Leadership development expert Jack Zenger wrote a provocative piece in Forbes, titled, “Change Your Leaders To Change Your Culture.” Here’s the opening. “How would you describe the culture of your organization? Some might say, “It’s the smell of the place,” or, “It’s how things are done around here.” Research done on culture and organizational performance […]

Leadership development may be the most important thing any company does. That’s why, every week, I review blogs and other publications that cover leadership development to find the very best leadership development posts. This week, you’ll find pointers to posts CEO succession, spotting leadership potential, leadership development coaching, and improving your leadership development pipeline. From […]

Leadership development has swallowed the “leader as superior being” Kool-Aid, putting the main emphasis on leadership skills and putting everything else in second place. Leadership development is about developing leadership skills, for sure, but that’s only part of the challenge. Our challenge is to help men and women prepare for and develop as people who […]

Leadership development and coaching in the olden days Things are better now. In the long-ago times when I started in business, leadership development meant “find natural leaders and develop them.” Since the natural leaders you hired were like Mary Poppins, “practically perfect in every way,” you simply exposed them to more and more demanding leadership […]

This is the third post of an ongoing series on 360-Degree Feedback Best Practices. Let’s be honest — Not all organizations are “ready” for 360-degree feedback. All too often it gets introduced in the middle of a very large organizational change (e.g., merger or acquisition) or some other untimely organization-wide event. 8 key questions to […]

You’d like Tom. Pretty much everybody does. He’s a people person with a great personality. He’s just finished his third, successful stint as a CEO. He’s a gourmet cook, a husband and father who’s got a good relationship with grown kids. He’s a happy guy, but hardly what the Economist would call a “philosopher king.” […]