"Leadership" has been on my mind lately, maybe because of the many conversations I have with people about the "lack of leadership" in their organizations. It also came up in the comments on my recent post on "Managing" People. Everywhere I go, people are talking about "leadership." But I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the last thing we need right now is more leaders or even better leaders. The... Read more →

I'm working with a youth leadership program that will bring together HS sophomores with leaders from government, business, nonprofits and the media to explore the concepts of leadership in these different areas. We'd like to share a few articles with the participants---stuff that gets them thinking. I have a few ideas but would love to get your feedback. What are your favorite articles on leadership? Drop me a note in... Read more →

As American's we're taught (sometimes implicitly) that we rise or fall on our own merits, that through our individual goals and activities we can achieve anything we want. I've always had a problem with this philosophy. I've seen too many times how the greatest personal effort can die when you lack access to the resources and advantages enjoyed by some of your fellow citizens. With this in mind, I just... Read more →

I'm halfway following the Connectivism course, while also preparing to leave in a few hours for the Nonprofit Roundtable Future ED Fellowship course where we'll be exploring concepts of leadership over the next few days. This morning I was hit by two really important statements: Teaching is modeling and demonstration. Learning is practice and reflection. So simple, yet so profound. These have been the principles by which I've always tried... Read more →

Yesterday I suggested exploring your personal brand by using Wordle on your blog. Shannon Turlington tried that exercise out and found that she didn't like the results, so she "wordled" her semi-private journal where she's been writing about what she wants to do for the future. The results were much more to her liking. I think this is a great twist on the idea if what you're doing now isn't... Read more →

I'm currently leading a project where we are bringing together four nonprofits and 11 young people who have dropped out of high school and/or who are aging out of foster care. There's a lot of data about the bad outcomes for HS dropouts, but not a lot of political will in some areas to do something about it. Through our project we are working with our student teams to help... Read more →

LaDonna Coy and I ended up in an interesting email conversation over the weekend that got me thinking about how we set priorities for ourselves, both as individuals and as organizations. We were discussing that working from home gave us more flexibility and time for continuous learning and then LaDonna mentioned that a friend of hers was going to be spending Saturday in the office, "catching up on paperwork." I... Read more →

Awhile back, Vicki Davis wrote an excellent post on how she had used Skype, a headset and a webcam to bring business people as "virtual volunteers" into her classroom where they could share their experiences with her students and respond to their questions right from their offices. It occurs to me this morning that with the impending wave of retiring Baby Boomers and a mounting need for Gen X and... Read more →

A couple of quick leadership links. . . Elisa Ortiz of the Nonprofit Congress was kind enough to invite me to do a guest post over at the Nonprofit Congress Blog. Here it is--Leading from the Inside Out. Elisa was one of the attendees at our retreat last month and I can tell you that she's awesome--energetic and passionate, exactly what we look for in a young leader. Speaking of... Read more →

Katya Andresen has a GREAT post on operating your organization with no excuses. Apparently she recently did a presentation on tweaking your marketing messages, where she was told by her audience that her suggestions weren't possible because: 1. I don’t have the budget to do that. 2. I don’t have the staff to do that. 3. I don’t have the time to do that. 4. I don’t have the internal... Read more →