Sports and Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore is a shining example of building shrines to leaders that have stood the test of time. It was not hastily built. It was erected a hundred years after the deaths of these great Presidents.

Using Family in Business

The Orlando Sentinel newspaper today had an opinion piece about children working for their parents.  As Robert Greene wrote in his book The 48 Laws of Power, Law #2 states: Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies, the word "Friends" can be replaced with "Family."  Many times when a small business owner starts a business, one of the best places to find employees, in the business owner's opinion, is in family.

However, this can be a absolutely great or absolutely terrible, with terrible usually winning in many cases.  The problem with this situation as Greene so painfully points out in his book is that you will give friends (family) more chances, more power, more everything than other employees.  Family only focuses this more because in essence you cannot fire a family member.  If you do, Thanksgiving and Christmas stop being such a joyous affair because not only does the family member resent the firing, but many family members take sides.  

This plays out many, many times on the show Kitchen Nightmares which stars Gordon Ramsay, chef extraordinaire.  Almost every week on this show throughout the years it is the family members that cause terrible food, service, or no management.  Family hates and refuses to fire these family members and therefore the profits start to dwindle.

It does not take too long to find small business owners in any town in the world that experience these horrible situations.  Therefore, before you hire friends or family, take a step back and ask yourself if you want to deal with these situations along with everything else a small business owner has to deal with in operating a business.

Reputation

Today came reports that Penn State's administration tried to "hide" the Jerry Sandusky scandal for a number of years. As far as leadership is concerned, reputation is a lifelong goal for any leader.

In this case, the administration was not involved in the actual abuse, but tried to hide the actions of Sandusky. This is obviously a major violation of the agency problem in business.

The agency problem is where each employee is a representative of the organization of which they work. Most employees that "violate" the agency problem are viewed as the individual's issue and not a representation of the company as a whole.

However, in this case, the agency issue caused by Sandusky could have been swiftly dealt with by the administration. Here is Joe Paterno, a man of unquestionable reputation for decades until the scandal.  He let someone such as Sandusky ruin his reputation based upon these credible and proven accusations.

A decision by Paterno and the administration ruined Paterno and Penn State University's reputation. If Paterno would still be alive today I would pose this simple question: if these were your grandchildren that Sandusky molested, would you have turned him in? This question is easily answered...

Needless to say, reputation need to be guarded at all costs. Reputation is everything to a leader....

Importance of Staff

Staff is one of the more important and critical basics of leadership...always has been, always will. ANY leader, from a small business to the President of the United States knows the importance of staff members.

A leader simply cannot do it all. She or he cannot be an expert in everything when it comes to an organization. You simply manage the process. As an example, I think the majority of mistakes that former President Bush (W) made was from misinformation and lack of smart decision making from his staff over the last few years of his presidency. A leader simply cannot do it all. It's vital to have great staff.

Negative Political Leadership Ads

Almost every commercial break on television today has a political commercial for one of the two presidential candidates.  Almost every ad either mentions or speaks “between the copy” of the leadership of the other candidate. 

The interesting aspect of the ads is the negative nature of the advertisements about the failings of the other candidate.  President Obama recently made a speech mistake in which he stated “The private sector is doing fine.”  Such speech gaffes are political fodder for the other political party.  Many millions of dollars of ads bring these mistakes to the forefront of the American voters for each candidate.

Leadership that focuses on the negative aspect of each candidate actually brings Americans to talk about the negatives of his or her leadership instead of the positives.  As human nature dictates, we love negative stories more than positive.  One half hour of the nightly news demonstrates that too well.

It will never happen, but the choice between spending money on negative vs. positive ads will always bring a huge majority on the “failings’ of the other candidate.  It would be interesting to see a candidate focus on the positives instead of negatives.  Pigs will fly before that happens……

Born or Taught

Born or taught? This question has been examined over the ages of the existence of people. My view on this is that leaders are a product of their environment more than anything else. What we learn when are young has a huge influence upon us as leaders.

Understand that I do not mean environment from an income level. I mean what we are taught, whether from parents, friends, television, etc.

Even the most remote villages of the Amazon have tribal chiefs that have leader knowledge. They might not have one day of school, but they are a leader nonetheless.

Also, I DO believe some leaders are born leaders and hone their skills again through environment.

The Recipe of Leadership

I get asked many times by my students, "why can't people decide who is the best leader?" that is a tough question to answer but I think I have found the answer. One day during my leadership class, I was covering traits of a leader and realized that the traits (as listed by John Maxwell) could be also looked upon as having a certain "amount" for each trait.  As an example, if a leader is viewed as having integrity, then that leader can have a small or large amount of integrity. To put it another way, a scale from 0 to 100.

Therefore, as we examine leaders, each have certain traits. Within each trait, an amount can also be examined. To finalize this examination, each leader have certain traits, a certain amount and therefore it sums to a "recipe" of leadership.

Take chocolate chip cookies. Most everyone loves chocolate chip cookies. Within this love for the cookie, a favorite recipe comes to the forefront for everyone. Maybe it's your Grandmother's, Mom's, or a store brand. Each of these cookies have a certain recipe. We like the cookies based upon the ingredients AND the amount of the ingredients. Same with leadership: traits and the amount of the trait. People like THEIR leader based upon the "recipe" of the leader. Yes, they are a leader, but not everyone likes the leader's taste and recipe, just like chocolate chip cookies....