microwave culture. It takes a crockpot approach.” (From Charlie Malouf, the CEO of BroadRiver, on Simon Sinek’s podcast “A Bit of Optimism.”) I love how that points to the reality that culture isn’t something you can fix or do quickly. But I also think the metaphor falls apart …
How’s your tone?
Are you tone-deaf? I don’t mean musically. I mean – do you know how you sound to others? There’s a pervasive myth that 93% of communication is non-verbal. It’s incorrect, it’s been debunked any number of times, but it clings stubbornly on in most people’s minds, not to mention on the internet. (The original study that started the myth was …
Permission to Be
What if we all had permission, in 2025, to just be who we are? Live the life we want, and work toward having that life? This is, of course, a position of privilege. Too many don’t have access to basic needs, never mind the space to lift their gaze and imagine possibilities. Seems to me, though, that this makes it …
Leadership perfection
If I sucked you in with that title – if your eyebrows rose, if your internal voice scoffed, “Yeah, right!” – then I did exactly what I meant to do. If, on the other hand, you read that and felt a sinking feeling in your stomach, a knot in your shoulders, if your head drooped a bit – then you’re caught …
And then there’s Power
So, what about leadership and power? I was thinking about this question after last week’s article “Why lead?” Some people confuse leading with having power. And yes, leaders have power, but that’s not what’s important for true leadership. Those who go into leadership for the power it confers upon them aren’t leaders, in my view; instead, they’re likely to be toxic petty …