Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Best Posts on Leadership from Top Bloggers

Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership hosted this month’s leadership carnival that features best blog posts of top bloggers on leadership. Here’s what Dan wrote about it:

Welcome to the September 5th, 2010 Leadership Development Carnival Back to Football edition! Yes, Fall is in the air, and the NFL kicks off it’s season this Thursday with a rematch of last year’s NFC championship game – the Saints and the Vikings.

To get in the spirit of the season, this month’s Carnival is set up as if you’re watching the big game, from tailgating to post game highlights. So grab your favorite snack and beverage and get ready for some championship caliber leadership development advice and opinions from some of the best bloggers in the league.

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Real Dysfunction Today, Hidden in Plain Sight

Many individuals and organizations today are in a funk.

Employee engagement is at a low point and the slide down began long before the Great Recession. Research generally shows that 90 percent of employees don’t feel connected to their supervisor or colleagues at work and are either not engaged and giving their best efforts or not aligning their behavior with organizational goals.  Is it any wonder that our economy is struggling?

Research shows that many individuals today are lonely, anxious and depressed.  Depression medication is now a 10 billion dollar business. Even more children report feeling anxious and depressed.  They sense that something is wrong although though they don’t understand why.

The problem today is hidden in plain sight. We are sorely deficient of what I refer to as connection (also known as community, social capital, belonging or meaningful relationships).  How did we get to this state?  Over the last century we grew myopic and obsessed with increasing efficiency and productivity and forgot that human beings need time for relationships too.

If you’re skeptical, I invite you to take a look at The Connection Culture Manifesto, the Hardwired to Connect report by the Committee for Children at Risk, and The Lonely Society report by the Mental Health Foundation in the UK. Several excellent books also address the issue of declining connection in society including Bowling Alone, The American Paradox and The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.

What can you do?  Although it’s simple, it isn’t easy. Take time to connect. Reach out to the people in your life, set up times to meet for coffee a walk or a meal and then slow down and focus on being present with those you spend time with.  Find out what’s going on in their lives at work and outside of work.  Do this daily, if at all possible.

It used to be said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away but research from a variety of fields makes it clear that connection with others and with meaning in life is the real daily requirement that helps human beings survive and thrive.

So what are you waiting for?   Just connect.

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Individuals, Organizations That Survive Life’s Inevitable Storms

Everyone experiences difficult seasons in life. Although storms come to our lives in many different forms including health problems, death of a loved one, divorce or job loss, one thing is certain: it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get through the stormy seasons in life alone. We need family and friends who “have our backs.” Unfortunately, as this thoughtful article that recently appeared in USA Today suggests, true friendship may be dying.

In a video interview I filmed for the Leader to Leader Institute’s Leadership Dialogues website, I speak with leadership experts Mark Thompson and  Bonita Buell-Thompson about what I learned from my wife Katie’s successful battles with breast and advanced ovarian cancer. You can read about it and watch the video at this link.

The lesson I learned is about the importance of connection and relationships.  It applies to organizations as much as it does to individuals and families. When difficult seasons arrive, an organization’s culture often makes a difference to whether the organization survives or doesn’t. Dog-eat-dog or cultures that are indifferent to people and relationships often spiral down into relational isolation, anxiety, distrust, blame and finger pointing. On the other hand, Connection Cultures that value human beings and relationships tend to pull together and work through the challenges.

My question for you is, who has your back in life and at work? Are you intentional about taking the time to build strong relationships with individuals who you trust and who trust you? If you lead an organization, do you invest time to develop relationship excellence in your organization?

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US Navy and U2: What Connection?

The US Navy and U2 in the same article! Huh?

That’s right.  It’s true. Check it out for yourself.

The Leader to Leader Institute just posted an article on its website that Jason Pankau and I wrote for the Summer edition of the Leader to Leader Journal. The article features the stories of the US Navy’s former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Vern Clark, and Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2.  The article is about the topic of connecting with “core employees” to boost strategic alignment, employee engagement, productivity and innovation.  Here is a link to the article entitled “To Boost Performance, Connect with the Core.”

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Develop Loyalty: Connect with Your Customers

Now for something completely different! InDesign magazine asked me to write an article about what I might do if I owned a jewelry store. I would be following a similar article written by Ivanka Trump (who actually owns a jewelry store).

It should come as no surprise that I immediately saw this as an opportunity to talk about the importance of the force of connection and how it contributes to the success of retail businesses. Here’s a link to the article entitled “If I Owned a Jewelry Store.”

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Friedman, Seidman on Character & Connection

Here is an outstanding session from the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival where Dov Seidman and Tom Friedman discuss the importance of individual and corporate character in a connected world. I was fortunate to attend the first Aspen Institute Ideas Festival some years back where it seemed all the speakers touched on the issue of connection. In a future blog post, I plan to share some of my thoughts related to connection that I recorded in my personal journal following that event.

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Trifecta: Top Leadership Blogs, Top Online Influencers on Leadership, Alltop Leadership

Top Leadership Blog
Online MBA Rankings







Forgive me for this self indulgent, celebratory post. Recently, I learned that MichaelLeeStallard.com was recognized as one of the top ten blogs on leadership by an organization that ranks blogs. Earlier this year, our blog received a similar honor from Jurgen Noop.  It was my good fortune to also recently be recognized by HR Examiner as a “Top 25 Online Influencer on Leadership.” (You can learn more about it at this link as well as in a podcast about the online influencer list with Peter Clayton of Total Picture Radio.)  To top it off, MichaelLeeStallard.com was just added  to Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop.com Leadership Blogs List.   (I would do a dance over all this good news but my teenage daughters would laugh up-roariously at the ridiculous sight of their father dancing.)

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Obama’s Good Call: Replacing Disrespectful Leader with One Known for Competence and Character

We teach leaders to hold “Knowledge Flow Sessions” to hear the opinions and ideas of others; doing so will help leaders make optimal decisions. We also teach leaders that disrespectful behavior is intolerable because it reduces “Human Value” in a culture, and leaders and/or individual contributors who exhibit disrespectful behavior need to be removed from the organization if they fail to change.

President Obama’s recent action to replace General Stanley McChrystal is an excellent example.   Here is an article about President Obama’s decision-making process and here is the Rolling Stone magazine article entitled “The Runaway General” that brings General McChrystal’s character into question.  Replacing McChrystal with General David Patraeus was also wise. Whereas McChrystal’s leadership style brought compliance out of fear, General Patraeus by all accounts appears to have the competence and character necessary to inspire the best efforts and aligned behavior of the soldiers he now leads.

If you are a leader or aspire to be one, ask yourself if you have developed the competence and character necessary to inspire others to follow you? In terms of character, you should reflect on whether or not your behavior reflects the following character strengths:

  • Persistence
  • Perspective/Wisdom
  • Purpose
  • Work Ethic
  • Hope/Optimism
  • Citizenship
  • Love of Learning
  • Bravery/Courage
  • Integrity
  • Prudence
  • Curiosity
  • Open Mindedness
  • Kindness
  • Love of People
  • Fairness
  • Self-Control
  • Forgiveness/Mercy
  • Gratitude
  • Humor
  • Humility/Modesty
  • Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence.

Which of these character strengths are most important to your success?  Which character strengths need more focus?  Now take action by finding a mentor or coach you respect and who will help you develop these character strengths.

For more on Knowledge Flow and Human Value see articles we published entitled “Encouraging Knowledge Flow” and “Strengthening Human Value in Organizational Cultures.”

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The Role of Business in the Pursuit of Happiness

Delivering Happiness is the rare book that gives us an inside look at one individual’s journey to find happiness and as a leader in business. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, has written a thoughtful account of what he has learned from experiences in life, in business and from his studies of the fast growing field of positive psychology.

I highly recommend this book to leaders and others who want to see what an engaging work environment — or “Connection Culture” as I’ve described it in my writings — looks like. Not only will you learn about Hsieh’s thinking, you’ll see how he puts ideas into action.